All of us have our homes filled with our personal treasures. They tell our story, our history, our personality. But when you venture in to the world of considering properties for your own new home, do you want to be exposed to another person’s ‘stuff’?

Staging Your Home

I recently tackled the daunting task of cleaning out my own attic. My sons have delicately suggested that they didn’t want to be left with the task when I move on to perfectly mowed pastures. I rediscovered a potpourri of things I had long since forgotten I kept. Guess I couldn’t part with them then and I’m not sure I can now. I’m positive that most of it grows back in the darkness of the attic when I’m not looking, kind of like truffles. Freshly polished and hermetically preserved adorable baby shoes, for example, were still in the Stride-Rite box they came in from my oldest son who is now 42 years old and wears a size 13 shoe for his 6’4″ frame. Is this necessary to have kept all these years? But on the other hand, how do I throw them out? Does anyone remember his first steps and how proud I was and thrilled to buy my first child his first pair of shoes? How can they be destined for the garbage?

The mobile I made with felt animals I carefully created to hang above both my children’s cribs, record albums, their lovey stuffed animals they couldn’t go to sleep without, car seats, framed photos, and on and on and on were all treasures I “found”. Somebody has to go thru this stuff, make decisions to save or chuck, and be emotionally unattached to accomplish the task. I’m really not sure it’s me.

When I enter someone’s home as a friend, a guest, or a family member, I’m charmed and interested (but truth be told, sometimes bored) in seeing their memorabilia. It’s an eye in to their lives. However, as a Realtor and an Interior Designer, I firmly believe a client should REMOVE THEIR PERSONAL STUFF. LESS IS MORE. DE-CLUTTER. DE-PERSONALIZE. DELETE. UN-DECORATE! That’s staging!

The goal is to enable a buyer to visualize themselves living in the property. Distractions of another person’s collections makes it tough if not impossible to have that vision. And in this real estate market, nobody wants to shoot themselves in the foot. Don’t take a chance – a well staged house shouldn’t have the edge over an unstaged one. If you have window treatments for example that block out natural light, eliminate them. If, however, your window treatments block an awful view from another property that’s an eyesore, keep them. But if they’re not in perfect condition or are heavy and old fashioned, please get rid of them.