My Action Plan for Staging Our Home to Sell!

I've been spending the last few days making a list of things to do before we put our house up for sale.

This is the plan:  Stage our home to OUTSHINE the COMPETITION and APPEAL to as MANY BUYERS as POSSIBLE so it will SELL QUICKLY and for TOP DOLLAR!  No easy feat in this housing market!

Since location is something that can't be changed, we're extremely fortunate to have built our house in what's turned out to be a great neighborhood.  Our back yard overlooks a charming little lake and walking trail... a popular selling feature in this neck of the woods.

Our front yard is neatly landscaped and the house itself has some lovely architectural details.  I just hope it has enough curb appeal to attract the attention of prospective home buyers!

Inside our home, I plan to follow the 6 Rules of Home Staging...  DEEP CLEAN,  DECLUTTER,  REPAIR,  REFRESH,  DEPERSONALIZE, and NEUTRALIZE.

Since I'm rather adamant about keeping a clean, organized, and well maintained home (having a touch of OCD can sometimes be a good thing!), the first three steps are already pretty much covered!

In an effort to see our home from a more objective, emotionally detached perspective, I decided to play the part of a potential home buyer!

Starting in our front entrance, I slowly made my way through each room, looking for any features that showed poorly and could possibly affect the resale value of the house.

Overall, I was happy with what I saw... nice hardwood floors, neutral carpeting, upgraded light fixtures and cabinetry, french doors, arched entryways, custom millwork and architectural details...  nothing likely to deter a possible sale.  So far, so good!

I also looked for any decorative elements or furnishings that drew attention away from our home's best features... and this is when I encountered some possible issues.

I've added a few rather 'taste specific' accent walls to our home over the years. To play it safe, I'll likely repaint them in the same 'buyer friendly' beige colour we've used in the rest of the house.  Like it or not... NEUTRAL sells.

I'll also need to remove and/or rearrange a few pieces of furniture to improve traffic flow and make the rooms feel larger and more spacious.

To allow home buyers to picture themselves living here, the family photos and some of my personal artwork and decorative accessories will have to go.

And, to emphasize the storage space in our home, I'll need to remove as many items as possible from each closet.

For each showing, I plan to set out fresh flowers and a few lightly scented candles, and have some nice music playing softly in the background.

And, of course, I'll make sure the curtains are drawn back, the lights are on, and the house is spotless and neat as a pin.

I just hope my staging efforts will be enough to seal the deal on an extremely successful sale!

So....  anybody out there looking to buy a new home? :)

~ Wendi ~ xo