Using Minimalist Design to Stage Your Home

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Selling your home can be an emotional journey. No matter whether you are relocating, downsizing, or upsizing, it’s never easy to let go of the past. That is especially true when it comes to letting go of your home. After all, some of your strongest memories, both good and bad, were made there. Your home holds the essence of you and your family. That is a great thing when you are living there. But it’s not so great when you’re leaving. You want your home to pop with your family’s own unique personality — while it’s yours. But when you are preparing your home for sale, it’s vital to make room for potential buyers to imagine themselves and the life they can make there. They need to have room, in other words, to imagine their own family there. This is where minimalist staging comes in. But what is minimalism, exactly, and how can you use it to make potential buyers love your house as much as you do?

The What and Why of Minimalist Staging

Minimalism is as simple and as complex as it sounds. It’s all about turning down the flare and the eccentricity and turning up the familiar and universal. The goal is to create a neutral canvas so that prospective buyers can paint their own image of the perfect life between those four walls. It’s about scaling back your personal style so that would-be home owners can envision their own. This is why staging is such an important part of the home selling process. If your home is overflowing with family photos and personal mementos, it’s going to be very difficult for potential buyers to think of this as their future home, not yours.  

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Starting Fresh

One of the first steps in minimalist staging is starting with a clean slate. That means decluttering and sprucing up your home, from the inside out. Consider putting non-essential items in storage. Replace family photos with a few well-chosen art pieces, preferably in neutral colors. Make sure that rooms are uncluttered with clear walkways around each area. Try to remove heavy, cumbersome furniture and replace these with comfortable but streamlined furnishings to add to the sense of spaciousness and airiness. This may even be a great time to give feng shui a try, as fans of the design method swear by its ability to promote a sense of tranquility and happiness in the home. Do not add in a bunch of crystals and other “fixes” that clutter up the home, dangle in front of windows, and do not make sense for a buyer walking in. Feng Shui is not Staging.  

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First Impressions Are Everything

As you work on creating an ideal space for welcoming potential buyers to your home, it’s imperative not to forget the exterior of your home as well. Remember that curb appeal is vital. If buyers don’t like the look of your house from the street, they may very well keep on driving. But if your home looks well-tended and inviting from the outside, this could be just the thing to inspire prospective buyers to take a closer look. This is the perfect time to invest in a landscaper and an exterior home cleaning service. Who knows; your gleaming little jewel may even draw the interest of a buyer who didn’t even realize she was in the market!  

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Breathe a Little Life Into the Space

Even when you are going for a minimalist design, there’s one thing you should never skimp on when you are staging your home, and that’s healthy green plants. We human beings are innately designed to respond positively to nature and natural elements, to be soothed and feel happier when we are surrounded by living, natural elements. And not only are healthy plants beautiful, they also clean the air. Your home will feel fresh and inviting with a few robust green plants in every room.  

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Location Really Does Matter

When you are staging your home in the city, it may feel as though a lot of what has been talked about here doesn’t apply. After all, you might not have the outdoor space to showcase the landscaping or cultivate show stopping curb appeal. You might even feel that a minimalist approach to staging a city home is counterproductive. You may worry that this technique will only emphasize the limited size of most urban homes. The reality, though, is that if you are staging a home in the city, principles of decluttering, minimalism, feng shui, and the incorporation of natural elements are even more important. This is because, at its core, minimalism is about not only creating a space for your buyers to envision their own lives and families in your home, but it’s about making that home feel light, airy, and expansive. The perfect place for prospective buyers to build a big, long, happy life.  

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The Takeaway

Staging a home using minimalist design may seem like a waste of time and energy. After all, you love your home, why shouldn’t the buyer? And with the extreme prices of housing these days, sellers need every advantage they can get — and there are few techniques more efficient or effective than minimalist staging.   Article submitted by Ainsley Lawrence