4 Key Home Staging Tips without Hiring a Pro

When selling a home you want to make sure it looks perfect in the eyes of potential buyers. That is why many people turn to home staging. However, hiring a home staging professional can often be expensive. On the other hand, if you don’t want to spend a fortune on home staging, then you should do it yourself. All you need is to learn a few key home staging tips and your home will look stunning. Home staging is not necessarily a hard task. Let’s start!

Photo of a nicely staging dining area - Key Home Staging Tips
As you consider these key home staging tips, try to imagine each space as its own art piece in a gallery. | Photo by Medhat Ayad

1. Clean the House Thoroughly

Always first on the list of key home staging tips is cleaning. Clean everything! And that truly means everything. Remove all the clutter and while you are doing that you can organize things and see what you can get rid of.

Then, vacuum the entire house and make sure to get to every nook and cranny, and this includes the crawl space. Make sure to remove all the dust, wash the drapes and rugs, and even clean behind all the furniture and appliances. In order for your home to show its true beauty, it has to be clean and free of any clutter.

Photo of a nicely staged bedroom - Key Home Staging Tips
Each room needs to be as clean as possible in order to get top dollar on your home sale. | Photo by Christopher Moon

2. Decorate the House in a Neutral Way

Once everything is clean, it is time to remove all of your personal stuff. It is natural that you decorate your home to suit your personality, but when staging, you have to depersonalize. Family photos, travel mementos and everything else personal to you need to be packed and removed.

Once that is done, you can start decorating the home in a neutral way. If needed, you can repaint the walls in a neutral base color. Then, to decorate them, you can add neutral wall art.

For example, a subtle and minimalist text art poster here and there should do the trick. Additionally, bring in fresh flowers on the coffee table and dressers and let the house shine in its true beauty. When you decorate the house this way, the potential buyers can get a clear image of what their lives will look like inside your house.

3. Update the Floors

Photo of a beautifully staged kitchen eating area - Key Home Staging Tips
See how thoughtfully each item was placed on this kitchen table? | Photo by Mark McCammon

If you’ve been living in this house for years, chances are great that there are scratch marks on the floors. Depending on the type of flooring you have, you’ll want to give them a proper update.

Older hardwood floors can be resurfaced and restained if they’re in really bad shape. Laminate and vinyl floors can be thoroughly cleaned.

If you have painted floors, it might be time to give them a fresh coat of paint. This way, you can make the floors appear brand new and on a budget. Another tip might be to use a new area rug. Just be careful as you don’t want to mislead potential buyers by covering up any damage on your floors. They’ll almost certainly perform a final walk-through and see everything as it is.

4. Play Around with Mirrors

A staged home should look spacious and bright. People love “light and bright.” Professional stagers know many key home staging tips and one of them is using mirrors.

Wherever you see a spot on the wall, there’s a spot that might benefit from adding a mirror. Having mirrors as decoration will open up the room and make it look bigger and brighter. Mirrors reflect all the light, providing openness and airiness to a space. Plus, if you have mirrors with unusual frames, they can play as amazing decorative pieces.

Home staging is an essential part of selling your home. However, you don’t have to spend a fortune on professionals to do it. If you have a knack for decorating, you can easily stage your home yourself. Just remember to keep it clean and simple.

Tre Pryor, Realtor

Tre Pryor is the leading real estate expert in the city of Louisville. He is a multi-million dollar producer and consistently ranks in the top 1% of Louisville Realtors for homes sold. Tre Pryor has the highest possible rating—5.0 stars on Google—by his clients and is routinely interviewed by the local NBC news. Tre Pryor is a member of the RE/MAX Hall of Fame.