If you’ve already hired a professional stager to help sell your home, you may quickly realize that living in the house is not as easy as it used to be.
Unless you model your life after Felix Unger, you’re most likely going to have to work hard to maintain the stager’s vision. The last thing you want to do is waste the professional help you paid for.
The trick is to come up with a plan for your family when it’s time to show the house. This means hiding your personal items, putting away any clutter that distracts from the furniture and making sure everything is polished and ready to show. Keep things the way your stager had in mind.
Never move the furniture or any decorative items your stager has put out. You’re paying money to get their expert opinion so don’t rearrange what they have done. Take some photos of the rooms once the stager is done just in case things get moved around. Before showings and open houses, try to match everything to the photos.
Make sure the kitchen shines. Clean the countertops, clear the sink and wash the floor. Keep your pantry clean and organized because potential buyers are going to want to see storage options. If you know you’re going to have a lot of showings in a given week, consider eating out or using an outdoor table for meals—just to keep things clean.
In the bedrooms, hide items in a cabinet, nightstand, or under-bed storage container (keep these closed). Leave nothing out on the surfaces, including your glasses, tissues and any beauty products you may use at night. If your stager placed some books on the nightstand, keep them out as there may be reasons for the titles they selected.
Living in a home that is staged can be difficult. But once you get an accepted offer it will all pay off and you’ll soon be living in a new home where you can return to your routines.
