Stage Your Home for Quick Sale

By now you’ve probably read that we sold our home before it ever hit the market. If you haven’t read that post, I’ll link it here. You heard me right! We intended to list our house the first week of April, but sold it March 17th, pre-market, to the first couple that viewed the house. In fact, we sold it for MORE than we were originally going to list for. I spent weeks getting our house ‘show’ worthy by doing some simple home staging and I want to walk you through my process, in case you’re looking to sell your home in the future!

Color Palette

The first step in my home staging process was to pick a color palette from the items we already owned. While determining what our color story would be throughout the house, I walked through every single room, and payed attention to the palette of each room. Then, I determined which colors were repeated again and again. While your own color story may be different, it is a good idea to repeat the same color story throughout your home in order for the house to feel cohesive, and appear larger than it may be.

For us, our color palette was black and gray, cream and brown, forest green and navy blue. From the moment you walked in the front door, the color palette was obvious, and continued throughout every moment of the home. The foyer rug was shades of blues and grays. The dining room was black and cream; the front office was black and cream and blue.

As you continued into the great room, the color scheme continued as well. Black and cream, gray and green, and touches of warmth with wood tones, and a few leather furniture pieces. The bathrooms and bedrooms also carried the same color story throughout the home.

Choosing a color story (or color palette) allows your home to feel less cluttered, more cohesive, cleaner, and larger. So, whatever color story you choose to go with, carry it through each room of your home, and remove any items that do not fit.

Clean, Clean, Clean

Have you ever seen those listing signs that read, “Immaculate Inside?” That is your goal! Clean literally everything. Clean your windows, your door knobs, your light fixtures and your baseboards. Look up, look down, look at every corner and in every nook and cranny. Clean your ceiling fans, dust the light bulbs in your table lamps, clean your cabinet doors, drawer fronts, and your window blinds.

You would be surprised at what perspective buyers will look at while viewing your home. So make sure those medicine chests are wiped out, the drawers in your bathroom vanity are cleaned, and even wipe down the plumbing pipes underneath your sinks and behind your toilets. Trust me! It matters.

If your home is clean and shiny, it gives the impression that it has been well-maintained and in good condition to the perspective home buyer.

Stage the bathroom

The bathroom is one of the top priorities for most home buyers. You want to make it appear as up-to-date as possible, as clean as possible, and as large as possible.

When we purchased our home in 2007, we updated the primary bathroom – because it came with wall to wall carpeting. Can we just take a moment for a collective, “Ewwww?”

At the time, 12 x 12 ceramic tiles were the design hotness. We went with a brown tile with cream colored grout. When we staged our bathroom, instead of fighting against a design choice that was no longer in style, we used the color of the tile as an accent. We took something dated and made it a feature!

The 4×4 tile around the tub deck and shower walls was cream with cream grout. The cabinets had been painted a similar shade, and the walls were painted the same. The room looked enormous! We went with taupe curtains at the window above the tub hung on black hardware. So the color scheme of the bathroom became cream, black, and brown. We brought in green in a couple of faux plants sitting on the tub deck.

By using the brown tile as part of the color story, it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, look dated, or in need of repair.

Stage with upscale products

I know it sounds silly, but trust me! When home staging a bathroom, splurge on upscale products. I went to the store and looked specifically for shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and lotions in the color story we were using in staging, and I specifically looked to high-end products.

For the smaller bathroom I chose Method soap and Body Wash from the men’s section because the bottles were gray and green. In our primary bathroom, I splurged on Cremo body wash, shampoo and conditioner from the men’s section because the color palette on the bottles was cream with brown lettering.

In our half bathroom, I kept it simple with a dark gray hand towel, and a green glass soap dispenser. Every single detail in bathroom staging had to align with the color story we were trying to tell.

Stage with new items when possible

While it isn’t always possible to buy all new items for your bathroom staging, try to hit the high spots with new items when you can. At the very least, stage your bathroom with clean new WHITE bath towels. You also want to use a clean new WHITE bath mat when possible. These items can easily go with you to your new home, but the last thing a prospective buyer wants to see is your old tattered bath towels, or a stained thread-bare bathmat. White, white, white, reads clean and bright!

Stage the kitchen

The kitchen is one of the rooms that can make or break your home sale. Our kitchen was original to the house, built in 2000. The hardwood floors weren’t in tip-top shape, but they were clean and shiny. The cabinets were original to the home, but had been cleaned and polished.

The appliances were spotless both inside and outside. That meant the oven had been cleaned, the stove top had been shined, the microwave had been deodorized and the refrigerator and dish washer had been sanitized. You do not want last night’s dinner odors wafting through your kitchen as prospective home buyers are looking at the appliances.

Again, keep your color palette in mind and remove anything that doesn’t tell the color story. Believe it or not, that includes cooking utensils in the drawers, hand towels at the sink, and any knick-knacks on the counter. Go ahead and simplify your kitchen cabinets to contain only the necessary items for every day use – and try to remove anything that doesn’t fit your color story. I’m looking at that shelf of random coffee mugs!

Why is this so important? When you look at a set of six matching coffee mugs versus a set of six random mugs you picked up at yard sales, garage sales, and thrift stores, the matching set reads as one unified item. The six random mugs reads as clutter. And clutter reads as not enough storage space.

You also want to pay particular attention to your pantry if you have one. If at all possible, try to remove anything that reads as clutter. I removed all boxes and canned goods that had bright colors on the labels. I put in wood toned baskets to store things like bread, chips, and coffee. I moved my canisters from the counter top to the pantry shelves in order for it to read a part of the color story, and to clear space on the kitchen work space. Do everything you can to pare down items you don’t absolutely need and allow your kitchen to appear as clean and as large as possible.

Remove personal items

When working on home staging, the number one rule of thumb is to remove any personal items. That includes things like family photos, mail, books or magazines you may be reading, and personal hygiene items.

People want to imagine themselves living in your home. Believe it or not, all of those little personal items are only precious to you. In fact, you may risk losing a sale to perspective buyers if something personal you left out is offensive to your home buyer.

When home staging for a quick sale, remove things like family photos. Scan the books on your book shelves in case something may turn someone off. Remove alcohol if you have a bar cart. And by all means, put away things like hair brushes, tooth brushes, and tooth paste from the bathroom counters.

Let the outside in

When staging your home for a sale, when at all possible, open the windows and let the house breathe. This is especially important if your home is older, you’ve had pets, or it’s the beginning of a new season. Letting the stale air out and the fresh air in will help to clear any odors you may have become nose blind to.

Bring in fresh flowers if you can afford it. They don’t need to be expensive, and if you have a garden, they can even come from your own yard. That may even be a selling point if your garden landscape is well maintained. If you can’t buy fresh, opt for good quality faux plants. My personal favorites are spring greenery stems or faux succulents. I’ll leave some of my favorites linked below. They give your home a feeling of life and a sense of freshness.

Make those long-awaited repairs

Now this one is tricky. There are some things you can certainly do yourself, while other tasks need to be trusted to a qualified professional. In our situation, we could paint certain rooms like bathrooms, bedrooms, or living rooms. Our primary bedroom and bathroom, however, had fifteen foot vaulted ceilings. I wasn’t comfortable climbing a ladder and didn’t want to rent scaffolding. So we hired out those rooms to be painted. However, because our painter charged by the hour, I did paint those rooms as high as I could comfortably. At which point, we scheduled the painters to come in and do the high work for us.

Things like minor repairs such as replacing broken wall switches or outlets, do yourself and save yourself the money. If you’re qualified to do bigger jobs like drywall repair or deck repair, go ahead and go for it. But know your limits and hire out the jobs that you are not qualified to do. The housing codes change rapidly and you don’t want to cost yourself a sale because the plumbing repair you made doesn’t meet safety code.

Make your house feel like home

Finally, you want your home to feel as welcoming as much like home as you possibly can. You want every prospective buyer to walk in your front door and be wowed. In fact, you want them to WANT to live there.

While some people bake cookies or fresh bread, I find that simply having a home that is as clean and as clutter free as possible is far more important. People don’t want to move into a space that feels dirty, cluttered, or out dated.

If you want them to get the full homearama experience, leave specs of your home on the counter or table top along with a small bowl of individual chocolates or mints.

Home Staging 101

When home staging for a quick sale, remember to keep the following things in mind:

1. Choose a cohesive color story for your home to tell.
2. Clean, clean, clean everything from ceilings to floors.
3. Stage your bathroom with upscale products and white textiles.
4. Stage your kitchen as if it’s the most important room of your home.
5. Remove personal items.
6. Let the outside in.
7. Make necessary repairs.
8. Make your house feel like a home they want to live in.

My favorite Greenery: We may earn a small commission from items purchased through these links, at no additional cost to you.