Ready to sell your house? Here is a few staging tips to get yourhome prepared for the market. When listing a home that cost hundreds ofthousands of dollars, if not millions, you want to make sure it’s presented inthe best light. You wouldn’t buy a $50,000 dollar car if it was filled from topto bottom in someone’s personal content and trash. This is the same mindset youneed to carry into selling your home that will be worth well over a $100,000.

1. SAY BYE TOCLUTTER

The best thing you can do for your home for sale is to get ridof all of your clutter! Make a rule for your home that for every new piece thatcomes in, one must go. One of the biggest factors to a cluttered home is toomuch furniture. Generally, in a professional staging, half the home owner’sfurniture is removed to make the house look much bigger. Look around your houseand see what you can pack away. It’ll be worth the investment to get a storageunit for a couple of months to store away a lot of your furnishings and goods.

2. FURNITUREGROUPINGS

It’s largely misconceived that furniture pushed directly upagainst walls make a room look bigger, but this is far from true. Instead,you’ll want to float your furniture in reach room and away from the walls.Position your sofas and chairs into cozy conversational groupings. Be sure thefurnishings are placed to make the traffic flow in a room obvious. This willmake the room more user-friendly and will make it look larger.

3. TRANSFORM ROOMS

If you have a room that has only served to collect boxes orother junk, it’s important to purpose the room to something that is functional.You can make it into an extra bedroom, a small cozy nook/reading room, etc. Ifit’s in the basement, hid the boxes and turn it into a gaming room or familyarea.

4. HOME LIGHTING

Great lighting is the trick to making a staged home look warmand welcome. Most homes are improperly lit, which makes rooms look dark anddreary. There is a quick fix to this issue. Increase the wattage in yourfixtures and lamps, aiming for about 100 watts per 50 square feet. Add threedifferent types of lighting to each room: ambient (general overhead), task(under cabinets or pendants), and accent lighting (table lamps and wallaccents).

5. GO NEUTRAL 

The simple trick to toning down dated finishing in any space isa little bit of fresh paint. You don’t want to go stark white, but look intoneutral grey and beige colors. Beige colors can also consist of warm honey likecolors, soft blues and greens, and a variety of undertones that add a littlelife to a general neutral color. If you do want to use bold colors, be sure toonly keep it on accent walls to help enhance structural features.

6. MAKE IT LOOKBIGGER

If you want to make a room bigger than it is, paint the room thesame color as an adjacent room. For small kitchens and dining rooms, a seamlesslook will make the space feel like one, open it up, and make it seem muchlarger. Using drapes that match the wall colors can also add an emphasis to theroom’s size.

7. USE YOUR GARDEN

Staged homes have an emphasis in fresh flowers and pricey floralarrangements. If you don’t have the money to go all out on florals, you can getthis same effect by raiding your garden space. You can DIY beautiful pieceswith fern fronds, magnolia clippings, and more. Use the spring and summer monthsto find cheerful flowers and use them in your arrangements.

8. GET A FACELIFT

So you can’t afford new cabinets? Then you can just get newdoors and drawer fronts. Then paint everything to match and add new hardware tothem. Instead of replacing the entire dishwasher, you may be able to get a newfront panel, go for stainless steel if you can pull it off. Check with themanufacturer to see if replacements are available for your model.

9.MAKE NECESSARY REPAIRS

Unfinished home projects can really scare off potential homebuyers, so you’ll want to be sure to make required repairs. Missing floorboardsand large cracks in the sidewalk on the way to your door tend to be a red flag.Holes in walls and scratched up door frames can really look unattractive. Theserepairs cost you less to fix than buyers might deduct from the asking price.

10. CLEAN YOUR HOME

Aside from de-cluttering, the most important step to stagingyour home is to clean it. A dirty house is a quick turn-off for potentialbuyers. Most homes, especially with children and pets, and smokers, have asmell that may go undetected to home owners, but are quickly picked up bystrangers. Be sure to have your home professionally cleaned prior to staging toappeal to all buyers that your home is nice and fresh.