Storage space is important to you.  Storage space is equally important to buyers.  When it comes time to get your house ready to sell, it is necessary to give the closets a little attention too.  Buyers need to be able to easily open and close closets while seeing the shelving inside.  Often closets become filled with things that homeowners want to deal with later and that is okay…unless you want to sell your home.  Here are some home staging tips for closets that will get them ready for showings.

Remember Your End Goal

If you are putting your home on the market, this means that you are moving.  Do you really want to take everything, including old flyers, half depleted batteries, and broken items, with you?  Probably not.  The goal when cleaning and decluttering closets is to reduce what you’ve got so that buyers can see the back wall of the closets, notice empty shelves, and picture their own belongings in the space.  Often homes aren’t lacking storage space as much as they are lacking organization.  Going through one closet at a time, decide what you want to keep, donate, and trash.  Ask yourself, “Do I want to bring this to my new home?” Empty the entire contents of the closet out, go through the items,  and give the closet shelving a wipe down and the floor a sweep.  

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Pack Up Out of Season and Extra Items

Sometimes closets get filled with things we want to keep but aren’t currently using; for example, holiday decorations, winter sports gear, and small appliances all take up room but are useful.  You can get a jump start with moving by packing these things in boxes and placing them in the garage or basement temporarily.  Also consider packing up extra towels, sheet sets, out of season clothing, and other surplus items.

Organize and Hide Using Baskets

Realistically, you can’t pack away everything in your closets because you still need the items.  Using some baskets to tuck away small items like medicines, hand towels, soaps, and shampoos makes your closet look organized and like a home staging professional.  You can hide items that are hard to keep looking neat on a shelf and quickly toss things that are sitting out on a countertop into a basket before a showing.

Empty Floors

Keep as many items off the floor of your closets as you can.  While you would expect to see a hamper on the floor in a bedroom closet, try to keep everything else off of the floor.  Using the floor as storage space may be convenient when you live in the home, but it could send the message that the home doesn’t have enough space.