One of the most important things you can do when selling a house is to “stage” it for potential buyers. Staging it not only focuses on your home’s beauty, but downplays any weaknesses.

And the secret to a great home staging? De-personalize and De-clutter.

De-personalize: To de-personalize is to remove all traces of “you” from your home so potential buyers can imagine themselves living in it.

De-clutter: To de-clutter is to remove trash and any items in the room that prevent buyers from seeing the full scope of the space.

1. Remove Collections 2. Take Down Photos or Paintings 3. Remove Anything Taste Specific

De-personalizing a space is often the hardest thing a homeowner can do, as you’re essentially removing yourself from your home, but remember it’s a necessary task to attract the best offers.

Removing collectables is the first step in de-personalizing your home. While your collectables may be important to you, they may overwhelm and distract potential buyers. Keep your collection at a storage facility or at your new home to keep your current garage clear and open. Typically, the living room takes the longest as that’s where people spend most of their time and keep their collectibles on display. Prepare to keep bubble wrap and packing peanuts handy for protection.

Photos and paintings are the most intimate items in the household and are often the hardest thing to pack away. It’s important to take down photos or paintings as it makes it difficult for potential buyers to imagine themselves living in your home. While these tokens may bring up wonderful memories for you, all a buyer sees is a reminder of another person’s life.

Remove and take down anything taste specific such as wallpaper, décor, lights, tables and even wall paint. When de-personalizing a home, it’s important to “neutralize” each individual room. Neutralizing doesn’t mean painting the walls beige and getting rid of all the furniture. Instead you need to eliminate anything that might turnoff your ideal buyer. Try to imagine your ideal buyer (their age, their income, their gender), then stage your home according to their tastes and not yours.

1. Start Early – Make a Plan 2. Categorize Your Items 3. Call For Help

De-cluttering may be one of the most important things you do to stage your home. Not only will clutter make your house look smaller, but creates a feeling of negativity and chaos in the space.

The most tedious of the home staging process, removing clutter often takes the most time and physical labor. That’s why it’s important to start early and make a plan. Give yourself enough time to carefully pack away or throw out your items. However, try to limit the time you spend on each room. Plan to also rent a storage space, dumpster and possibly schedule a charity van.

The easiest way to store and organize your items is to separate them into three categories. Depending on the size of your room. Purchase three boxes and label them: 1) Keep 2) Toss 3) Charity. As you pack away your things, start with the “keep” box first. Once that is full, designate the rest of your items to “toss” or “charity”. Limiting yourself to these three categorizes will help you quickly eliminate the clutter in the room while preventing the clutter being moved into your new home.

Organizing and cleaning a house isn’t easy, so don’t do it alone. From recruiting friends and family, to calling a professional moving service, enlisting all the help you can will both speed up the de-cluttering process and ensure all of your items are appropriately packed away and moved. Asking for outside help will also prevent you from lingering too long on one item or room, and give you the extra push to cleanup undesirable clutter.

When you’re selling a house, you need someone on your side to help you with all the heavy lifting. Since 1978, Shleppers Moving & Storage has provided moving and storage solutions for thousands of home owners and businesses across the country. For more information on how they can help you with your next move, please contact them at: (212) 223-4004 www.shleppers.com