I Can’t Remember

Also see the rest of my series on Home Staging:
Part 1: the nursery.
Part 2: the front yard.
Part 3: the front of the house
Part 4: the garage
Part 5: the laundry room / mudroom

What is Home Staging?

And my tips for creating Moving Lists.

When you pretty up your home for company, you stuff clutter behind closed doors, but don’t forget, there ARE no closed doors when you show your house!

Potential buyers will want to investigate the storage in the house, which means they will be poking their noses into the places where polite company usually doesn’t. And while you may be embarrassed if your sister-in-law sees that you have shoved all your clutter in the linen closet (who knew your nephew would spill and she’d go fetch a towel?) if a potential home buyer opens up a linen closet and finds an avalanche of papers and odds and ends, you may lose a sale!

So these forgotten spaces need special care. Don’t forget to use home staging to make storage spaces look extra appealing when you show your home.
Read the rest of this entry »

Also see the rest of my series on Home Staging:
Part 1: the nursery.
Part 2: the front yard.
Part 3: the front of the house
Part 4: the garage

What is Home Staging?

And my tips for creating Moving Lists.

The Laundry room and Mudroom are places where things (either you or your clothes) become clean. As a result, they tend to be dirty. And when you are trying to sell your home, NOTHING can be dirty.

Psychologically, when we see a bright, clean laundry room, we happily imagine clean, fresh laundry. And as the mudroom is another entrance, it often makes THE first impression: do you want that first impression to be stacks of coats, piles of mail and muddy boots? NOOOO!
Read the rest of this entry »

Also see my series on Home staging:
Part 1: the nursery.
Part 2: the front yard.
Part 3: the front of the house
Part 4: the garage

And my tips for creating Moving Lists.

Staging is a home selling trick where the home seller treats the home as a stage, and sets the stage with furnishings and accessories that will encourage a buyer to choose their house. By creating a generic but welcoming and slightly luxurious atmosphere in the home, home stagers hope to lure in the buyers and make them want to stay.

The home staging business began as a way to sell empty homes, because agents noticed that homes with furniture sold faster. So Real Estate agents began to hire “home stagers” to come in and furnish an empty home like a model home. Then these home-staging businesses began to offer their services to homes that were not empty.
Read the rest of this entry »

Also see:
Part 1: the nursery.
Part 2: the front yard.
Part 3: the front of the house
and Moving Lists

Do not forget to stage the garage when you stage your home for sale. For the hobbyist or car enthusiast, a nice garage will excite them and set your home apart from the rest. Others will appreciate storage options, some consider an expansive garage a necessity, while everyone else will just notice whether or not it is clean.

Cleanliness is the first priority. Garages are not normally clean places, so a clean garage subconsciously implies to a buyer that you take better than average care of your home. A clean garage can also give a feeling of “newness” to a property. If the rest of your house is spotless and the garage is filthy, the buyer may assume that you only cleaned your home for sale, and that the whole house looked like the garage before you put it up for sale!

Buyers want a garage that looks large. Home staging is all about making a house look it’s best. If your garage looks organized, it will look large. It also needs to be mostly empty. A staged home will have less furniture, and a staged garage will have less “stuff.” Do not just move all the extra items you have removed from your house and put them in your garage: potential buyers will look there, too! If all the extra stuff would not fit into your garage because it’s already full, you need to clean it out.
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Also see my posts on staging the house.

Everyone’s moving experience is unique, so everyone’s list should be unique. Compulsive list-makers (like me!!) will no doubt make too many lists, while others may just scribble something down on a scrap of paper. Neither of these options is optimal.

Before you move, sit down and make The Plan. Make sure your family has input on The Plan, else they may resist it! During this brainstorming session, determine what you will need checklists for. Pet owner? You need a list of to-dos fore your pets: get veterinary records, get extra medication, and make sure that you have food and water for the trip, and supplies when you arrive. Compulsive magazine subscriber? You need a list of magazines to forward to your new address. Have an expensive collection? Make sure it is properly insured and figure out what you need to transport it safely.
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Part 3 of the series on home staging…
Part 1: the nursery.
Part 2: the front yard.

Improve the house itself in order to stage it:
The exterior of the home should be in good condition. Pay attention to the small details when you stage your front yard. Clean the glass and shine the metal on exterior light fixtures. Not only will clean light fixtures give better light for visitors at night and make your home a safer place to visit, but this will make the house look better during the day, too. Power wash driveway and walks. And keep walks swept!
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This is part 2.
Part 1: the nursery.

(This part is about staging the front yard: remember, first impressions are key is you want to sell your home!)

Whether you are selling your home or just want to make your visitors feel more welcome, staging your front yard will help make a good first impression. Staging is a home selling trick where the home seller treats the home as a stage, and sets the stage with furnishings and accessories that will encourage a buyer to choose their house. By creating a generic but welcoming and slightly luxurious atmosphere in the home, home stages hope to lure in the buyers and make them want to stay. Staging the front yard is slightly different, as the object is not to linger, but to draw the visitor or potential buyer into the home.

The first step to staging your front yard is to subtract rather than add. Take a photograph of your front yard. What do you see? All the clutter that you have learned to ignore will be clearly seen in a photograph. Hide the trashcan and recycling bins. Figure out a way to conceal the AC unit and utility boxes. Remember that the purpose of staging a home for sale is to draw attention to selling points, and hide less attractive features. Do not have a flowerbed with a utility box or municipal light pole as the focal point in your staged front yard! Clean up any rubbish or trash in the yard. Stacks of anything should find a home somewhere else, even if they are gardening tools or supplies. You cannot stage your yard until it is clean and clutter-free. Also, take this opportunity to inspect the yard close-up: remove anything left behind by the neighbor’s dog and destroy those fire ant beds!

A staged yard will have a lush green lawn. Read the rest of this entry »