You (Yes, You) Can Stage Your House for Sale Yourself

Before hiring a professional, look around your house and see what you can do with what you already have.

I was recently chatting with a real estate agent of my acquaintance about his new listing and, more specifically, how much I loved the photos. The home looked light, bright, and airy, in no small part due to the pitch-perfect staging—a chunky wool throw draped across a rust-colored velvet couch, a vintage-y looking gilded mirror propped up on the mantel, and just the right amount of knickknacks (enough so that the space didn’t seem bare, not so many that it looked cramped).

When I complimented him on the staging, his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

"Would you believe," he said. "They did it themselves—with their own stuff!"

Now, many agents and sellers do like to bring in the pros to stage a home for sale, and for good reason—according to the National Association of Realtors, 58 percent of buyers’ agents called out the staging of a house as a reason clients liked it, and 81 percent said the staging of a house helped clients visualize themselves living there.

Professional staging, though, takes time and money, and if you’ve already got stuff in your house to begin with—it’s your actual home, after all, so you probably do—it doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money or time. Or maybe it’s the home of a recently-departed loved one and you need to get it sold before you’re stuck with an extra month of eye-poppingly expensive water bills when you personally live in an apartment across the country and have never paid a water bill in your life! That last one is hyper-specific to me, but also relevant to this story, because I did in fact pull off a DIY staging using a mix of objects that were already in the house and a few outlet-store finds, and it looked, if I may say so, pretty good! Also, the house sold quickly, which was the goal all along.

Here’s what I learned about what to do, what not to do, and how to make a missing cabinet door seem like it’s missing on purpose.

Getting (Im)Personal

The goal with staging is to let potential buyers imagine themselves living in your house—to let them imagine that they’re walking around their house. Part of that is being judicious about touches of you that remain—it’s worth doing a few sweeps at different points in the process, looking for items that jump out at you as "yours."

For many years, the centerpiece of my dad’s mantel was a large framed photograph of me, approximately aged 7, posed in a photography studio in front of a fake sunset and wearing a very ‘90s-core floral dress. As much as I liked showing this artifact to friends who came to visit over the years, I knew too many family photos were a no-no when it comes to staging, so into the garage it went. I didn’t totally depersonalize the space—a few smaller framed photos, taken mostly at Civil War battlefields, added warmth to otherwise stark white walls.

Use what you have

Professional stagers often work with rental companies, bringing in furniture, art, and even kitchen appliances to empty homes. If you’re doing it yourself, though, there’s a good chance pieces already in your house can be repurposed. In my case, that meant moving an old kitchen table into a guest bedroom in an attempt to stage an appealing home office. I’m also a fan of ceramic utensil holders turned into vases (here’s another tip: fill it with fake flowers!), a Dutch oven set out to make the kitchen look cozy and easy to cook in, and winter blankets on the bed regardless of the season. Also, put a set of wine glasses out somewhere—people love that.

And acquire what you don’t (within reason!)

It was very tempting to rush out to HomeGoods and channel my stress into giving my dad’s house some kind of bootleg HGTV makeover, but I resisted! (Kind of.) I set a strict budget and picked out a few things designed to make what was already there look better—a mirror to replace the aforementioned ‘90s portrait of yours truly, a small faux-floral centerpiece to set on the dining room table, and a small rug to set in front of sliding glass doors.

Play up your best angles…

When staging a house, you have to think about both main points of interest (like the living room, kitchen, and primary bedroom) and where your space really shines. In my case, that meant spending extra time setting up the sunroom bar, a bonus space that emphasized the home’s indoor-outdoor livability. I set wine, glasses, and an ice bucket up at one end of the bar, and artfully draped a pool towel over the chair as a reminder that there was a pool steps away. In the living room, we moved the loveseat from its original spot into a new one, a trick that made the room feel instantly bigger.

…and gently draw attention away from the ones that aren’t so great

In one of the home’s bathrooms, a vanity that should have been replaced a decade earlier (every time I brought this up with my dad while he was alive, he seemed genuinely perplexed by this sentiment—what would he want with a new vanity?) was missing a drawer. It looked… not great. It looked broken! I knew anyone serious about buying the house would probably want to redo this bathroom anyway, but I didn’t like the way it worked, so I improvised, finding a basket that fit perfectly into the slot where the drawer should be—now, it wasn’t a missing drawer. It was a cute and functional sliding basket filled with hand towels! A metaphor if ever there was one, no?

Top image: Cavan Images/Getty

Related Reading: 

What to Do With Your Loved Ones’ Possessions After They’re Gone

How to Live With Minimal Storage Space Without Losing Your Mind

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