Ten Tips to Help You Stage Your Home

If you are getting ready to sell your home, then staging your home is very important. In fact, in today’s real estate market it may be more important than ever. Here are ten tips that will help you get your home buyer-ready.

• Place furniture at an angle. This gives it a unique look and breaks away from the usual box design of rooms. Do this in larger rooms only as it may make small rooms appear even smaller.
• Use a sofa and two chairs in coordinating fabrics for your living room. To make your living room appear larger, avoid too much seating. A sofa, love seat and recliner may be too much. For added interest, make sure that the sofa and chairs are upholstered in coordinating, but not exactly the same fabrics.
• Point out tall spaces with large pictures. If you have a cathedral ceiling, you need to point that out to your potential buyers. Hang large pictures on the walls, or add dramatic two story curtains.
• Make small rooms appear larger. If you have small rooms, try painting them in lighter colors such as mint or vanilla. Add a mirror to create the illusion of depth and use furniture sparingly. Choose small-scale fabrics instead of large prints. Painting the outer border of your ceiling in the same color as the wall paint creates the illusion of height in rooms with low ceilings.
• Use strong lighting. Buyers love spaces with light, so use maximum watt light bulbs wherever necessary.
• Add colorful pillows. If you can’t afford custom sewn accessories, you can mimic a custom look with pillows. Get plenty of colorful pillows in a few different, but coordinating fabrics and use them on your sofas and beds. You can also add throws and lampshades in colorful fabrics.
• Hide anything that’s personal to you. New potential buyers want to visualize themselves in your home. If you keep your family portrait, collection of beanie babies or your child’s toys in the house, you’re not helping them do that.
• Add more space. Unclutter your home and create large, simple areas. Remember, it may look beautiful to you, but it may look cluttered and messy to a potential buyer. So go get rid of that shelf with the porcelain plates that has been hanging above your kitchen window since 1989 and create open spaces that are sophisticated enough for today's buyer.
• Use yellow flowers. Yellow flowers have shown to influence homebuyers positively, so make sure that it’s the first thing that your visitors see when they walk into your home. (Must be the warm, inviting color.)
• Bring out architectural details with strong colors. If you have a unique wall, paint it in a strong, vivid color while you keep the rest of the walls neutral.

Try these tips if you’re getting ready to sell your home. They’re quick and easy and they may very well help you make that quick sale.