Spring heralds many rituals, and those include home buying and selling season. Many people with families prefer to move in the summer, which means they need to list and sell their home in the spring. If you want your home to attract buyers and sell quickly (who doesn’t!), then you’ll want to learn about home staging.

Home staging is the term for making your home look the most attractive to potential buyers. Taking the time to stage your home makes a huge difference in its appeal, and the time it is on the market.

At Omorfia, our designers help clients stage their homes frequently, so we’ve picked up some tips and tricks. Contact us to have the professional eye for staging your home. Check out these home staging tips that will get you offers in hand and moving on your way.

What’s the Difference Between Preparing a Home for Sale and Home Staging?

When you go to put your home on the market, your real estate agent typically provides some advice for helping your home sell. Preparations may include making small repairs, replacing outdated appliances, or undertaking some upgrades -- such as granite countertops or new lighting fixtures. These changes will stave off buyer’s concerns, make your home more appealing, and allow you to get a better asking price.

Staging your home is all about appearance and presentation. You want to let go as the homeowner and think like the buyer.

A properly staged home looks comfortable, bright, inviting, and, most importantly, like a place the buyers would want to live. If they can’t see themselves in the home, they won’t want to buy it. Your mantra is clean and bright when it comes to home staging for success.

Outside Your Home: Curb Appeal

• Apply a fresh coat of mulch and plant some in-bloom flowers. Consider adding pots of flowers on your porch or hanging baskets by your entryway.

• Keep the grass mowed and neatly edged.

• Trim bushes and trees so they are away from windows and doors.

• Wash your windows, inside and out.

• Add a bench or chairs to your porch or patio so buyers can envision themselves sitting there.

• Buy a new welcome mat to welcome buyers and make your entryway look fresh.

Inside Your Home: Remove Your Personal Touches

If you’re selling your home, it won’t be yours anymore. You might as well begin the process of detaching when you stage it. You don’t want buyers to feel like they’ve stepped into someone else’s home, or that they are invading your privacy.

You want buyers to feel like it could be their home and to imagine themselves living and entertaining there. That means you have some depersonalization to do.

• Remove family photos from walls, mantle, and shelves. These only remind buyers that they don’t live here.

• Paint over your custom colors with a warm neutral tone. Neutral doesn’t mean boring. It means, “I can make this my own with my accessories and style.”

• Make sure there is plenty of light. That may mean removing heavy window treatments or adding more lamps with higher wattage bulbs that can be turned on for showings.

• Let the room breathe. Remove furniture from your living spaces to open them up and showcase the size of the room.

• Rearrange furniture.  Arrange your living room in a conversational manner. Move beds away from the door in bedrooms to show the room to the best advantage. Open up the floor space as much as possible.

• Declutter, declutter, declutter. Remove knick knacks from your mantle, put away toys and books. Consider putting items in storage until you move. You want to showcase your home’s square footage, not your personal belongings. A cluttered, overcrowded room will scream “not enough storage space” to a buyer.

• If your furniture is old or worn, consider renting furniture that is bold, contemporary, and stylish. Contact us at Omorfia if you are interested in this option.

Kitchens and Bathrooms

• A simple investment in a new rug, shower curtain, or color-coordinated towels can make a difference in these critical areas.

• Clear off countertops as much as possible so you can showcase your counter space. Put away personal care products in the bathroom, either in the cabinets or baskets.

• Consider adding under cabinet lighting if your kitchen is a bit dark. You can add that easily with battery-operated LED lights that mount under the cabinets.

• If your cabinets are a bit outdated, this could turn away buyers. A coat of paint can do wonders, especially if you are going from dark cabinets to a bright, reflective white that will make your kitchen or bath feel open and airy. Another easy update is to change the cabinet hardware. New knobs or handles can provide a whole new look.

• Pedestal sinks are hot in bathrooms and fairly easily swapped out for your current vanity. Pedestal sinks are inexpensive, easy to install, and make your bathroom look bigger.

Watch out though! Make sure your bathroom flooring extends under your current vanity! You don’t want to pull it out and realize that the tile or vinyl stops at the vanity’s edge. Your simple pedestal sink swap just turned into reflooring your bathroom. If this happens, though, take heart. Your effort will be rewarded when buyers are awed by your updated bathroom.

Clean Everything

Spring is the time for annual deep cleaning, and if you are staging your home for sale, this is doubly true. Now is the time to make sure your home is spic and span, inside and out. Consider hiring a cleaning service to get your home looking new, fresh, and spotless.

Get Help from Omorfia

The interior design professionals at Omorfia have helped many area homeowners stage their homes for a quick sale. We can take a look at your home in its current state and provide some home staging tips that make a difference. If you’ve already tried staging your home, we’ll be happy to evaluate what you’ve done and provide some additional pointers.

We offer a free thirty minute phone consultation. Or, for just 499.00, you can get a ninety minute personal design consultation.

Sometimes the right flower arrangement on the dining table or accent pillows on the sofa will bring a room together. We can also help if you need to store your current furnishings and rent some pieces that will be more attractive to buyers. Give us a call if you’re listing your home this spring. We’ll be glad to help.