Staging

We recently put our house on the market. And when I say recently I really mean it. Its been a week now. We were both blessed and cursed by having a call the day after we listed it for a showing. Ah! We had not yet checked off all the things on our To Do List. Well we had a mad dash cleaning spree for a day and with the help of my mom and sis and friend (yes, it took that many people to get our house show ready) we had decluttered nearly our whole home. My parents were gracious enough to allow us to store some stuff in their barn during the staging/selling process.
While I do not really have "before" pictures, let me just say that my house does not normally look like this. We have three kids... two special needs... we normally have toys in every room, laundry baskets here and there, folded and unfolded laundry frequently takes over the master bedroom. You get the idea.
I have watched a lot of HGTV while nursing in the last year and I think I was finally able to put all that information that I've absorbed to good use! I can't remember which show it was on but I remember one of the hosts say that there are Three D's of Staging: Declutter, Depersonalize and Disassociate.
Basically, we went through the house and packed up anything that we thought we would not need for a few months (really hope we've sold by the time we need our winter clothes again!).
So, we reorganized our closets, rearranged furniture, depersonalized by taking down some (but not all) of our family photos, did whatever we could to make the rooms look as big as possible (which included getting rid of a few bookcases and other misc pieces of furniture that were just adding to the clutter). We even "staged" the deck to look its best too. Here are a few links that I found helpful:

HGTV's Ultimate Staging Checklist

Staging Checklist

Another version of the Three D's of Staging


While we have not yet sold our house... I do feel much more prepared for showings and I definitely think that the work we have done (and will continue to do) will pay off in the long run. So hopefully soon I will be able to say for certain that staging worked for us!

Feel free to share your "Works for Me Wednesday" post at We are THAT Family!!