Best Home Staging Tips for Midwest Buyers
Quick Answer
The goal of staging is not to show off how you live. The goal of staging is to create a blank, aspirational canvas so the buyer can envision how *they* will live.
1. Ruthless Depersonalization
When a buyer walks into a home filled with family portraits, kids' drawings on the fridge, and a collection of ceramic roosters, they feel like an intruder in someone else's space. You must remove your identity from the property.
- Take down all family photos and replace them with generic, modern art or mirrors.
- Clear off 90% of the flat surfaces (kitchen counters, bathroom vanities, nightstands).
- Hide all pet beds, litter boxes, and food bowls during showings.
2. Maximize Natural Light
Dark rooms feel small, depressing, and old. Bright rooms feel expansive, clean, and modern.
Before every showing, open all the blinds and curtains. Clean the inside and outside of the windows until they are completely streak-free. Finally, go through the entire house and ensure every single lightbulb works, and swap out harsh blue "daylight" bulbs for warm, inviting "soft white" (2700K - 3000K) LED bulbs.
3. Neutralize Bold Paint Colors
You may love your vibrant red dining room or the dark purple accent wall in the master bedroom, but bold colors are highly polarizing to buyers. If a buyer hates the color, they mentally add "$2,000 for painters" to their mental checklist of negatives.
Buy five gallons of high-quality, neutral gray or beige paint (like Sherwin-Williams "Accessible Beige" or "Agreeable Gray") and paint over every bold, dark, or personalized wall in the house. Neutral walls make the home look move-in ready.
4. Scale Down the Furniture
Oversized, bulky furniture makes rooms look tiny. If you have a massive sectional sofa that blocks the flow of the living room, rent a storage unit and move half of it out. Ensure there are clear, wide walkways through every room. Buyers judge the size of a bedroom by how much floor space they can see around the edge of the bed.