Selling Your House Soon? Here’s How To De-Clutter and Stage Just Like The Pros, Without Breaking The Budget

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Decluttering is the process of ridding a home of all the unnecessary, day-to-day items from the home. This includes toys, trinkets, collector’s items, drawings, magazines, or mail. Every room must be de-cluttered. Buyers should not have to see dirty clothes or dirty dishes in the sink. They don’t want to walk in to your child’s cartoon playing in the background on the television. Your house needs to look like a blank slate.

Never forget to clean your floors. Whether this means tossing a dirty, old area rug and replacing it, pulling up carpet, or re-sanding floors, get it done. Whatever type of floor, and whatever the issue is. Floors are a deal breaker for most buyers. Floors are expensive to replace and to re-finish, and there are too many houses out there with floors that are intact and don’t need work done to them, for a buyer to fool with yours.

f83d877831441c726e1423ac441ab071You’ll also be shocked at what a difference adding some flowers to the home can do. Make sure that you choose colorful ones, with a pleasant (but not over-powering) scent. Of course, over the course of the weeks or months that you are selling your home, you’ll want to be sure to frequently water and replace them. What you don’t want are dead flowers with smelly water in a vase when buyers arrive to see your home. Honestly, no flowers is far better than having dead ones on display. See: Home Staging Secrets From Experts & 5 Mistakes to Avoid.

It’s no secret, and should be obvious, that light brings openness and happiness into a home. If the buyers are coming to see your house during the day, you want to let in absolutely as much light as the home will allow. Open all the curtains and blinds. However…if there is a particular room where the floors aren’t in exactly the best shape, consider keeping the drapes mostly shut, and turning on a bunch of lamps in the room. This will reflect dimmer lighting, and won’t shine attention directly to the floor (which in this case, you would definitely not want to do).  

If any touchups must be performed within the house, you must be sure that you do so. Buyers don’t expect your house to be perfect, but they do expect the easy, quick-fix things to be fixed…and quick. For further reading, see the Field Guide to Preparing & Staging a House for Sale, and, the Top Staging Don’ts.

2 responses on “Selling Your House Soon? Here’s How To De-Clutter and Stage Just Like The Pros, Without Breaking The Budget

  1. Chelsea

    Our carpet isn’t necessarily in bad condition. The only place we have carpeting is upstairs; downstairs is hardwood floors. Should we really rip it out?

  2. William White Post author

    Hi Chelsea. If the carpet is stained and cannot be cleaned, you should consider removing it if the floors underneath are in good condition. Some buyers actually prefer to have carpet upstairs. Assuming that it is clean, and a nice ‘grade.’ It would depend on the buyer. But yes, if the carpet cannot be cleaned, it is wise to consider removing it.

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