The goal of any seller is to present their home in its best form; clean countertops, organized closets, and perfectly arranged furniture.  However, life also happens in a home and it can be a challenge to keep up the picture perfect arrangements when you have young children in a house.  While I think it is vital for all homes going on the market to have a thorough declutter and clean in order to be ready for showings, there are some rooms in the home that will benefit from extra attention and effort when staging a home for sale. If your time is limited, then here are my suggestions for the rooms in your home to focus on staging first.

These are the top three areas to focus on while staging a home in Locust Grove.

Living Room

Call it a family room or a living room, this space meant as a gathering spot for everyone is an important one to buyers.  Buyers want to walk into a welcoming living room that will function for their families.  For sellers this means creating a neutral space that buyers can easily visualize their own belongings placed in the space.  Through staging, sellers can do this.

Some tips for staging a living room at your home in Locust Grove:

Minimize the furniture in the room:  It is hard to visualize a couch in the room that already has a large sofa that is too big for the space.  Sellers may need to remove furniture pieces or switch up some of the pieces in the home for ones that fall in line with the proportions of the room. Here are some more tips for staging this room.

Hide clutter

Numerous remotes, cords from electronics, toys, or games may all be enjoyed in the living room, but don’t need to be seen.  In order to still keep items accessible but visually more appealing, consider adding baskets to bookcase shelves to store all of the items.  When rooms are clutter, buyers tend to focus more on the clutter than the space itself.

Focal Point

Is there a fireplace in the room?  Is there a large window that overlooks the backyard?  Do you have a beautiful painting on a wall?  Select one focal point in the room and stage the room around it.  For example, creating a seating area around the fireplace or create a little reading nook near the large window.

Add light

Sometimes room can lack natural lighting.  If the living room in your Locust Grove  home is in need of some light, then add a few table lamps in the space, make sure the blinds are open during the day, or switch up the paint color to a light neutral shade that will reflect light.

Kitchen

Kitchens are important spaces in homes for buyers.  While a seller may not be able to remodel a kitchen to the latest trend, giving this room some more attention while staging is helpful.  The most important selling points to a kitchen are cleanliness and function.  No buyer wants to open an oven and see that it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time or look at counters overflowing with items; this leads to the belief that the kitchen is lacking in storage space even when there is plenty of storage.

When staging the kitchen at your home in Locust Grove, consider…

Decluttering cabinets and countertops

Storage space is a premium feature in a kitchen, so it’s important for sellers to clear countertops of items and go through cabinets to eliminate non-essential items.  Seasonal items like holiday dishes or family collectibles can be carefully boxed up and stored elsewhere.  While your home in Locust Grove is on the market, keep those countertops clear and make sure to get into the habit of immediately putting dirty dishes into the dishwasher rather than keeping them in the sink.  You won’t have to rush to clean it all up right before a showing and it will help keep the sink cleaner too.

Organize the pantry

Go through the pantry and remove and rehome any items that aren’t kitchen related.  Focus on meal planning meals that use up ingredients in your pantry first before heading out to the grocery store.  Here are some pantry organization tips.

Create a staging basket

We all know that the dish towel that perfectly accents the color of the kitchen doesn’t really have a chance to remain shiny and new if displayed for too long.  The pretty soap dispenser will soon have sticky fingerprints on it and that little cutting board with the coffee cups on it will be joined by some crayons and figurines if left unattended.  Instead of fighting this losing battle to stage your kitchen, gather up the items you want to stage it with and stash them in a small basket in the kitchen.  Whenever you have a showing, switch out your everyday essentials for these pieces to present to buyers the kitchen that could be.

Primary Bedrooms

Primary bedrooms are the final areas in a home that are important for sellers to focus on while staging.  While individual buyers may have preferences about the size or location of the primary bedroom, all buyers are looking for a primary bedroom that offers a relaxing and calm environment.

Other tips for staging a primary bedroom in your home in Locust Grove are:

Consider the scale

When staging a primary bedroom it is important to consider the scale of the room.  A California king size bed in a typical sized room overwhelms the room and makes the space feel much smaller than it actually is.  Sellers will want buyers to be able to move around the room freely; this may mean remove excess furniture pieces.

Go neutral

Painting the walls a neutral color and having neutral colored bedding will help buyers looking at your home in Locust Grove visualize their own things in the space.  

Don’t forget the closets

Closets are important spaces in primary bedrooms.  No matter the type of closet present in the home, you want to make sure that the space is clean and organized.

For more tips about staging a primary bedroom, see this blog.