Tips for How & Why to Declutter Your Home
As you can see in this photo, all the clutter in this room is distracting, making it impossible for buyers to see the potential it has.
As you prepare to put your house on the market, it can be overwhelming to contemplate decluttering your home. I always recommend to clients that they take it one room at a time which makes this task so much more manageable.
Here’s a home stager’s definition of clutter: Any item in the home that has the potential to distract buyers from fully appreciating the home they are contemplating buying. Buyers are very easily distracted, so you need to remove all distractions by packing up the following items before the house is listed. They include:
Any personal photographs or portraits on walls or tabletops.
Collections of any kind - e.g., figurines, salt & pepper shakers, clocks, dolls, baskets, teapots, perfume bottles - I’m sure you get the idea!
Diplomas, certificates of achievement, trophies or award ribbons.
An overabundance of toys, stuffed animals and games.
Suits of armor or mounted animal heads - yes, I’ve seen these in more than one home!
In preparation for decluttering, get a bunch of boxes and establish three categories for each space in your home: Store, Donate, Throw Away. There’s no time like before you list your home to start this process - once your home sells, you’d have to tackle it anyway, so take some of the pressure off and get a big chunk of this task out of the way!
Don’t forget your closets! Buyers will be opening doors and checking out your storage space. You most definitely want to put your best foot forward by weeding out the stuff you’ve got hidden away in your closets. You want buyers to be able to quickly assess how deep and spacious any given storage area is.
Here are some tips:
When possible, remove all items from closet floors and keep items on shelves to a minimum.
For the clothes hanging in the closet, determine which items you can do without while your home is on the market and pack them away.
Remove all empty hangers - they can take up a lot of space!
If you currently store any cleaning supplies/equipment in a closet, move these items to the garage. Storing such items in a coat closet, for example, can send a message to buyers that there just isn’t enough room in the house for storage.
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