The Principles of Home Staging and Everyday Life
When you’re preparing to sell your home, you begin the process of making your home seem perfect. You’re creating a home that anyone would want to scoop up and make their own. By the time you’ve staged your home completely, it’s picture-perfect and exactly how you wanted it to look. Why wait until you’ve decided to sell your home to someone else to make it exactly how you wanted it all along? Adhering to the basic principles of staging your home to sell, can upgrade your everyday life experience. Let’s see how.
The goal of home staging is to make your home so appealing that no one could pass it up, from the second they pull in the driveway to their last step out the door. But wouldn’t it be great if you felt that way every time you came home? Of course, when you’re living in your home, especially with a family, pets, and little ones running around, it can’t stay perfect. It’s lived in! But it can remain pleasant, and functional and bring you joy every day. Take a walk around your home and see it through the eyes of a potential buyer … what would you want to see?
Let’s start with curb appeal. While taking on your whole house might be a big task, think of simple ways to boost your curb appeal. Even when you’re selling, you’re not going to fix every tiny little thing, but you’re going to choose projects that mean the most. Cleaning up the yard, pruning trees and bushes, or giving the front door a fresh coat of paint are all ways to bring a smile to your face each time you pull onto your street.
When you’re getting ready to move and stage your home, you’re getting rid of a lot of extra things — furniture, clothes, knick-knacks — that you don’t want to bring with you to your new home. So a great tip is to pretend you’re moving. Anything you wouldn’t want to bring with you can be thrown away, repurposed, or donated. Once you’ve gotten rid of some things you don’t need, it’s time to declutter on a smaller, more purposeful level. Start with what’s visible.
Staging is all about clean lines, clear countertops, and maximum storage. Clear out closets and cabinets and clear counters of unnecessary clutter. When staging, you want to show potential buyers that your home is full of efficient storage, so why not take this time to use that storage efficiently? You don’t have to get rid of all of your things but think of ways to reutilize the space you have and organize the items you want to keep. Keep items out that you use more often, and store away ones you don’t.
Creating vignettes is another aesthetic staging tip. Around your home, you’re sure to have spaces that function as more than one thing. Think about your entryway storage, your reading nook, or your home office space in the bedroom. Creating a vignette is using furniture placement, paint, artwork, and textures to take part in a bigger room and separate it visually. While there might be some shoes, books, or paperwork that are out of place during the day, it’s therapeutic to return everything to its place at the end of the day and create those separated vignettes again. This way, you start the next morning refreshed and feeling like you’ve got control of the day. Your home feels purposefully designed and functional.
Of course with every good staging, cleaning and lighting are a must. Naturally, we don’t always have the time to do a deep cleaning of the entire house, but organizing clutter each day, dusting regularly, opening windows for air exchange, and letting as much light in as possible will help give your home a fresh bright feeling!
Don’t wait until you’re ready to sell to make your home the home of your dreams. Live each day like you’re trying to show potential buyers that it’s the best! You’ll enjoy all the great features of your home yourself! And when you actually are ready to sell, you’ll be a home staging pro!