House Staging Tips Put To Use

Thank you to all those who commented on staging the mantle in the last post! I saw a trend towards the family painting for the mantle, so that's what we ended up with there.

The lanterns are staying for now, but I'm on the lookout for something smaller. 

Everyday I wish we had left the TV hanging over the mantle...it would make that area so much simpler! 

But the large TV cabinet and oversized TV are in the room now, and we have no desire to take them with us! We've offered them as a 'negotiable inclusion' in the terms of a future sale.

The entryway kept its bench and rug, but everything else (except an old watering can of florals) got removed.

I watched A LOT of "How To Stage Your House" videos on YouTube over the weekend. 

The best advice was (1) Know Who Is Your Target Market, and (2) Clear Everything 'Not Essential' Out Of Your House for a showing. 

I had just bought a real cute new bathmat that day, and the person making the video said, "Don't go out and buy a new bathmat because you should remove everything from the floor -- including your bathmat!"

The kitchen still has some chickens around, but gone are almost all appliances.

It was an exhausting weekend, but the house is cleared out and simplified, and the photographer came yesterday and took pictures of the house. 

The photos should be ready tomorrow, and then finally we are going up for sale! 

While we were moving "extras" out of the house to storage, we had to buy 2 chairs to turn the dining room back into a dining room. 

We've been using the dining room as a reading room recently with a couch in there. I went a lot of places - real quick - to find some reasonably priced chairs!

Finally I found something that would work (and that was in stock) at World Market. I bought two, round-back gray chairs that we can use in our future home too.

One thing I think we did right was to almost completely clear out the walk-in closet in our master bedroom. 

The photographer said she doesn't normally photograph closets, but did photos of ours since it was all cleared out. I'm so glad I emptied it out as I think a large closet is a good selling point, and I'd hate to have people walking into our "stuff".

When I determined who our target market was, it was more than likely a retired couple like ourselves. Over half our neighbors are retirees so that was a no-brainer!

Outside the master bedroom, there's an office nook. The office area is almost empty now too.

I've found it's easier to see problems when you take a picture and look at an area by photo instead of looking in person. The photo below makes me realize I need to clear out some of those books on the top shelf!

The powder room and laundry room are next to each other near the garage...

Thanks for taking this tour with me...I'm leaving you with the view of the powder room mirror. I just want to say here, the speckles on the mirror aren't dirt! 

It's a reproduction mirror that has an "effect" speckled on to make it look old. It looks better in person, honest! 

Thanks for dropping by!