The Prep
First things first, your mindset needs to be reset. You may be thinking, “I just need to keep my house really clean.” No, you need your house essentially empty. Potential buyers want to imagine themselves in your home, with their stuff. It isn’t your clutter that might deter them, but your family photos, your grandma’s quilt, your kid’s artwork. Before you can begin the stage work, you need to empty your home.
There’s a common closet organization tip advising folks to turn their hangers backwards at the front end of the month. Each time they wear an item, return the hanger to normal. This will help to audit which clothing items are worn in a month’s time. When setting up your house for staging, you first need to do similar with your daily essentials.
What items do you actually need every single day?
Clear the walls, and the surfaces
The easiest first step of prepping for showing your home is to remove every single photo from the wall. For me, that was days of work, because I absolutely love photos on the wall. After taking them down, I filled the holes with putty and painted the marks. Instantly, the house looked less personal. The only piece of wall decor I left was a large frame that says Home. Where life begins and love never ends. It is super ironic considering my situation, but to the potential buyer it shows them what the house could be.
Next, clear all surfaces. Every counter, every table, every ledge. This includes kitchen items that you use frequently, such as the toaster or serving utensils. Box up cupboard items you use less frequently, like the sandwhich maker, to make room for the surface items to hide down below. Empty surfaces let the potential buyer see how much space is available.
An exception, your Kitchen Aid or espresso machine.
If you have a high ticket item, leave it out. Although it won’t add actual value to your house, internally the visitors will see the value added.
Give purpose to extra bedrooms
If you have a room without a bed, give it a purpose. We had a spare bedroom that was sorta an office, sorta a craft room, sorta a storage junk room. The placement of the room has a lot of potential (downstairs off the kitchen, unlike the rest of the bedrooms) so decided to highlight the potential uses. Instead of leaving it empty, I set up a desk and storage table with the printer to indicate an office space. Then I lined a few pairs of dumbbells along the opposite wall, and set up my sewing machine on a table across from the desk. This allows potential buyers to see the room as an office or virtual learning homeschool center, or it can be a home gym, or it can be a craft room.
The Maintenance
Surface Bins
It’s obviously impossible to just stop existing in the house as you’re living in it. So what happens when your agent calls and says you have a showing in an hour? Clear the surfaces- but where do they go?
Keep “surface bins” in the respective cupbard under the surface. So a bin under each bathroom sink, and one in the kitchen. When it comes time to clean sweep the house in a hurry, everything from the surface goes in the designated bin.
Keep the Dishwasher and Washing Machine on Cycle (and skip folding)
Swap out your Scentsy wax often
First and foremost, make sure you have a fragrance center in a few of the rooms. You don’t want to overwhelm the viewers, but sense of smell is actually very important. Not only will a wax warmer cover up any residual pet, sweat, or burned food smell, but the right scent can actually trigger a home feeling. Choose warm fragrances, like apple pie, butter pecan, or fall vibes. Stay away from fruity are citrus that give a I’m trying to make the house smell feeling.
Once you have your system set up, get in the habit of flipping on the warmer an hour or so before your appointment time. That will make sure the wax is at its prime when they arrive. Don’t overuse a scent- Swap it out every other day to keep it fresh and full.
PS// I’m not necessarily promoting Scentsy if you have a different favorite brand of home fragrance. I just like Scentsy best.