Living in your Staged Home while you sell

My husband and I shop at discount stores a lot. And, when we find an exceptionally good deal, we tend to stock up. Big time.

Right now, in the linen closet in the master bath, there are five bottles of shampoo (regular store price: over $9; discount store price: $1), eight bottles of bath soap (regular over $5, discount $1), enough cotton balls to last us well beyond the rest of our lives, and a plethora of other, useful doo-dads all bought in quantity, all bought for less than 1/4 the regular price.

AND, we shop at thrift stores a lot. Then, we keep using things until they fall away to dust.

In that same linen closet, I count four bath sheets, eight bath towels, twenty hand towels, and - gulp - forty three wash cloths. The oldest is over thirty years old. Mind you, this is good quality stuff. Barring nuclear explosion in the bathroom, most of it will still be with me if I last another thirty years.

Mind you, this is for two people who rarely have spend-the-night guests.

In out clothes closet, I just counted my husband's cotton t-shirts: fifty eight short sleeved, twenty long sleeved (a few weekends ago, he packed most of his winter clothing and put it away). Most of it bought for between twenty five and seventy five cents a piece.

I am not the clothes horse I am married to. I spend most of my life in cut off blue jeans and a man's white cotton short sleeved t-shirt (bought on sale for a dime). Oh no, I just have a collection of vintage furniture in need or repair and painting in the basement. Specifically, filling about a third of the basement. Again, each piece cost about ten dollars.

Ours is not a Staged Home. We LIVE in it. Parts of it are as barren as the middle of the Sahara. To get through other parts of it, we have to use a machete to hack a trail.

When it is cleaned and straightened up, the clutter is hidden away and it actually looks rather nice.

Judging by homes I have staged, and by houses I see pictured for sale on the Internet, my home is pretty normal. Okay, maybe we over do it in stockpiling towels.

But, what if I was preparing to sell this house?

The vintage furniture would have to vanish, probably holding hands with a towering pile t-shirts. Three towels, three hand towels, three wash cloths are probably enough.

Straightening up would not be enough to merchandise the house. Other changes, a lot of other changes, would be needed. Framed pictures would have to come down. Furniture would have to be rearranged. Focal points would have to be painted.


Giant, hand painted, plaster snarling leopards would have to temporarily move to the zoo.


Living here would not be as convenient as it is now.


So, how would I survive? Just what is Living In Your Staged Home all about?

Tomorrow, we will begin to explore that question.

Have a wonderful Friday!