my best staging tips when selling your home

If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you know we are moving houses! We have loved our current home for 6 years, and a lot has changed since we moved in- like adding 2 more people to our family and somehow accumulating a LOT more stuff.

We aren’t leaving Lubbock, just moving neighborhoods. Many weeks ago, our Realtor and friend, Jim Archer (who we highly recommend!) knew our desire to find an older home to fix up, and called us about a home he’d found in one of our favorite Lubbock neighborhoods. So, we went to see it, and hated it. But then- plot twist- we ended up buying it! I can’t wait to share more about that, but this post is dedicated to STAGING.

Once we knew we were buying the new house for sure, the scramble to stage our current home began.

Here’s what we did to prep our home to be put on the market:

We ended up taking down the map and frames here so that the brick was the focus of our entryway.

1. We MAJORLY de-cluttered. I went through every junk drawer, closet, craft room, etc. Marie Kondo style. I kept a trash bag and a box for garage sale items nearby, and tried to conquer one or two spaces a day. Garage sale items went into the garage, and trash went to the bin.

Much of what we removed were kids’ toys. I knew we’d never be able to keep our house clean with lots of toys available to our kids (haha), so we put pretty much everything (including the girls’ large dollhouse) in a storage unit.

We also removed quite a few pieces of furniture in order to open up our main living area and make it more walkable for people viewing it during a showing. Furniture also went into storage.

Another area we almost forgot about was the backyard. All the kid stuff (except the trampoline) was removed. I swear, we found about 47 Barbie shoes hidden in the plants. 😂

You can see the trees in our master bathroom in this old photo. I pondered removing the mirrors as well, but ended up leaving them for staging.

2. We took down/painted over super-specific design choices. This was a little heartbreaking to me, as I had spent many hours designing Knox’s constellation bedroom. His room had a large, dark mural on one wall that just had to go- it was much too specific of a design to appeal to a large group of buyers, AND I didn’t want to deter anyone that wasn’t willing to take it down themselves. Thankfully, my mom came over and lovingly helped me scrape all day to get the wallpaper off- not a fun job for sure.

I also had a tree design painted in our master bathroom, which I loved, but wasn’t sure many others would. I chose a neutral grey and it made the space really calm and open feeling. We did leave the girls’ floral bedroom mural in hopes that whomever bought the home might have a little girl, or just like it and want to keep it.

My favorite 60’s toile chandelier has been in our home since I stole it from my parent’s house, haha.

3. We removed fixtures we wanted to keep. We replaced a few light fixtures (like my favorite tole chandelier) with simple neutral ones that would appeal to most buyers.

4. We removed quite a few personal family photos, and some weird decor items. I guess I have a thing for body part decor? I took all these items to storage as well. We debated on whether or not to leave our family photo gallery wall, and ended up leaving it, hoping that it would help buyers visualize what they could do with the space. If we’d had more time, I would have tried putting some neutral art in the frames in place of our family photos.

“Manny” the lamp was taken to storage. We love him but understand he’s a lot to take in 😂

5. We made sure it smelled good. Before and during showings, we had our diffusers running with our favorite smell. It is such a delicious fragrance, leathery, musky, but fresh. Grab some for yourself here. (It’s not in stock at the time I’m publishing this post, but I watch it often and if you follow me on Insta, I’ll let you know when it’s back! Worth the wait for sure!)

Goodbye pups. We love you but some people just aren’t into animals. :)

6. We got rid of any signs of a pet. Dog food, bowls, crate, dog beds and most importantly- the dogs themselves- were gone. Thankfully we were able to bring them to my parent’s house during showings.

7. We did LOTS of touch-up/clean up work. Once everything was clean, we went through and touched up several areas with paint. We also went through the house with a magic eraser- it will clean gunk off of almost any surface! I paid particular attention to anything someone might need to touch, such as doorhandles, light switches, etc.- as these things can really impact the overall impression of the house.

8. We invested in some new front porch decor to make a really great first impression. A new wreath, doormat, and some plants to spruce things up really did the trick. You can check out my wreath and doormat here.

9. We hired someone to help clean. After decluttering and working on getting everything staged, we were exhausted and it was so refreshing to have someone do a deep clean of our home in order to prep for showings. Worth every penny, and we are going to have her back right before we close!

10. We let in the LIGHT. This is a lesson I’ve learned photographing homes for sale. Oftentimes curtains are pulled shut and the natural light a home offers is hidden. We kept all the curtains pulled open, and let in as much light as possible. More light = more space.

We had about a week to get the house ready- since we’d already set a date for an Open House. Towards the end of the process, Shawn and I went around yelling, “We can’t let them know we SIT!” (If you don’t get reference, watch this video). Honestly, I could have spent another week working on it, but I was really proud of our home once it was all ready- even a little sad that we were leaving it!

We also made sure we had great photos, and thankfully we had some practice in that area, haha. If you are selling your home, I can’t stress enough the importance of having light and bright photos of your home done by a professional. That combined with a stellar Realtor had our home sold in just 3 days on the market. You can check out the listing photos of our home below. I hope this list has been helpful!

knox's constellation bedroom!

I’ve been promising Knox (our 8 year old son) that I would redo his room for over a year now and have finally, finally finished it. He has been so patient! This room was previously painted a mint green with a mashup of furniture and an overflow of toys. So, we took the opportunity to do an all-out cleanup and make some bolder design choices that would take him from little boy room and still be appropriate for a teenager.

Knox loves Star Wars and science, as well as maps and travel, so I thought this constellation design I created for a Minted wall mural challenge would work really well for his room. Knowing that it was mostly black/dark, I painted the other 3 walls of his room white. I was really impressed with the quality of the new mid-century style bed we bought from Walmart. I love the upholstered headboard and the tapered legs.

LINKS:

RUG // NEON LETTERS // BEDDING // BED // CURTAINS // DESK (Similar, this one is vintage)

I’ve had a red mid-century desk for many years I couldn’t bear to part with, and it worked really well in this room. The wire Knoll Bertoia Chair was a $5 garage sale find (which is crazy- these retail for $832 new- no kidding!). Knox got the projector clock for Christmas. Above his desk are his life verse framed, a letterboard with a gold frame, and a map.

LINKS:

FLOOR LAMP (Similar, this one is vintage) // MAP // WIRE CHAIR // CLOCK // LETTERBOARD

A fun new edition is this pushpin map I got custom made from Paperrama. I thought it would be neat for Knox to get to pin the places he’s been in the world, and dream of where he’d like to go! This is a canvas print, but it has a hard backing that allows you to put in the pushpins. They were super quick about the customization and changed the colors to match his room, as well as added 1 Timothy 6:12: “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

LINKS:

PUSHPIN MAP // PROJECTOR CLOCK

I like to keep an eclectic feel to our house and don’t like all the furniture to match, so I pulled in a wood side table with hairpin legs I already had and a wire Bertoia diamond chair (another crazy Craigslist find!).

LINKS:

WIRE DIAMOND CHAIR (similar, this one is vintage) // SIDE TABLE // GOLD LAMP (Similar)

Once we got the bed in place, I knew I still wanted to put some focal point above his bed. I found these “neon” letters on Amazon (link below) and Knox thought they were super cool. They are really LED lights and are lightweight so they are easily hung. They do have wires that extend from them for the battery or USB plugin, but I found a USB connector that allowed me to connect all 5 letters to a hub so we can plug them into an outlet and not use up a ton of batteries.

We chose the word BRAVE because this is Knox’s focus word. This post explains what a prayer word is and why it is so special to us and him!

LINKS:

NEON LETTERS // USB HUB (GET THIS if you are getting the neon letters!)

The ceiling fan was a much-needed and simple update, and I still think I might take the whole thing down at some point and paint it all black, but it was nice to get rid of the frilly lamp cages, and replace them with these industrial ones I found. A quick $20 fix!

LINKS:

INDUSTRIAL LAMP CAGES

Knox’s old bed had storage in the bottom, so I knew when we got rid of it, we would need another storage solution. My mom (who is a pro estate-saler) found this mid-century dresser for him quite a while ago, and so I dreamed up some shelving to go around it. Thankfully, Shawn was up for the job!

It was a fairly easy D.I.Y.- we followed the outline of this tutorial. I did have to search all over town to find bracketing that was already painted black, and I’m so glad I did! After checking Lowes and Home Depot, it was True Value that had it. It was 1/2 the price of the white and grey versions I had seen AND I didn’t have to spray paint it. We bought the wood at Lowe’s and stained it, and then just put it together. I think the whole shelf project was around $200.

Another big project was getting all of Knox’s toys organized and contained into the storage boxes you see on the shelves. I basically sat everything out on his bed and said, “everything needs to fit in these 4 boxes, and if it doesn’t, it’s being donated”- which actually worked! We did use an old cube bookshelf you can see on the floor next to the dresser for some stuffed animals/robots, but everything else is contained on the shelving!

LINKS:

BLACK BRACKETS // BLACK SHELF TRACK // GREY STORAGE BOXES- LARGE // CUBE BOOKSHELF // DRESSER (Similar, this one is vintage) // BLACK AND WHITE GLOBE // INDUSTRIAL FAN (Similar, this one is vintage)

One solution I was particularly proud of was the use of these magazine files for softcover books. Since the books couldn’t stand up on their own, and I didn’t want to stack them on top of each other, this was a great solution. I found these cute gold ones and thought they were perfect!

LINKS:

GOLD MAGAZINE FILES // POTTED FAUX PLANTER (I found this one at HomeGoods)

LINKS:

AGATE BOOKENDS // DIFFUSER // GLOBE (Similar, this one is vintage) // DARTH VADER HELMET // STORAGE BOXES

I love the way his room looks as it gets darker outside. The letters glow and the constellations seem to as well. I typically like light-and-bright but this dark-ish room makes me just as happy, and I really feel like Knox will be able to use this room for many years.

Let’s talk about the wall mural!

I created the wall mural using engineering prints, which you can get at local print shops like FedEx Office, Staples or Office Depot. This is the 3rd or 4th time I have used this technique, and so I decided to film the process and make it a Skillshare class! So, if you have a Skillshare account, you can go watch and learn- or use this link to get 2 months for free- which is more than enough time to watch the whole class.

You can easily check out all of the products I’ve linked here:

PIN IT!