When staging a home for sale, every room is important. You need a buyer to be able to walk through the entire home and envision their family and their belongings fitting in perfectly. If you can manage to gain this effect, then you are well on your way to helping your seller close a deal. While all rooms are important, however, there are certainly spaces that take a larger portion of your time and effort. The entryway into the home is certainly no exception.

When a potential buyer walks into a home that you have staged, you want them to be wowed immediately. You need a buyer to step into the home and feel perfectly at ease. You want your buyer to feel that they are walking into their own home, a place that they will immediately feel that they belong. Because of this, the entryway must be as welcoming as possible. This is the first room that your buyers see, and the impression they get when they walk in the door will weigh heavily on their impression of the rest of the home.

When staging the entryway, you will want to be absolutely certain that the area is free of clutter and personal items. Clear any dirt, spider webs, scuffs, or other marks that make the room feel used or lived in. Creating a well illuminated space that looks new and invites people into the home is very crucial. You need a buyer to come in and feel that the space was created just for them.

Simple touches can be all that it takes to make the entryway to a home perfect. Natural lighting or clear lights, such as LED lamps can be a great way to brighten the area. Buying new rugs and offering a fresh coat of neutral paint can warm the space and increase the comfort of the area as well. If the entryway is large, fresh plants can also create a living and relaxing environment that instantly makes potential buyers feel comfortable and at ease.

Every home has particular spots that buyers will pay more attention to. Always remember that first impressions make a significant difference in home staging. If you are working on a limited budget, be certain to give added attention to the home’s entryway. Redecorating the area needn’t be costly, but ensuring that it is clean and well designed can make all the difference for your seller.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

No matter how excellent your skills are at staging the interior of a home may be, they will offer little value if you cannot first draw buyers into the home. With the coming of fall and winter, we see a decline in home sales. This means that it is more important than ever to ensure that the first impression potential buyers get is enough to leave them wanting more. Understand that the first thing any buyer will see is the outside of a home. Clutter, poor maintenance, or an unattractive design can be enough to convince a buyer to drive right by, while a well designed home will certainly encourage them to stop and take a closer look.

If you want to maintain that curb appeal during winter, there are a few simple tips that you can use. These tips will help you create an attractive look while also giving your home that inviting feel that makes every buyer envision it as their own.

Tip #1 – Make Sure the Structure Is Inviting
While beautiful grass and flowers may be enough to distract from minor flaws in summer, winter homebuyers will examine every detail before entering. Check to ensure that your rails are in excellent shape, that your gutters are clean and straight, and that all of your windows and doors are in great shape. Fix any shingles or siding that could be damaged and be sure that the structure is in great shape.

Tip #2 – Make Certain That the Home Looks Welcoming and Fresh
We associate fall and winter with such things as leaves falling from trees and the loss of beautiful plants. When the nature around us goes to sleep for the season, we start looking to the other things around us for beauty. Planting evergreens in the yard, painting porches and window frames and even painting garages and homes can be a great way to offer color and life during the colder and darker seasons.

Tip #3 – Maintain the Signs of the Season
When looking to buy a home, people want something convenient and well maintained. If buyers have to wade through inches of fallen leaves or trudge through snow to get to your house, you decrease the chances that they will want to do it every day. Rake leaves, shovel snow, and create a home that looks easy to maintain and enjoy.

There are many ways to maintain winter curb appeal. These tips are among the most important for home stagers to remember, however. The first impression is often the most important, and when you can create a home exterior that naturally draws buyers inside, you have made great progress towards creating a home that is designed to sell.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

As a home staging professional, your job is to design a home that any buyer can walk into and envision as their own. A very important part of this is simply creating an environment that is open, spacious, and depersonalized. When a home is filled with clutter, it can be very difficult for potential buyers to feel comfortable and can be impossible for them to picture themselves living in the space.

Simplicity is truly the key to home staging. The ideal room will contain a basic amount of furniture, accessories, and color. The idea is to give an idea of the perfect setup to the buyer while allowing their imaginations to fill in the bulk of the detail. If there are pictures, tables, lamps, and other items throughout the room, it is very hard for a buyer to imagine the room without them. Your goal as a home stager is truly to create the perfect room for imagination.

Your job is to do much more than choose the ideal furniture, curtains, and other accessories; it is also to know when to remove items from the space. Your clients may offer suggestions and hints for how they would like the room displayed, but ultimately it is up to you to employ the design and décor that will draw the eye and spark the imagination. Clutter is very distracting and can cause the demise of a potential sale.

When you declutter a room, you do more than simply make it more eye catching and inviting, you also make it larger. The more objects that are taking up space in a room, the less space potential buyers will see. While having minimal furniture is important, you want every room in the home to seem large enough to decorate and to fit the entire family. When creating space, it is important to realize that the concept doesn’t stop at floors and walls. Decluttering tables and desks is equally important. Let every eye in the room see that there is an abundance of space and an abundance of potential around every turn.

When you manage to declutter a space, you will find that the general response from potential buyers is much more positive. Your buyers are looking for the home that is truly welcoming and that will allow them to simply be themselves. When you create a depersonalized and decluttered space, you are able to give them exactly that.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

If you are new to home staging, you are likely still looking for the tips and tricks to make your job easier and more successful. While there are a number of hints out there for arranging furniture and accessories, there seem to be few articles available that offer advice on paint and wall colors. The truth of the matter is that the walls are one of the most important parts of any room. When you choose warm and inviting colors for your walls, potential buyers will feel much more welcome and at home in the space, which greatly improves your chances of making a successful sale.

There are a number of different colors that are well suited for home staging. When it comes to living rooms, white is perhaps the most common color seen, but not necessarily the best choice. Buyers are looking for something that is unique but offers a feeling of warmth. Neutral tones, such as tans, beiges, and even certain greens can be very inviting. These tones match an array of decors and can work well with most furniture. They are also lighter in color, which will ensure that the room also feels more spacious.

When it comes to bedrooms, light colors are still excellent choices. Warm pastels can be a great fit for bedrooms and can work for adults as well as children. Pastels and light colors are very welcoming and comforting and are known to be relaxing as well. A bedroom should offer an environment that is designed for relaxation and sleep, and choosing colors that instill a sense of calm will make potential buyers much more comfortable and satisfied with the bedrooms in the home. Choose colors that will match many decors, and employ accessories or borders to break up large, solid walls, but keep in mind that your ultimate goal is a room that beckons to every potential buyer.

The colors that you choose for every room will be an important part of your staging process. Choosing colors that match most furniture is an important part of making a sale. You want your buyers to feel happy and at home in the space, and you want them to be able to envision their furniture filling the room. When you choose the right colors, tones, and textures for the walls in each room of the home, buyers will find it easy to picture themselves spending every day in this warm and welcoming new space.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When designing a home to sell quickly, one of the poorest choices you can make is to leave any room vacant. While a cluttered or poorly designed room can be difficult to work with, a vacant room will offer much the same effect. The principle on which home staging is based is that you wish to offer a space that makes the buyer imagine themselves living there. When you offer a blank or empty room, you simply give the buyer nothing to imagine.

Vacant spaces are empty and impersonal. While you may think that the space would allow them to picture anything they wish, the truth is that you want to give a bit of inspiration. An empty living room with a fireplace will never seem as welcoming as a room with a cozy chair, a loveseat by a recently lit fire, and a rug that draws the eye. As a home stager, your job is to make the most of every space available. While offering minimal furniture is a big part of making a room more inviting, empty spaces are certainly never your goal.

As a stager, you want to create an emotional response in each potential buyer. Walking into an empty room can leave a buyer with an overwhelming sense of indifference. Taking the time to add some furniture and employ some neutral but attractive accessories can be all it takes to make a significant difference. You do not have to purchase furniture and accessories, many companies offer furniture and accessory rentals, enabling you to use the items only for an open house or until the home has sold.

Always understand that staging every room in a home is an important part of closing a sale. Explain this to clients, and they will likely understand. If your client is accepting offers on a home, explaining that paying a small fee to rent furniture can greatly increase the amount of the offers made will often be enough to garner approval for the idea. A home that is well decorated can sell for thousands more than the same building when vacant.

Home staging can be a highly effective way to speed up the sale of a home. The cost of staging is well worth the benefit, and filling spaces is always crucial. If employing furniture will help your client’s home sell faster and garner a better price, it is certainly in the best interest of all parties to ensure that every room is beautifully and affordably staged as soon as you are ready to entertain buyers and offers.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci
Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When you work in home staging, you quickly find that very few homes are naturally perfect. There are always features that you will want to minimize or hide as well as those that you will want to accentuate or embellish. Windows are some of the most important features of any home, and yet many rooms have windows that are too small or narrow or are simply out of place. When staging or designing a room, knowing how to make the most of the existing windows can make a large difference.

One of the most common problems in living rooms and bedrooms is a lack of proper windows. In many cases, a large exterior facing wall will contain only a small window. While proper furniture placement can certainly make the room more attractive, the effect of the window on any room should be significant.

A great way to handle a small window is to create window treatments that span well beyond the window. A set of functional curtains or blinds that center on the window but span a large section of wall can give the room a much more spacious and inviting feel. The curtains can be slightly sheer to allow in light or can simply be opened in the middle to offer illumination. This design, when tastefully employed, will make the room feel much more open for potential buyers.

Another common problem is basement windows. In many cases, these windows are small and narrow and positioned at the top of the wall. They serve very little functionality and let in only minimal light. In many cases, the windows can also be somewhat unsightly. An excellent way to dress up these windows is to use floor length curtains, drapes, or window treatments. This will give the look and effect of a larger window and can make a finished basement remarkably inviting. In a home where basement rooms are used for habitation or entertaining, the effect is certainly a welcome one.

The windows in every home are different, and learning how to make the most of them will be a crucial part of staging. Most buyers are looking for homes that are bright or that offer a beautiful window décor. When you do not have the windows that you need to offer this effect, tasteful and stylish window treatments can be enough to create the look and feel that your buyers are seeking when they walk into your home.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci
Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When looking to stage your own home, it is easy to become frustrated. Looking online often offers ideas that can be very expensive, such as purchasing or renting new neutral colored furniture and accessories. The truth, however, is that you can stage your own home on a very large budget and greatly improve your chances of a sale. The key, however, is to find a way to detach yourself emotionally from the home.

Your home is certainly a special place to you, but when it is time to sell, you will find that the best tip available is to look at it from the point of view of a new buyer. This means taking down photos and drawings as well as sentimental items, artwork, and anything that could be considered personal. Understand that the ultimate goal of staging is to create a home that makes anyone feel at home. Once your personal items have been removed, you have already made significant progress towards making your home easier to sell.

When looking to really stage a home on a small budget, you will want to do some simple things. Hanging mirrors that reflect light into smaller spaces can make a room seem much larger. Likewise, removing accessories and clutter from these rooms will open up a great deal more space, giving the feel that the room is bigger and giving it more potential for the buyers. If your room uses a bright paint or a busy wallpaper design, taking the time to apply a simple, neutral color to the walls can be an inexpensive way to boost the value of the room while increasing the chances that potential buyers will feel at home in the space.

When placing furniture, understand that using too much will make your room feel small and cramped. Even larger rooms should employ only minimal furniture and accessories. When it comes to the kitchen and bathroom, remove things like used soaps and shampoos and create a room that is relaxing and ready for a new owner. Give your bathroom the feel of a luxurious spa by hanging clean, plush towels and offering an array of unused but relaxing bath products.

Every room in your home can be staged for very little cost. A budget of a few hundred dollars can be more than enough to make every room in your home inviting and welcoming. Your home should be inviting to anyone who enters and should help buyers imagine themselves living there. With a simple décor and a few design tricks, your home can easily be the dream home of all who see it.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci
Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When you are staging a home for a client who is on a short budget, you will need to learn how to make the most effect with the smallest modification. While furniture and accessory arrangement and color choices play a large part, there are other simple modifications that you can make that will have a lasting and positive effect on the feel of the home as well. One area that is commonly overlooked by stagers but that is very important is the door and cabinet hardware.

Many older homes offer cabinets that are either bland or even downright unattractive. Replacing or rebuilding doors and cabinets is a large financial undertaking. The good news, however, is that these cabinets and doors can be dressed up for a very small price. The best solution for any home in this condition is to consider new hardware for all of the home’s doors and cabinets.
Dressing up doors can be both easy and fun. Choosing stylish doorknobs can create a look that is functional and welcoming. The front door of a home is one of the first things buyers will notice and should represent what they can expect to find inside the home. Choosing a well designed and stylish doorknob can be an inexpensive way to quickly show that the home has a unique style.

Cabinet knobs and drawer handles are inexpensive to replace and can really give a new look to all of your cabinets. Whether you are looking to change the feel of your kitchen, bathroom, or other rooms, replacing old or worn knobs and handles is a great start. There are many different colors and styles to choose from, and the overall décor of the home should give you a few guidelines. As a rule, avoid large or bulky knobs and handles and choose something that is stylish, understated, and easy to use and maintain.

Staging a home within a small budget can feel like a large undertaking, but when you realize the difference that the small details can make, the project can seem much more manageable. When you can replace knobs and handles for a very low price and create an entirely new look or feel for a whole room, you will quickly begin to see other small ways to improve a home. Simply replacing old handles, knobs, and pulls on doors and cabinets can make a room feel new without the cost of replacing the items themselves.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci
Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When preparing for your open house, staging your home can be very important. While hiring a home stager is always an excellent plan, you can do the job yourself with a bit of patience and work. Designing your home so that it is welcoming and inviting and so it encourages the potential buyers to envision themselves living there is a great way to ensure that your home sells more quickly. There are a number of tips and tricks that can make this easier, and following these home staging tips will certainly be able to help you get excellent results.

The idea behind home staging is to create the ideal dream home. This is a welcoming but depersonalized space that makes everyone feel as though it could easily be theirs. This means not only removing photos and other personal items, but creating a color and design pattern that could match any furniture and décor. Your home should be almost neutral while still feeling enough like home to ensure guests that they would love to be the occupants.

There are some great tips for staging before an open house that can really make a difference. In colder months, using your fireplace if you have one can create a sense of family and home while creating that comfortable feeling that we have all been taught a fireplace symbolizes. Another idea is to bake cookies before or during the open house. Fresh baked goods are a smell that people find comforting and associate with home. These ideas are small and simple but are a great way to help potential buyers to envision themselves living in your home.

When you stage your home for an open house, you will find that there are a number of tips that can make the process easier. In addition to creating a neutral and welcoming atmosphere inside the home, you will want to do the same for the exterior. Take down any name plates that might be outside and remove any toys or pet items from the yard. A simple landscape that is devoid of personal items is the best way to make a potential buyer see the home as their own. Remember that first impressions are crucial and that your exterior will be the first thing noticed.

When you understand how to stage your home for an open house, you will find yourself with much better results. Be certain to place signs where they will bring in the most visitors. With a bit of effort and hard work, you can make your open house a true success.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci
Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

One of the biggest problems that you can face in home staging actually has little to do with the home itself. Even if you do everything right, trying to stage and sell a home that is surrounded by unattractive or poorly maintained homes can be difficult. The paragraphs that follow offer a few simple but effective tips to help you make a home more attractive despite unfavorable surroundings. These tips will also help you to set the home apart from the others, creating a private and inviting environment for potential buyers.

The first thing to keep in mind when staging a home in such an area is that you want to make it different and more attractive, but you don’t want to make it stand out too much. Making a home that looks like it doesn’t belong in the area can create an unappealing effect. The idea is to create a home and landscape that is inviting and welcoming but that still feels like part of the neighborhood and the surrounding community.

An easy idea for making this work is to put up a small fence. The fence needn’t be heavy duty, as it is in place mostly for a visual effect. This will separate the home and property from the others and create a tidy and inviting space. A small fence will do quite nicely and can even span only the front and sides, as the purpose is not to keep anything out or in, but to create a private space.

Understand that you cannot improve other homes in the area, but that you can do what it takes to make the home you are working with more appealing. Fix any problems such as sagging gutters or crooked railings and you will see a much nicer effect. Planting trees along the borders of the property can also create a unique barrier that will set the home apart.

Staging homes in areas that are less visually appealing is a unique challenge, but one that can be overcome with a bit of creativity. Take look at the neighborhood and understand what aspects of the area need to be overcome. A bit of simple landscaping and defining the borders of the property can go a long way towards helping to make the home more appealing to potential buyers and can help you create a space that captures the attention of buyers, drawing their eyes away from the other homes in the area.

Nicci Parrish specializes in helping homeowners and realtors create a home that sells in addition to providing home stagers with tips to improve their business. To learn more about how home staging can benefit your business, visit Impress Me Home Staging and Nicci
Parrish’s blog.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites