Staging begins with decluttering, tidying, cleaning, and then deep cleaning. For decluttering, use this rule: go through your home, and get rid of 50 percent of your belongings. The goals are to get rid of junk you don’t need, create space and potential, and de-personalize the home so potential buyers can envision themselves living there. When the clutter is gone, move on to cleaning. Be meticulous. Tidy each room from top to bottom. Wash and scrub anything that needs to be. You’ll then want to move on to painting, updating or upgrading different parts of your home, and making other small improvements and repairs to improve the overall look and functionality. These will be discussed more in the following chapters. A word about painting: If you haven’t painted your house in the last year, consider doing the entire interior right now. If you have painted it, you still might want to repaint. A fresh coat of paint can do wonders for home staging, and buyers’ first impressions. Just remember to stick with more neutral colors. No dark colors, solids, pastels if you want to use different colors The final element of staging involves strategic placement of furniture, furnishings, and décor. Remember, more is less. Keep it simple and neat, as well as neutral and depersonalized. You want interested buyers to be able to picture themselves living there. Place minimal furniture in small spaces to allow them to look more spacious. A well-maintained rug, a simple desk and chair in a small room can create stunning appeal as an office space, rather than crowding it with too much furniture.
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