(I promised a post on this last week, so here it is.)

Please see the rest of my series on Home Staging.

Have you ever been in a “kid’s room” in a model home. It has a theme. It’s color-coordinated. It’s clean and uncluttered.

Now look at your kids’ rooms. Wow, what a reality check!

Selling your home is not about reality. It’s about selling a dream, not a building. I got to see some of the comments from realtors showing my house. One comment struck me: “the home looked dated.” My house was built less than 10 years ago! But the furniture inside the house is mostly older than that. The house isn’t dated, but potential buyers aren’t actually looking at your house, they’re mostly looking at your stuff. It seems crazy. Like if you went to a store to buy a box—just the box—and then bought the box that had the best stuff in it. And then went home with the empty box. But that’s what people do!

So now look at your child’s room. Is it a room that someone with kids would want their kid to move right into? Is it a “Oooh, so cute!” room? Probably not. Primarily because a real live child actually lives in it! But your house isn’t supposed to be lived in…it’s supposed to sell.

The trick with children’s rooms is to make them look good, but still usable. Because, let’s face it, unless Junior’s going into the storage unit (or Grandma’s) until you sell your home, it has to be liveable!

Find a theme
Remember the model home kid’s bedroom? It had a theme and was color coordinated. Guess what? You already have a color scheme! Congratulations! What color are the walls and furnishings? That’s your color scheme.

(While we’re talking about walls, let’s digress a bit. Wash the walls, and patch and touch up any damaged areas. People look carefully at the walls in kids’ room, because kids are hard on walls. So fix them!)

Look at your colors and what you already own to build a theme. Your daughter’s hand-me-down dresser is white with green knobs. Hmmm….what’s green? Let’s add a couple stuffed frogs, some frog bath toys, her older sister’s forgotten princess doll. Viola! Frog prince theme!

Those cowboy dolls your kids never played with? They still look like new. Add their old cowboy hats, and that pair of boots your boy outgrew before he could wear. You have a cowboy theme room with plain walls and oak furniture! Get rid of the Spiderman comforter and put that old striped wool blanket on the bed instead.

Your son has outgrown all his Thomas the Train stuff. Didn’t he used to have a bedspread that matched? Pull it all out. The home buyers won’t know he’s too old, and it all matches—which is the important part!

(Another digression: I went to look at a house for sale, and came out knowing their kids’ names, ages, and genders. I knew what both mom and dad did for a living, that Grandma lived in a condo, and where the family liked to vacation. Not to mention what everyone looked like. Good thing I’m not a stalker or a child molester! Bad guys buy homes, too. Let’s not tell them your family’s history. Any pictures of the kids and anything with their name on it goes into storage, Grandma’s, or a sealed box. No exceptions!)

Remind the kids that this is all only temporary! Yes, we know your son’s too old for dinosaurs, but you found that old tropical-leafed bedspread, and he still has all those dinosaur toys… It’s only temporary!

Declutter
Haven’t rented your own storage unit yet? Go get one! Your kids toys have to be packed up for the move anyway, you might as well pack up half of them now. (The whole reason you’re selling the home is to move, right?)

That model home kid’s bedroom was clean and decluttered, and your kids’ bedroom’s will be also.

First, if your child is going to be upset seeing the toys go into a box, send him to a friend’s or family member’s for the day. Second, pull aside your “theme” stuff so it doesn’t accidentally end up in a box.

Pull all the toys out. Sort them by type. Separate out the favorites (these you will keep, no matter how big and ugly—we’ll get to where to put them in a minute.) Now look at what you have.

You can do this one of two ways: you can either keep only certain types of toys, or you can keep out the best representatives (clean and pretty) of each class of toy.

For every toy you keep out, one goes in a box. Try to put the biggest and smallest toys in the box—the biggest ones take up the most space, and the smallest create the most messes.

Now is time to stash what’s left. The closet is your best friend. Larger toys can be placed in there: the keyboard, easel, or play oven can all be used there. Treat the closet like an alcove. With the closet door open these type of toys can be easily accessed. Large bins can be pulled out into the room to play with, then everything goes back in the bin when playtime is over. Use large plastic storage containers with lids that can be stacked and organize toys into groups. For example, put the dolls and all their accessories in one container, so there’s no need to pull out more than one container at a time.

Remember that all toys need to be kept out of sight–even electrical toys. (Yes, all these tips apply to teen’s rooms, also!)

Decorate
Now that the room is mostly bare and empty, it’s time to make it look like a “kid’s room.” But not for a real kid—for that “model kid” that lives in that “model home.”

What’s on the walls? Bare wall are better than posters and drawings. Pull them down, and rustle up something generic and framed out of the attic. Or print up scenes that go with your theme and put them in inexpensive frames. (Inexpensive frames can be found at the grocery store, the drugstore, or a dollar store. Google your theme on the Internet to find pictures.)

Create vignettes on the tops of dressers and on shelves. For instance, for that Frog Prince bedroom you might find a frog prince book. Stand up the book and place the princess doll on one side a a frog on the other. Put frogs all over the book shelves and prop a big one up on the bed. Add an old tiara or a small play castle is you have them.

The room will seem bare and artificial. That’s what you’re going for. People want a dream, not reality.

Explain to your child where the toys are and that they have to returned to their place before snack-time or nap-time or before they go and play in their brother’s room. You never know when a realtor will call and want to show the house.

Yes, this is hard. Especially for little ones. But the object is to sell the home as quickly as possible. You don’t want to have to deal with realtors and showings for months! By making their current room not as “fun” you will get your kids into their new room all the faster. And that’s worth it.