9 High-Impact Staging Ideas to Try (And 3 You Should Skip!)

Prepping to sell a house can be stressful. Knowing how to stage a home for sale is absolutely vital to making sure your home sells quickly and for top dollar. So today, I’m sharing all of favorite high-impact staging ideas to get you started.

I love moving. Truly, I do – I love the excitement of shopping for a new house. The cathartic release of all the purging as you pack. Finding a new spot for everything in a brand new home. Those first few nights where everything feels kind of like you’re staying a hotel. Genuinely, I find the whole thing to be kind of a blast.

But, selling a home? It’s the worst. The last few times we sold houses it was in a very hot market, and our homes went within 48 hours. This time around, things are different. The market in our area is incredibly slow and the first buyer we had backed out due to personal reasons. So, we’re still sitting and waiting (and waiting, and waiting).

In all of my time selling three houses, being married to a realtor, and prepping our house for what feels like a gazillion showings, I’ve learned a lot of lessons. And today, I’m spilling my secrets. I’m sharing all of my most high-impact staging ideas to help you get your home sold quickly. Or, you know, as not-slow as possible (we’re like molasses over here!).

9 Simple But High-Impact Staging Ideas

Start Packing…NOW!

Sure, you might have to sell your house before you can move (we do!), but that doesn’t mean you should wait to pack. In fact, getting started on packing before you even list your house can make your life a lot easier down the line. I packed up two full boxes of stuffed animals, toys, and trinkets from Jackson’s room before we even took photos for the house. And, I’ve been packing seasonal items, less-used decor, and various random items all along. It’ll make your home look bigger and cleaner when prospective buyers come through.

Not only is packing a great way to visually declutter your house, you can literally declutter as you go! I set myself a goal to get rid of at least 50 things each week from now until we move, and I’ve also been packing at least a couple of boxes every week. Hopefully, it makes things smoother once we’re under contract and actually prepping to move!

Make a Good First Impression

Did you know that, on average, most buyers make a decision about a house within a mere fifteen seconds of walking through the door?

That means that when they arrive you’ll want to make sure the first things they see make them feel like home. Make sure the house smells fresh (take out the trash regularly and employ the use of a few not-too-strong plug-in air fresheners). Keep the entryway clutter-free and well-decorated. Do a walkthrough of the home as if you’ve never been there before! Sometimes it helps to look at it through a fresh lens and see if you notice anything you’ve been ignoring.

Leave on All of the Lights

When potential buyers are walking through your home, you want everything to be seamless and simple for them. If they have to hunt for the light fixture in your hall closet or play around with the remote control for the fan in your room, it could be annoying. Or, even a turn-off!

Before each showing, we walk through the house and turn on every single light – including the lamps. Not only does it help make sure no one needs to search for the switches, it makes the house feel bright and welcoming. While you’re at it, be sure to open all of the blinds too – natural light is always a good thing.

Consider What Message You’re Sending

Buyers don’t have a lot of information about how you live in your home, so they’re going to make a lot of assumptions. An air purifier in your bedroom could send the message that there’s an air quality issue in the house. Even if, in reality, you just have awful allergies. Full cabinets could indicate that there’s not enough storage. A dirty AC vent might mean the house isn’t well-maintained.

It’s absolutely vital that you spend some time analyzing what you’ve got around your house and what kind of message it’s sending. Little things like dirty doors or light switches, chipped paint, or stuffed-to-the-brim closets can send a message you don’t want to send!

Consider Renting a Storage Unit

This is the number one tip I give to every single friend I have who is moving. It’s a little out of the box, but it has been the biggest helper to us in previous moves. The first two times we sold a house, we rented a small storage unit nearby on a month-to-month basis. Then, we took aaaaall the stuff we were packing over to that storage unit while the house was on the market.

It was so incredibly helpful to have a place to dump things that we wanted out of the way, and it allowed us to move some bigger stuff (like furniture) out to make rooms feel bigger. This time around, we actually still have the storage unit we rented when we moved in (it holds seasonal decor and some camping gear). We’re hoping we’ll be able to get rid of it after the move!

Have a Pre-Showing Routine

I’ve got my routine before walking out the door down to a science. You can read more about how I keep our house show-ready in this post, but here are a few specific things I recommend including in your pre-showing routine:

• Stash some Clorox wipes in the bathroom. Right before showings, wipe down all of the surfaces with a Clorox wipe. Every time. Even if no one has used the bathrooms. Also, I highly recommend you toss one of these on the back of the toilet to keep things always smelling fresh.
• Every morning, vacuum spaces that don’t get used throughout the day (for example, kid rooms while they’re at school) and consider that part of the house “shut down” until it needs to be used. Then, if you get a showing request it’s already done!
• Shift your laundry routine to late evenings and early mornings so you never have to worry about laundry going during a showing.
• Leave a basket by the front door that you take to your car with you – I call it the Go Basket. On your final sweep of the house, toss in anything that’s laying around or doesn’t have a really easy place to stash it.
• And finally, on your way out the door spray a little bit of fancy room spray in every single room. It makes a big (big!) difference!

Fresh Paint Works Wonders

Many people have their entire home painted when they’re selling it. While I think that’s a great idea, it’s pricey and time consuming! Instead, focus on small areas that’ll make a big impact. For example, there’s just something about crisp, freshly-painted trim that screams “this house is clean”. So, maybe touch up those baseboards in a few key rooms. Or, re-paint one or two rooms that could really use some help.

Your home can certainly sell without any freshly painted spaces, but it’s a huge bonus that will go a long way.

Leave a Little Note

I’m trying this for the first time with this house, and it’s something that gives me the warm fuzzies! I noticed this at a couple of houses Corey and I visited and it really made an impact on me. So, I decided to give it a go.

All I did was type up a few different things we love about our house and print it out. I tried not to get too personal, but I kept it really specific. Prospective buyers are going to notice that the bedrooms are a great size or that there’s a lot of closet space. But, they won’t know that you can walk to the best parks around or that the morning sunlight in the dining room is magical. I also included a few photos of things that make our house special – the vines on our fence in bloom, the nearby waterfall – and I leave these out for every showing.

Consider Removing Rugs + Furniture

This is especially true in smaller rooms! We removed the desk area in our bedroom partially to free up space and also because of the whole “consider the message you’re sending” tip above. We didn’t want to remind people that our home doesn’t have a dedicated office!

In previous moves, we’ve also done things like removing rugs from a smaller room to help show off the floor or re-arranging furniture to make a space flow a little better. Once I even turned a guest room into an office when we were staging!

Just take some time to consider if any of your spaces have furniture, rugs, or other large decor that you can live without. You don’t want to make the space feel sparse, but if you utilize my tip above about renting out a storage unit, this can be a really great use of it!

Three Staging Strategies You Can Skip

Don’t Stress Too Much About Family Photos

I am personally of the belief that the advice to remove all personalization from your home is a little outdated. Sure, if you’ve got dozens of family photos on the wall and a bunch of really personalized decor, you’ll want to pare it down. But, I think that a few well-placed family photos tucked here and there are actually a great message to buyers! It reminds them that a happy family lives and thrives in this home!

This time around, I took down the photos leading up to our second story, and I packed up our digital photo frame. But, we still have a few other family photos here and there throughout the house. I’ve also kept the house pretty much fully decorated! It’s been really well-received by people walking through, and I think that some well-thought-out decor and personal touches are a benefit, not a detractor. You just have to strike the right balance between “your family can also thrive here” and “you’ll never be able to imagine anyone but us living here”.

Signs of Life Are Fine

On a similar vein, I don’t think you should remove all signs that someone lives in the house. Your kids’ rooms will probably still have a little bit of chaos in them. There may be some toys that are visible when people walk through. It’s okay! You still live there!

I think sometimes we get so caught up in making sure the house looks perfect for prospective buyers that we forget we still have to exist here too. I work really hard to find the balance between making sure the kids keep things clean but also still feeling at home. If I got their rooms as clean and decluttered as I would like to, they’d be miserable in them! So, remember that buyers understand that you still live there. An open basket with toys isn’t going to stop anyone from buying your home. Promise.

Remember It’ll NEVER Be Perfect

You will always have more things you want to do in your home before it’s ready to sell. If you’re like me, you’ll have a lot of things. There will always be more cleaning, one more project, or a little more decluttering that you wish you could do before anyone comes to look.

Just remember that no house is absolutely perfect. At some point, good enough is good enough. Little issues can be fixed later, and probably won’t stop someone from putting an offer in (though they might ask you to fix it before closing). Every time we’ve put a house up for listing I’ve had a laundry list of things I wished I had gotten to. I’m always worried someone will notice or complain, but guess what? They never do!

You notice the flaws in your home far more than anyone else will, so remember that a little imperfection is okay. And, trust me, if prospective buyers notice something they don’t like, you’re probably gonna hear about it! So, you can always keep working on the little things while the house is on the market.

Other Moving Tips and Tricks

• The Ultimate Moving Checklist
• 6-Week Moving Timeline
• Packing Tips and Tricks
• How to Stage a House (from our first house sale!)