Category: Home Staging

Kitchens are at the heart of any home, so when it comes to selling, presenting a kitchen beautifully is a must. Whether you are tweaking a few features or considering a full-blown renovation, make sure you know your market and what features attract positive attention.

1. Deep Clean Your Kitchen

Clean your kitchen from top to bottom when you are preparing to show it. This means cleaning countertops, floors, stovetop, inside the fridge and inside cabinets. Work top to bottom, and then left to right—this will help you make sure you do not miss a spot.

Be sure to use the right cleaning product for each of the different surfaces. The labels on most cleaning products will specify on which types of surfaces they should be used.

2. Put Away or Store Personal Items

Avoid leaving personal things out on the counters, or even inside the drawers. Things like paperwork, mail, photos and even magnets on the fridge should all be taken out of the kitchen and packed up or stored elsewhere. Potential buyers want to see a clean slate so that they can imagine their own lives in the space, rather than feeling like they have walked into someone else’s.

Keeping the counters as clear as possible will help showcase the spaciousness of the kitchen to potential buyers. If you have a lot of small appliances covering the countertops, store those elsewhere when showing the home. Consider boxing and storing things you do not really need out, or that might be cluttering your countertops, like coffee mugs or spice racks.

3. Remove Extra Furniture

If you have large furniture items in your kitchen, like hutches or unattached islands, consider getting rid of these when staging your kitchen. They can make your space feel confined and appear smaller. By removing these items, your kitchen will look larger to potential buyers, who will then be able to imagine putting their own imprint on what they see.

If you have bar stools at the kitchen counter or chairs around the dining table, remove any extra seats you may have added. Use as few of these items as possible to let the room feel open.

4. Stay on top of Kitchen Odors

Since you will likely still be living in your home while trying to sell it, chances are you will still be using the kitchen to cook and have meals. When showing the home, avoid cooking meals that leave residual odors. Air out the kitchen and take the trash out daily to keep any odors from lingering in the kitchen.

• Keep pet food dishes and other pet items out of the kitchen when showing the home. These can create smells you might not notice yourself, as you are used to them.
• Drop a piece of citrus into your garbage disposal. A chopped lemon works well. This will defeat odors in your sink and leave a lasting, pleasant aroma in the room.

5. Clean Up Messes as You Make Them

Rather than spending a large amount of time cleaning the kitchen prior to showing it each time, just do one deep clean, and then clean up smaller messes as you make them. Wipe counters, and wash and put away dishes after cooking and serving meals. Put away items that may have gathered on your countertops throughout the day.

When you start to cook, fill the sink with hot water and dish soap. This way, you can drop dishes in it to soak while you eat, and cleaning up will be much easier and faster as the dishes will be easier to wash after soaking.

6. Organize Items in Your Pantry and Cabinets

Potential buyers will likely open the cabinets and pantry doors to take a look inside and get a better feel for the storage space in the kitchen; you do not want them to find cluttered messes. Keep dishes and food items organized and neat.At U-Lock Mini Storage, we offer storage units our clients across Greater Vancouver and Greater Vancouver Island by offering storage units in Chilliwack (Chilliwack U-Lock Mini Storage), South Surrey and White Rock (White Rock U-Lock Mini Storage), Burnaby and Vancouver (Burnaby U-Lock Mini Storage), Victoria (Victoria U-Lock Mini Storage), Nanaimo (Nanaimo U-Lock Mini Storage) and Parksville (Parksville U-Lock Mini Storage). Please contact a U-Lock Mini Storage self-storage facility near you to inquire about our storage units and our team members will be delighted to answer any questions you have!

Staging your home properly is integral to increasing your chance of successfully selling your home. While it may seem easy to stage your home, this task can be tedious and time-consuming – especially if you are occupied with other priorities.

To help you efficiently stage and beautify your home for sale, we have come up with five tips you can use:

Rent a Storage Unit

Renting a storage unit is perfect for decluttering and staging your home. You can store belongings such as bicycles or furniture in a storage unit during the staging or home sale process, and retrieve these items when you move to a new home. You can also store these items for a long term if you do not plan on using them in the next little while.

If you have quite a few larger items to store, you can go with the 10 by 10 feet storage unit. This storage unit will hold the contents of a one-bedroom apartment with major appliances, other furniture and supplies. If this storage unit size does not suffice for your needs, you can upgrade to a 10 by 15 feet unit. This larger storage unit holds the contents of a two-bedroom apartment or house, including appliances, boxes, miscellaneous items and commercial storage inventory.

Organize the Front of the House

You always want to make sure that the outside of your home is appealing. Pay close attention to any extra items that may be outside your home. If you have gardening supplies such as rakes, sprinklers and hoses lying around, pick them up and put them in the back of the house, making sure that they are stored neatly. 

If you have trash cans that are visible from the street, you may want to take them around back. If someone comes over to look at your home and sees these things, the added clutter can easily spoil that important first impression for them.

Host a Garage Sale

If you have lots of items that you do not want to bring to your new home after you have sold your current home, you can host a garage sale to get rid of some of your belongings. Old bikes or clothes are excellent items you can put on sale during a garage sale.

Donate Items

In addition to hosting a garage sale, you can also donate items to declutter your home. Look on your shelves, under bathroom sinks, in cabinets and go through the decorations in the rooms of your home. Get rid of what you are not going to be using in the next few months and things that do not add visual appeal to the space. There is a good chance that you have many things that you have not used for years. If this is the case, you can donate them to those in need!

Hire a Professional Cleaner

If you have found that you do not have time to keep up on your housework and still live a normal lifestyle, you might consider hiring someone to come into your home once a week to do some cleaning for you. You might be surprised at how affordable it is! You can find a list of home cleaners nearby you by performing a quick Google search.

Hire a Home Staging Professional

Aside from hiring a professional cleaner, you can hire a home staging professional to help you declutter and stage your home. The home staging professional can take care of all the tasks related to removing unwanted items and creating extra space in your home!

When you are selling your home, you want it to look absolutely stunning for your potential buyers. That is where home staging comes in.

Home staging is a decorating approach used to accentuate your home’s most beautiful, elegant, and notable features and help your buyers picture themselves moving in and living there. On average, staged homes sell 88% faster and for a 20% higher price than non-staged homes. The impressive results of staging a home makes it an imperative part of selling your home.

Here are four tips for staging your home!

1. Remove Clutter

Make your home look cleaner and create room for staging items such as new furniture or kitchenware and decors.

You can also remove miscellaneous items like board games or old CDs and old clothes in your closets;  potential buyers are likely to check out your closets to assess the storage capacity. 

Items in your garage such as hockey nets or bikes should also be removed from your home for home staging so prospects can see the full capacity of your garage.

The less clutter you have in your space, the bigger it will look and the more appealing it will be to buyers.

The best way to declutter your home for home staging is renting a storage unit. By renting a storage unit during the process of home staging, showing, and open house, you can place all your items  in the storage unit and make your home look more spacious and tidy for prospective buyers. 

Since you can rent a storage unit on a monthly basis with no long-term commitment, you can rent a storage unit temporarily, only for the duration of the home staging and selling period. This flexibility allows you to greatly minimize your storage expense!

2. Stage the Most Important Rooms

Not all rooms are considered equal when it comes to home staging. You want to focus your efforts on the rooms that have the greatest potential to influence buyers’ decisions, and spend less time on the rooms that will not make much of a difference.

Rooms that hold the most importance for buyers are the living room, master bedroom, kitchen, and dining room. These are the rooms that you want to focus on the most when staging a home. Here’s how you can stage the four rooms:

Living Room

The living room is where families come together. Potential buyers need to see that there is enough room to fit their family comfortably in the space. They may also have concerns about entertaining guests or being able to place a television in a convenient location.

An empty space can be difficult to gauge visually, but clutter can make a room feel cramped even if it is not. Focus staging on creating a suitable conversation area. Keep accessories to a minimum, but do include some. For example, instead of an empty coffee table, place a book and a small teapot with a cup, or put a small flower arrangement in a lovely vase.

You also want to include multiple light sources, and leave them turned on during the showings to keep the space lit and bright. Do not forget to clean every surface thoroughly.

Kitchen

Since the kitchen is not usually thought of as a place for furniture, it does not always come to mind as a room that needs staging. However, the kitchen is a key factor in the sale of your home. That means you want to make sure it is presented in a way that makes it look functional and spacious.

Declutter as much as possible, and try to leave no more than three key appliances on the countertop. You can keep related items nearby. For example, a ceramic canister marked “Coffee” next to a coffee maker will look good, but make sure any excess items are put away. You do not want to overstuff your cabinets either, as potential buyers will likely open them. This could require relocating belongings during showings.

Feel free to add an open, strategically-placed cookbook or add a bowl of fruit to the counter. You can also include fresh flowers to bring life into the space. If you have a breakfast bar you can add place settings to show the intended use.

Master bedroom

The master bedroom needs to look like a restful retreat. This means decluttering and making sure all clothing items are properly hung or stored. Make the bed appear welcoming with freshly washed linens, comfortable throw pillows, and maybe an extra blanket near the foot. Turn on table lamps placed on nightstands, but limit other décor. This is another place where adding a book is perfectly acceptable.

Do not worry as much about the rooms that have less influence, such as guest bedrooms, children’s bedrooms, and bathrooms.

Dining Room

A dining room is seen as a sophisticated space, but it also needs to be comfortable. Leaving the space empty can make it feel dark and gloomy, especially if there are few windows or it has a dark paint color on the walls. Staging the space can make it appear larger and more functional.

Make sure the table is the right size for the room. If it is too big, and you can remove a leaf, then do so. Too small? Then add another leaf. Alternatively, you may be able to get a new tabletop for the base to make the table appear larger.

You can choose to set the table with nice place settings, or create a focal point on the table with appropriate home décor items. Often, it is better to put something on the table than to leave it empty: an empty table can seem uninviting, and that is not the feeling you want to inspire in potential buyers when viewing your home. 

3. Repair House Issues

When staging your home, it is a good time to tackle the tiny nicks, scratches, holes, or other impurities that adversely impact buyers’ views about your property. Start with a melamine foam eraser pad and go room to room removing any scuffs from walls. You may need to do some paint touch ups too, if you notice areas where previously applied paint has chipped. Keep an eye out for any areas that could use a little TLC, then spackle and caulk as necessary.  These easy fixes will help you show that your property is in exceptional condition!

4. Brighten Up Your Home

Brighten up your space by letting as much light shine into the house as possible to make your house more welcoming. You can open all your blinds, which in addition to letting in more light will also make rooms seem bigger. During showings,  turn on all the lights in your house, including lamps and closet lights. Doing this will help make your home delightfully cozy and bright, which will help prospective buyers get a positive feeling about living at your property.

Questions? Feel free to call us at 1.866.647.8673 or contact us online at https://www.selfstorage.ca/contact-us and our staff will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have!

Looking to reserve a storage unit? Find a self storage facility near you:

1. Self storage Burnaby or Vancouver
2. Self storage Chilliwack
3. Self storage South Surrey or White Rock
4. Self storage Parksville
5. Self storage Nanaimo
6. Self storage Victoria