Home Staging To Sell - Decluttering, Simplify Contained Spaces Part One

Let me start by telling you the phrase "Simplify Contained Spaces" is my own. Other Stagers will immediately recognize what it means, but it is not an industry standard.

So, what is a contained space and how/why is it simplified?

A contained space is a closet, a cabinet, a drawer, a pantry. In fact, it is space in your house/garage/outbuilding that closes so the contents are not always on display.

Staging contained spaces by simplifying gives awesome results: this is one of those things that can tip the balance on a sale. When a potential buyer opens a simplified contained space, s/he does more than think about it, they FEEL about it. At a subconcious level, they feel two things: (a) there is a lot of storage space in this house, (b) this house is organized, if I live here I will be organized and my life will be easier. This is the reason I say a professional Stager is part psychologist. We research studies like this and incorporate the learnings into our Staging techniques.

There are two maxims you need to keep in mind as you do this:
"The way you live in your house when it is for sale is NOT the way you live in your home."
"Staging is pre-packing to move."

Read each of those aloud three times and listen to what they mean.

Ready? Let's get simplifying.

Open every storage space that will be part of the sale (not your personal dresser drawers unless you are selling the dresser with the house). Take everything out.

Get a good household cleaner and clean the interior thoroughly.

Examine the things you took out. Throw away trash, damaged items, and out of date food stuff. Pile up the things you have never used, and realize you will never use, to be donated.

Think seriously about every item that you do use. Do you use it daily? Put it in a pile to go back in the contained space. Do you use it for special occasions like holidays? Put it in a pile to be packed. Is it redundant? For example, while you live in your for sale house, you do not need a spaghetti strainer and a colander. Keep the colander out - it serves a lot of purposes, pack the spaghetti strainer. Pack the good china away. If you have eight plates and two people live in the house, pack four of the plates. Pack out of season clothing.

Get a large sticker, make a lot of notes about what is in the box, then attach the sticker to the box. That way, you can find things if you need them later.

The goal is to have about 70% empty space in each storage area. At a later phase of the decluttering, we will use some of that empty space to store things. So, it will fill back up a bit. In the end, when the house is Staged, we want all contained spaces to be about 50% empty.

Now, you have a pile of things you use regularly. Everything else is stored, donated, or trashed.

Tomorrow we will talk about how to put those things back into the contained spaces.