Ask any realtor and they’ll tell you that staging your home, for a quick and profitable result, is an essential step in the sales process. To most people, staging means cleaning the house top to bottom, putting everything in order, and decluttering.
For some sellers, decluttering often translates into: “Take all the stuff you don’t know what to do with and shove it in the closets”, but that can actually do your home sale a lot of harm.
After bathrooms and kitchens, one of the big things buyers look for is storage space: that there is enough of it relative to the size of the house and that it is functional and organized.
Why? Messy, disorganized or over full closets can give the prospective buyer several impressions:
- That the house hasn’t been properly cared for: if the closets are a mess, what else is wrong?
- That there isn’t enough closet space in the house relative to the number of people who live there.
- That what space there is isn’t functional and won’t be useful on day 1, to start getting organized.
In other words: the closets can make the house look like it’s not in move-in condition and for many buyers, that’s a major drawback.
Here are a few ways you can improve ALL closets in your home for showings, followed by some specifics for closets in particular parts of the house:
General Staging Tips for Closets
As with all staging efforts, you need to declutter and clean. The same is true for closets, whether it’s the entry hall closet, the kitchen pantry or the bathroom cabinet.
- One closet or cabinet at a time: empty each out, and remove at least 50% of the content. Whether you get rid of some of the contents entirely, or pack it to be stored offsite for showings, you need to have closets that are airy and spacious looking. This is a good time to make sure that anything in the closet that looks old, ratty, dusty or dirty is discarded.
- Before returning the remaining items, clean the closet thoroughly, including vacuuming in the corners (yes, some buyers WILL look that closely).
- If the inside of the closet is dingy or tired no matter how much you scrub—and this can be particularly true for food related spaces, like pantries—paint the inside a couple of coats of a simple white. It will make the inside look brighter, cleaner and as if it has doubled in size!
Bedroom Closets
Whether yours is a double door walk in or a simple space carved under the eaves, the bedroom closet is really important to the average buyer. Their first thoughts will always be: “Can I fit all my stuff into this space?” If yours is filled to the brim, with the floors covered too, it’s going to be hard for the buyer to visualize how they might use the space.
A few ways to tighten up the look of your bedroom closet include:
- Make sure you only have the clothes in it for the current season. From the get go, it will make the space more relatable.
- Organize it in some functional way such as using baskets for small accessories, or perhaps even storing items by color or style.
- Do away with the hodge-podge of hangers you’ve acquired over the years and get enough of the SAME style and color for everything and replace them all.
- Just like a high end boutique, make sure all of the hangers are facing the same way.
- Add lighting to make the space more functional and appear larger; a well placed mirror can also work to this effect, if you have room.
- Make sure the floors are absolutely clean and have nothing left on them. Add shoe racks or shelves if necessary!
Linen Closets
The key with the linen closet is to make it appear large and airy, like something you’d find at a boutique spa:
- Pull out what you won’t need until you move and pack it away. White baskets with your extra soaps, shampoos and other products keep them organized and show the functionality of the space.
- If possible, put away towels and sheets that have seen better days, but you’re keeping for the dog’s bath days, and coordinate by colors.
- If you struggle with fitted sheets, the neatest way to store them is to put the fitted and flat sheets, as well as extra pillowcases, inside one of the pillowcases, keeping the same design and style all together in a tidy package.
- As sheets can get musty, a little lavender sachet is just the ticket to keep the closet smelling fresh.
Kitchen Pantry and Cabinets
Many a pantry has some ages old cans and boxes languishing in its depths: now is the time to get rid of these!
- Group like with like: soups with soups, veggies with veggies, and so on.
- Create a spice rack if you don’t already have one.
- Use over the back of the door storage or hooks for items like extra plastic bags or reusable shopping bags.
- Get rid of anything and everything that is out of date or looking ancient.
- Make sure the pantry and all the cabinets are spotlessly clean and again, a coat of paint might be in order to bring it back to life fully.
- Make sure there is plenty of space and items aren’t piled up on top of the other: you want the buyer to see the back wall of the pantry, giving that impression of space.
Laundry Room / Mudroom
If you want to show off your storage, these rooms are where you can get creative beyond the closets by adding hooks, shelving and baskets, to sort the all and sundry that your family comes home with.
Laundry rooms need to reflect everything about being tidy and clean, so minimize the bottles of products and show off the shelves for placing soaps instead.
- Countertops should be totally devoid of clutter, so someone could picture themselves sorting and folding laundry in the space.
- Make sure the machines themselves are clean too, as a whiff of mustiness can ruin a sale.
- Using hooks inside a utility closet is perfect for hanging brooms, sweepers and the extras for your vacuum. It needs to look like the central locale for all things clean and functional.
Mudrooms or even front entry closets can become a dumping ground for coats, hats, bags and boots, but a little organization can make those spaces more functional so that hats, mittens, coats and bookbags all have a place.
- Shoe racks make all the difference in terms of keeping the space tidy. Instead of a jumble on the floor, you’ve got tidy rows.
- Make sure there is enough lighting in the space so that it is usable.
- As this space tends to be used a little more roughly than other parts of the house, see if the walls need a coat or two of paint to bring them back to a shiny newness.
- Create a vision for the space that buyers can embrace: a sun hat, garden gloves and fun rain boots hanging in the space can give prospective buyers a feeling of hominess without clutter.
Garage
Considered by some homeowners to be one big catchall space for all the things that don’t have a home inside the house, the garage can quickly become a storage mess!
- Clean the floors - spray or pressure wash them.
- Include ways to hang garden tools on the walls, add wire shelving for boxes and other items.
- Consider mounting bicycles or other things on the walls too!
- Fix up any broken lighting or other accessories that are in disrepair.
- Tune up the door(s): the last thing you want is squeaky, loud doors, when the image you want to convey is calm and clean.
The point with the garage is to make it feel tidy and functional, whether the new owners plan to use it to park their car or just store all the extras: they have to be able to visualize their usage of the space, so you need to make it as clean and friendly as possible.
When all is said and done, storage is very important to anyone who wants to keep a clean and tidy home, so if you show yours to be in great condition and fully functional, the impression prospective buyers will have of your home will go up too!
Marty Basher is the improvement and organization expert with Modular Closets, https://www.
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