House Guest: COMMONA-MY OWN HOUSE {during our move part 1}

Commona-my house! {Come over to my house}.
So our house is on the market, we're moving to Utah for my husband's new job.

So, I thought that I'd share with you my listing pics!
I think one of the hardest things to do when you're getting ready to put your house on the market is to stage your home. You have to de-personalize your spaces...and that's personal. 
But I have a simple solution AEO! Always Edit Objects.

Realtors will tell you that:

1. A clean home will sell.
2. A home that is occupied or staged with furniture is better than leaving an empty home. This gives buyers an idea of what will fit into their rooms and how the space is actually usable in real life functionality.
3. You must make the rooms look occupied but maximize space by de-cluttering and scaling down furniture and accessories.

I think the key is to think about what model homes look like. When builders build new homes they have a MODEL HOME that they want you to walk through...to see all of the finishes, right? But they don't typically have an empty house for you to walk through....they prop and decorate those suckers like there is actually a family living in them...even down to sometimes making chocolate chip cookies, right? They have the pantry stocked, curtains up, even a board game on the table...I've been to many Model Homes and sometimes it floors me that they go to such lengths to try to create the look of what a normal home would look like.

Here's the big thing that sort of goes against what a lot of TV Realty Shows tell you to do:
Don't buy anything new. {I'm not talking about a fresh coat of paint, or updating, that's another story and another future post}.  But when it comes to staging a home. Don't buy anything new. Use what you have. There are going to be so many other expenses in your move...this one isn't one that you should just assume you have to do. And cleaning and de-cluttering are free. Years ago when my husband and I were buying our first home in CA, we looked at several homes. There was one home that was really nice. We loved it. But in one of the bedrooms there were all of these clown costumes and red clown noses in dishes like they were potpourri and clown art everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE in the room. It was creepy. It became known to us as THE CLOWN HOUSE...and somehow we couldn't get past that and couldn't see ourselves living in the CLOWN HOUSE. It doesn't make sense, but that is the kind of thing that can happen...buyers sometimes can't even place why they don't like a house- sometimes its the vibe. For us, the CLOWN VIBE was just too strong.

So, the pictures I'm sharing with you aren't designer pics. They are house staging pictures. If I were to take pictures to show my design style, they'd look quite different.

In the picture below, I left all of the principal wall hangings in place. Namely, because I didn't have time to take down everything off of my gallery wall and paint before the pics were taken. {That is my job for this coming weekend}.  I took down several sort of cool/quirky things off of my mantle and replaced them with simple vessels so that it wasn't distracting or cluttered. The fireplace is a major plus to the space, but I added ferns in this old tin box that I have, to sort of perk up that part of the room and also to off set the really red brick.  NO KIDS TOYS ARE VISABLE IN THIS PICTURE, BTW.

Same thing from this angle. TV clutter is closed in armoire, I usually have a large crazy old sign over the armoire and other things sitting up there, but I took them down to play up the high ceilings and that corner seems larger now. ALSO, when you are cleaning like a mad woman because people are coming to see your house, the less you have out the easier it is to keep things clean. WORD.

And another angel. Forgive that my pillows aren't perfect. I should have gone around and stood over the shoulder of this photographer..


Kitchen and eating area: EVERYTHING pretty much goes away. Nothing on the counter. Not even your toaster. Especially in a smaller kitchen like this. Maybe a fruit bowl or a vase of flowers...but otherwise, the bigger and cleaner and less cluttered your kitchen can look the better.




No kiddie art work on the fridge or bulletin boards.Keep it visually clean so that their eyes go to the positive things in the room, such as the crown moulding...they aren't distracted by tons of stuff that doesn't matter.

Yes, I would have loved to run out and update lighting fixtures and dining room and living room furniture. I know exactly what would look perfect in this space...but I didn't do it in the 6 years that I've lived here and I'm not about to do it before we move, this is not where I needed to put the $$ into to sell this house.
I just cleaned it up, have very little props going on. REMEMBER...your house isn't a store. Just a few things here and there will create the atmosphere that it is a functional and {you hope} lovely home, but scale back some of your decor and people will be more easily ready to see their own furniture and style in the house.

I am not necessarily a traditional girl...but this house is very traditional so that is what I played up when I sort of staged these rooms.

Declutter all of your shelves. I don't care if you have to put books under your bed. Do it. Leave some things on the shelves but keep them looking light and uncramped. AGAIN: if your house looks full and over crowded you are sending the message that maybe your house isn't big enough and maybe doesn't have enough storage. {I'll be writing about closets in the future, too}.



De-man the man cave. We still have a pretty full room here thanks to the tank I mean the desk that my husband adores. And there are still quite a few personal objects in this office, but all in all, the clutter is contained and the eye will go to the plus' that the room has: glass doors, tray ceiling, fan, etc.


Kids rooms don't have to be character-free. Again, think of a model home. They still have art work and curtains and cute bedding in model homes... but keep it clean, clutter free and ALWAYS EDIT OBJECTS. Even if you think you're good, take something away.





That's about it for this home tour.
I'll be posting more details of the move and my moving tips throughout the next couple of months and I'll be sharing all things about my new home {yet to be determined} when we get to that point.
I'm sure I'll be doing lots of projects!
XXXOOO.