Helpful How-To: Staging Our House

No, it hasn't sold yet.

But I still thought I would give you a little insight into what we have done to set it up for a long winter on the toughest real estate market in the history of mankind.

P.S. Anyone wanna buy a house??

I know, I know. 

But you can't blame a girl for trying...

Anyway, back to the house staging situation.  (Does anyone feel like they are talking like a cop when they use the word "situation"...just me, right?)

In order to get the place ready to be abandoned to the cruel environment that is the real estate market, we followed the rule of 3 R's - Reduce, Repair, and Recycle.

1.  Reduce.

We moved stuff off of counters.

We pulled stuff out of the corners.

Admittedly, in some rooms, the reduction went a little overboard....

Like when we pulled everything out of our guest bathroom.

I completely forgot to add towels.

Or decorations.

Or anything decorative.

FAIL.

But overall, the idea was to reduce the clutter in our home.

And that we did....

2.  Repair.

See that far wall over there?

A few weeks ago it was more pock marked than a 14 year old boy's face.

And filling in those holes and sanding down the walls took more elbow grease than an oil change.

Yeah.

But that wall wasn't the only room that got some repairing....

The curtain rods and tie backs in the office were also in need of some serious help.

And the back yard?

If you were a Facebook follower a few weeks ago, you saw my desperate pleas for yard help. 

Repair doesn't even TOUCH the work that had to be done there....

3.  Recycle.

This is possibly my very favorite part of the house staging process.

The kiddy room wall art - from Goodwill books.

The bed in the master bedroom that used to be in our guest room.

I could also file this under the reduce category...since we used to have a king sized bed in our bedroom.

And the full sized bed was added a significant amount of real estate to our bedroom.

What you won't notice in this picture is the repurposed outlet covers - that were repainted to match the fixtures in this bathroom. 

This once builder's grade cabinet got a makeover with a quick coat of "Polystain" in "Ebony".

And our back bedroom?

Well, you've already seen the headboard that was repurposed from some leftover plywood and a dropcloth....

But the desk was also a space holder in our basement...

That found it's home as a space holder in our guest bedroom.

It helps potential buyers envision living in the home and writing letters at that desk.

Does anyone actually write letters these days?

Well, other than my boss?

But you get it, right?

If not, I apologize.

I've given it my best shot.

At least you got to see my house, right?

And you got to read some cleverly alliterated steps to a ready-to-sell house.

What you didn't get to read about was my favorite room in the whole house...

My foyer:

Which really didn't need much work at all.

No reduction, repair or recycling here.

Who knew my foyer was so gorgeous, right?

You sure you don't wanna buy a house???

*WINK*