Decorating Your House to Sell

When potential buyers step into your house, they want to see a clean, neat and attractively decorated house. What they don’t want to see is something so overly decorated they can’t imagine their furniture and possessions in the house.

Another thing to think about, too many shelves and tables with knickknacks, too many overstuffed sofas piled with pillows can hide the architectural and structural features of a home that you want to highlight the most.

Your Very Own Decorating Guide

Here are the top three tips to keep a minimalist approach to your home decorating.

• Minimize. Put away everything that isn’t essential to highlighting the house’s natural features. Even if you have get down on your knees and beg your neighbor for some storage space in their garage, (or rent a storage locker which makes more sense), do it. Remember, it isn’t forever, and you might find you can live without some of that stuff.

• Organize. This is a good time to tackle that filing you’ve been putting off, and organizing your craft materials and other projects. Use cheap, inexpensive baskets to help keep you stay organized. A large basket can be used to stash magazines and coasters under the coffee table. Buy according folders to house your important documents and other loose paper. Baskets can also be put to good use in bathrooms – put away all your personal items like make-up, toothpaste, shaving cream, etc.

• Arrange. The things you do end up keeping around can be rearranged in attractive ways to make your house look more interesting. In the kitchen, start by grouping canisters together. Spreading them out makes counter space look smaller. The same goes for ledges, end tables, bookcase, and fireplace mantels. Group no more than 3 things together, making sure they’re varying heights, and mix graduate sizes. For example, group 2 candles on one side of the mantel, and something smaller on the other side. This creates a balanced feel to the home and is a interior design pro tip!

The key is to make the house look attractive, minimally decorated, and devoid of too many personal artifacts which could distract the potential buyer. It doesn’t allow the potential buyer’s creativity to envision what they want up on their walls.

Above all, decorating may seem trivial, but it will be worth it in the end. Whether you’re an investor or homeowner, staging a home the correct way can make or break your sale.