Guest blog post: Top Tips for Staging Kitchens and Dining Rooms
Prepping your home for sale takes a lot of time and effort on your part. Potential buyers want to come into a home and see the potential that is there. They want to be able to visualize there furniture as well as their family and friends enjoying the space.
Proper Staging applies to all rooms in the home, two of the most important rooms to Stage correctly are the kitchen and the dining room. Potential buyers want to see themselves hosting an array of dinner parties and other events in the dining room whilst visualizing themselves doing all the prep work in the kitchen. Here are a few home staging tips that will focus on your kitchen and dining rooms when selling your home.
Get Cleaning & Do Repairs
Any professional home Staging service will tell you that one of the first things to do before you even begin the Staging process is cleaning. Giving the rooms in your home, especially the kitchen, a deep cleaning is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to improve the look of any room. In the kitchen especially, if there is dirt, dust, grease, and trash about the room potential buyers may be less inclined to purchase the home.
Another thing to do is fix any damaged or broken items. Replace leaky plumbing fixtures, missing or damaged hardware, and the like. Most people want a move in ready home, not one that is going to take extensive repairs.
Declutter
When we live in a home for any length of time, we are bound to collect a host of items. In the kitchen, it is quite common to put all of our necessary items on the counter so they are in easy reach. When Staging a home, however, you want to open up as much space in the kitchen as you can to entice prospective buyers. Take down personal items, store away appliances commonly left on countertops, such as coffee makers, toasters, and the like. If you cannot stow everything away, try to leave only two items on the counter. Furthermore, remove excess furniture, pots hanging from pot racks, and even islands. This allows buyers to visualize the kitchen as their dream kitchen. Do not forget to declutter the dining room as well.
Minimal Decoration
Although we mentioned decluttering previously, it is still necessary to put some decorations in the home. Set the dining room table so it has a suitably sized table runner and a nice centerpiece of some kind. This can be flowers, a bowl of fruit, or candles. If you have space for a buffet, adorn it with a simple runner and one or two decorative pieces that accentuate the area, not leaving it feeling cluttered.
Let the Light In
We can also take some tips from interior design in order to show kitchens and dining rooms off at their best. Maximize the amount of light coming into the kitchen and dining room by removing any heavy drapery or blinds that limit the natural light. The best option is to use sheers; they let light in while still providing some privacy. One huge selling point for many homebuyers is having a lot of natural light coming into a home
Staging kitchens and dining rooms does not require a vast remodel of investing excessive amounts of money. By cleaning, decluttering, and letting a lot of natural light in will help anyone looking to purchase your home see themselves living in the space, which can facilitate the sale.
John Miller has written for a number of websites and online publications which focus on the home. His email is [email protected].
YY Y improvements and interior design.