When people put their home on the market to attract potential buyers, they have only two objectives: to get the house sold quickly and earn the price we have in mind.
A great start to decluttering to achieve a neat and dean appearance is to hold a yard sale to earn extra cash and to get rid of the things you don't need at the same time. You can use this cash for buyingstorage products and solutions, to be used when you start the actual process of clearing away the area.
One of the most important steps in staging your home for sale is to clear up the mess and get rid of extra furniture, old decorative items, unused kitchen appliances, and piles of books and newspapers. Some people only do this step, along with repainting their house, and manage to get a good price.
Decluttering can greatly improve the appearance of your home, but people fear how to go about doing it. Clearing everything out is easy when all you need to do is throw out the useless items. But it's not easy when you must put away certain things for future use and store the essentials, to clear away some space.
Let's look to how you can declutter the entire house effortlessly and quickly, to take staging your home to the next level, and be successful in selling it at the price you have in mind.
CLEARING EVERYTHING OUT
The best strategy is go room-by-room, including bedrooms, bathrooms, living room, dining room, and the kitchen to keep it simple and to not miss anything. Decluttering the kitchen is a major activity, though, and that’s why it will be covered in a separate blog post. Here, we’ll discuss how to declutter your rooms and arrange the essentials neatly so that they don’t make a mess of your home at such a critical time. Home showing is more than strangers coming to your house expecting a great experience -it's strangers who might make an offer and eventually purchase the property when they come over.
Before you start clearing out items from the bedrooms, bathrooms, and living areas, it's a good idea to look at the exterior of your home. This includes the garage, driveway, porch, and garden or lawn. Declutter these areas first, and then move indoors. Place all your tools in a box and store them away.
Get rid of any empty car oil bottles or cans. Bring minimalism to the entire area by either throwing useless items out or storing things you don't need or frequently use at least for the time being in a storage area until the sale is final.
BEDROOMS
- Avoid out-of-season clothes cluttering your closets, bureaus, beds, or furniture-tops. Your first step is to pack all these unwanted clothes in boxes or suitcases and put them away.
- Use affordable organizers to place in drawers and cupboards to organize your jewelry, toiletries, undergarments, and other items neatly to clear away some storage space.
- Take wall hangings down and store them. Leave on a few accent pieces, 'landscapes, or contemporary art prints - nothing personal.
- f you've got children at home, sort through their toy collection and keep only the items they play with regularly. Pack the others in boxes and store them, such as the attic or under the bed.
BATHROOMS
Remove all unnecessary items from shelves and keep only those that are required daily, like toothbrushes and toothpaste.
- Sort through prescription medicines to keep only those that are currently being taken. This is a good time to dispose of unused prescriptions in an appropriate way. Your local pharmacy will be glad to assist.
- Use a hanging bag or organizer for toiletries to neatly arrange them.
- Get rid of old shampoo, body wash, and lotion bottles. Keep only the essentials and if you need other items neatly place them on shelves or racks.
LIVING OR FAMILY ROOM
- Store all books and magazines in an area where they won't be seen. Better yet, get rid of the ones you don't need.
- Remove photo frames and other small decorative items and store them away.
- If there are toys around, take a basket or a small fabric toy container and store the toys neatly.
- Dedicate an area for placing all the gadgets along with chargers and remote controls so that they aren't scattered all over.
- If your living room also serves to be the entrance, make sure you have no trash cans or dust bins in sight of the door.
- Pay attention to high-traffic areas to declutter them, and make sure the doorbell and other electronic systems -like the intercom or security system - are working properly. If they require new batteries, change them.
- After the kitchen, it's usually the living or family room in which people are most interested. So, make it your goal to clear away unnecessary items from this area to make it inviting and cozy.
- The objective of decluttering is to make space for inviting features like a rocking chair or a neat magazine holder to give a final cozy look to your family or living room
SOLUTIONS FOR FAST AND EFFECTIVE DECLUTTERING
Of course, you don't want to spend too much time clearing out extra and useless items from your home. The goal should be to declutter as fast as you can and do it effectively.
There are some services that you can check out in this regard to achieve your objective successfully and in less time. DIY storage ideas are especially useful when it comes to decluttering and preparing your home for staging.
Before putting your home on the market, throw out things you don't need. So, when you're done clearing away some of the clutter, it's time to store the items you don't need (temporarily).
ONSITE STORAGE
Consider an onsite storage option for clearing away some of the clutter while keeping the essentials safely stored at a remote place. This option is becoming increasingly popular because of benefits, including low cost, convenience, and flexibility. The company providing the storage system drops off a container at your place, and you can fill it up the way you want.
Once you’re done putting in furniture, boxes, and cartons, you call them up again and they transfer the container to a secure storage location. The containers come in many different sizes and costs, and you can choose one according to your needs.
DECLUTTERING THE ATTIC
The attic is a place in just about every home where many things are just stored (often dumped), whether they are needed or not. Prospective home buyers will want to see your attic, not the boxes and “stuff” in your attic, so it’s high time you sort out the mess for things that are required and things that aren’t.
It’s a good idea to buy some plastic storage boxes with lids, baskets, and trash bags. Once you have a few storage boxes ready, label them with the type or category of things they hold. For example, one of the boxes may read “toys” another one “books and magazines”, and so on.
When going through the items stored in the attic categorize them and then start placing them in boxes accordingly.
If you're piling up boxes one over another, make sure you don't place the one containing the most-used-items at the bottom. It will be very difficult to take things out when you need them. Some of these boxes may even qualify for charity, but we will discuss this at the end of this chapter.
If there's outgrown baby stuff, including walkers, strollers, baby car seats, booster seats, and so on, simply get rid of them or make a point to give them away to friends or relatives.
TRUSS SHELVES
Truss shelves are mostly used in places like the attic to create shelves for storing boxes. These can be made at home, or ordered from a store. They are quite easy to install, and provide many benefits over stacked storage. AtticMaxx offers great shelving system solutions.
RAFTER HANGERS
If you have some items that can be easily stored using hangers, consider the option of using rafter hangers. You may also use hooks for efficient and easy hanging such as these from Amazon.
ATTIC DECK FLOORING
This type of flooring comes in many sizes and can be effectively used to increase floor space. It's specifically designed for attics and offers a great solution for increasing storage space in the attic for decluttering and organizing.
These decks.can hold up to 250 pounds of weight, which allows for convenient storage. Check out the above-mentioned solutions for fast and effective storage when you're decluttering the entire house.
STORING NONESSENTIALS UNTIL YOU MOVE
Decluttering can be a daunting task, and there is no guarantee when your home will be sold and how long you'll need to stay in a staged house. You might need the stuff you packed away or put in the attic.
But, at the same time, you should get rid of the clutter to make your home look neat and dean to the prospective home buyers. The solution is to store the things you don't need daily in storage boxes or cartons, and put them in a place where they won't be noticed.
When you require some of those items, you can easily take the box out and use the things you need. This method is going to save you time in the long run, when you finally get your home sold and it’s time to move. Since the clutter is already packed up, you will only have to move the cartons. Nonessentials can also be stored using containers.
CONCLUSION
Staging the home is a necessary step to make the buyers imagine your home as theirs. You should make all the required changes to make it appear more inviting, cozy, and neatt. If it's thoroughly cleaned up, spacious enough, and has been decorated according to the latest trends in home decor, they will decide favorably. This is what we all look for in homes that we view with an intention to buy. Declutter the entire house to achieve these goals and use as many tools and solutions available on the market to perform this step quickly and effortlessly. The money you pay for these products is an investment, because you want to sell your home for more. Your efforts are going to help you achieve this objective!