Staging your home for sale is all about making your house feel bigger. As you clear out the clutter, your home will start to feel larger. Adopt a less is more attitude and consider a minimal approach to house staging. Minimizing centers around reducing furniture and home items, so every part of the home feels expansive. The payoff here is impressing potential home buyers with a house that feels spacious with ample storage solutions. Here’s how to minimize your house for staging.
Condense Items in Storage Spaces
Storage spaces tend to attract clutter and stay cluttered because even well-intentioned homeowners don’t have the time to go through storage areas on an annual or semi-annual basis. Now is the time to go through the attic, basement, and garage, as well as closets and cabinets in every room. Your goal is to get rid of what you don’t need, then make everything else look intentional.
With kitchen cabinets or pantry areas, take everything off the shelf, clean the shelf, and go through all items. Toss any old food, pack any kitchen items you won’t need (like baking pans), and neatly place everything you can’t yet pack back in the cupboard, so it looks organized and not messy.
Elsewhere, take out anything you don’t need and store it. Your goal is to keep out only items you must use before you sell the house (say, cleaning supplies and seasonal jackets).
Remove Extra Furniture
Most people have more furniture in their home than they need. Now is the time to remove extra furniture from rooms, which will reclaim the sense of space and help you give each room a purpose, which is something you’ll do as you work through our home staging tips.
You’ll get the biggest bang for your buck if you take out those large, seldom-used items like rocking chairs or ottomans. Other good candidates for removal include worn items, like that favorite armchair that’s got cat scratches in the upholstery. Keep enough furniture items to accommodate your family, but get rid of everything that’s unnecessary, including extra throw pillows.
Tidy Hall and Coat Closets
The front entry is one area where clutter seems to automatically attract. It’s also an area where you can’t really pack things yet; You need your coat, keys, shoes, cleaning supplies, and so on.
Do give these areas a once-over to see if there is anything you can pack now. Once you’ve edited down these closets, give them a good cleaning. These areas will show well when you’ve got like items stored with like, when the floor is free of clutter, and when the area is staged to show a single purpose rather than act as a catchall space.
Pack Unused Clothes
Take unused clothing out of closets, including off-season clothes. Pack and store clothes in anticipation of the move. Closets are one area where home buyers will really pay attention because storage space is a premium for homes. When your closet is stuffed full of clothing or, worse, becomes the place you hide all your personal items, your home will not show well.
If you have storage bins, consider swapping them out for transparent bins. Plastic or wire bins will show what’s in there and make the closet look more spacious, whereas dark bins will hide the dimensions.
After you’ve decluttered, sweep or vacuum the floor and replace mismatched hangers so everything looks tidy.
Minimizing and decluttering everything in the home will help give you that blank slate, where you can start to curate everything that’s left in the home to create an atmosphere that piques interest and shows off your home’s full worth. It may be hard work, but it’s definitely worth it!
If minimal house staging sounds like a nightmare, then consider selling your house as is to HomeGo. We don’t ask you to do or fix anything. Just schedule a walk-through of your property and get a cash offer on the spot. Get started today.
