Staging Your Home On A Budget

If you’re listing your home for sale, you’ve likely heard about the benefits of hiring a staging company. These companies are a great resource to make homes sell even faster. By creating a space that feels inviting, bigger, and less cluttered, your showings and listing photos will attract buyers in droves. If you’re looking for a local company, contact someone from our team. We’d love to help put you in touch with someone!

We understand that not everyone can afford to undertake a full home renovation before listing. Staging can work miracles to make a space feel new. For those who understand the benefits of staging their home, but don’t know where to start. Here’s a handy guide to help you prep your home for listing without breaking the bank. These tips will make your home look fresh and inviting without blowing the budget!  

1. Neutralize the Walls- This will be the most expensive tip on our list, and it could actually cost you very little! Paint is the fastest way to transform a room. By toning down colorful walls and making them appeal to the masses, it will make your home sell even faster!

2. Remove Your Personal Touches- Your decorating style is not what’s for sale. By removing your photos, knick-knacks, and other personal touches, you will create a blank canvas where buyers can envision their own memories being made.  Don’t worry that your space looks sparse, buyers won’t seem sparse. They’ll see a space that could welcome their family.

3. Think of a Room’s Function- If you use a spare room as a storage space, buyers will see your home as cramped and could be turned off. If you clear the room and put in a desk or a small bed and end table, buyers will see a potential office or extra bedroom. Simple suggestions from staging go a long way.

4. Reduce the Noise- Take a look around your rooms and see what’s necessary then remove what isn’t. Basic pieces of furniture should stay, while accent pieces should go. Lamps should stay on end tables, but photographs and stacks of books should go.

5. Open up Windows- No, we don’t mean you should leave a window open (although letting in some fresh air on mild days can help freshen up any lingering smells). We mean you should make window treatments work to bring in light instead of hiding it. Replace heavy drapes with long, panels hung “high and wide”.  (IKEA has some great options under $10!) Hang your curtain rods approximately 6 inches higher than your windows and 4 inches wider than the facing. This will make your windows appear grander and let even more light into your space.

6. Think About Lighting- Brighten up each room as much as possible. Place floor lamps in dark corners, pairs of lamps on dressers, and turn on overhead fixtures before showings. Along with natural light from your windows, your home will feel cleaner and larger.  

7. Hone a Color Palette- You may find that your decorating style is a rainbow of color. That’s wonderful! But it’s important to remember that for staging, it’s a good idea to find one or two colors to highlight in a room and stick to neutrals otherwise. When you remove most of your decorative items you’ll probably see a color theme emerge. Use this to create a cohesive and simplified look.

8. Consider Traffic Flow- If the first thing you see when entering a room is the back of a couch, consider rearranging the furniture. Envision walking into a space and seeing a clear line of vision. Rearrange and pack away furniture as needed to open your space. If your dining room is cramped, consider removing the two end chairs to make the space work better.

9. Adjust Your Lifestyle- This is a temporary lifestyle change. You won’t always have to live in this type of space! Once the move is complete, you can surround yourself with your personality and things again. Creating an inviting lifestyle may not feel practical, but it can help you to sell your home quickly and easily.

10. Pack Half Your Belongings- If you need some more concrete advice, start by packing up half your belongings and storing them in a movable container until your move. This could include photos, artwork, seasonal items that you aren’t using, books that you don’t access regularly, furniture pieces that add clutter, and things of that nature. You don’t have to create a cold minimalist space to achieve a well-staged home, but most homes look more inviting with less stuff. A bonus will mean quicker move once your home is sold.

    
    

We hope these tips help you to feel confident that your home is ready for selling. It may take some work, but it will pay off when buyers see your space!