Getting ready to sell your home can be somewhat daunting. Especially if you weren’t born with an innate sense of design, you might be wondering how to make your home look appealing to buyers. Here are some easy home staging tips to get you started.
Easy Staging Tips – Use paint tastefully
1. Use Neutral Paint Colors
One of the most noticeable elements of your home is the wall colors. A buyer is more easily able to imagine themselves in the home if the paint and decor are neutral. Bright or bold colors make it harder for people to imagine themselves in your home. If a buyer doesn’t like a bold color in your home, they’ll automatically start thinking about the cost of re-painting walls.
It’s a good idea to stick with grey or beige tones throughout the home and use decor for accents and pops of color. When you decide on neutral colors for your home, it is important to consider the more permanent fixtures in your home.
Currently, the trend is to paint homes with cool, grey colors. However, this may not be the best decision if you’re more permanent fixtures have warmer brown tones.
If you have wooden cabinetry and trim, and carpet or countertops with flecks of brown, you’ll want to stick with neutral warmer beiges. If you’re carpet/flooring has a greyer tone to it and you have black, white, or grey cabinetry, you can use cooler neutrals such as grey throughout your home.
2. No more than 3 Colors in whole house
While it is important to use neutral colors, your home doesn’t have to be only one color. It is perfectly acceptable to use a few colors, but no more than 3.
If you look at paint palettes you’ll see a wide variety of neutral colors. Neutrals are not limited to beige and grey. Some blues, greens, and browns and even yellows and reds are considered neutral depending on how muted the colors are.
It is recommended to use the 60-30-10 rule when choosing colors. Pick a cohesive color palette for your home so that everything flows from room to room. You can pick a main neutral color for most of your walls and an accent color or two. This may feel limiting, but keep in mind you can use different shades and tints of the same color.
Use other neutrals for accents
You know how at a paint store you’ll see strips of a color with different shades? You can use those different shades to add variety. For instance, you could use a neutral gray-blue as an accent wall in a bedroom and paint the bathroom a lighter shade of that same blue.
Don’t do this ↓. Would you believe these three rooms were all in the same house? They sure were! While this home certainly had some character, the room-by-room color scheme just doesn’t work for most buyers.
If you want to re-paint, but you’re not sure where to start, here is a fun quiz that will help you find a color palette you’ll like. Remember to stick with light, neutral colors.
3. Consider re-painting dark walls
Across the board, buyers prefer bright spacious looking homes. While you’re favorite shade of forest green might seem like a great accent color it will make a room feel smaller and more dim. Painting the wall a lighter color will make the room look bigger and more open.
Simplify your decor – Home Staging tips
4. De-personalize your home
Another step you should take when putting your home on the market is de-personalizing your decor. While family photos are special and work great when you have friends and family over; they don’t appeal to people who don’t know you.
It’s harder for people to imagine themselves in a home when it is so clearly yours. If you have your children’s baby photos everywhere, they won’t be able to imagine what their stuff will look like in the home.
While your home is on the market, take down photographs and use simple decor to provide a cozy, inviting environment.
5. Clean up bathroom decor
Another element of your home that makes a big impact on buyers is the bathroom. A dingy bathroom crowded with decor is going to turn most people off. More than any other room in your home, the bathroom needs to feel fresh and clean.
Think about the way hotel bathrooms are decorated. You can use pure white towels and a white shower curtain to make your bathroom look fresh and clean. Another way to make a bathroom look clean is just simplifying and minimizing your decor. In this case, less is definitely more.
6. Keep the Master Bedroom Gender Neutral
Another way to help buyers envision themselves in your home is by keeping your master bedroom gender neutral. According to ___, the master bedroom is the 2nd most important staging area in your home. If it’s super pink and frilly, a lot of buyers will have a hard time seeing themselves in it. The same is true if it’s all decked out in camouflage with stuffed ducks on the walls.
7. De-clutter until closet floor is 100% visible
Another important step in getting your home on the market is de-cluttering. In addition to clearing off all flat surfaces, it is important to clean your closets. Closets might be a catch all, but buyers are going to open every single door in your home.
A best practice is to clean and de-clutter the closet until the floor is completely visible. You can stack stuff on shelves (all the way to the ceiling if need be), but making the floors visible will make the space appear larger and cleaner.
8. Use outdoor lighting to increase curb appeal
Before buyers even set up a showing for your home, they will probably do a drive-by on their own. A lot of times, they will drive by before deciding to see the home in order to get a feel for the location. It’s at this point that the buyer will decide whether they even want to see the inside of your home.
Most people will do drive-bys after they get off work in the evening. So, it’s important to keep in mind what your home looks like at dusk, or later. You may want to consider adding some lighting or making sure your exterior lights are turned on. This will make your home look warm and inviting and improve its overall curb appeal.
In light of this, you’ll also want to make sure you keep your front yard and porch maintained and tidy while your home is listed.
That wraps up our list of easy home staging tips for now. Hopefully, this makes the process seem a little easier and more straightforward. Even if you’re not selling your home now, these are good things to keep in mind should you decide to sell down the road.
