I still can’t believe that our house sold in less than one day and at 5% over asking. All I have to say is, timing is everything. And God is SO good. I’m so grateful that Gracie’s first year was spent in this house, and she got to experience all her important “first” right here, in the house we brought her home to.

I’m very bittersweet about leaving, I’m not going to lie. This house was never my dream/forever house, but it was our first house and so therefore very special to us. I only hope the next couple moving in create the same great memories here!

Ok so on to the good stuff! I spent a lot of time on Pinterest, searching ideas and tips on staging and selling your house. These are the ones I found to be the most helpful!

One} Get a storage unit. And then go through your house with a fine tooth comb and remove everything that you don’t absolutely need. The last thing a potential buyer wants to see is clutter. And lots of crap 🙂 They want to see big storage spaces, and spacious closets . We filled a 5×10 storage unit to the brim!

Two} Donate what you don’t need. While going through all your things, really think about if it’s an item that you can’t live without. We had boxes of things filled with items we didn’t even know we had! If you don’t miss it, you don’t need it. We made four big trips to our local Salvation Army and dropped things off. Make sure you get a receipt! You can also ….

Three} Sell what you can! I’m part of several local Facebook Yard Sale Groups, and I started posting items – from things like lamps, old baby items, to furniture. You’ll be amazed at how quickly that cash adds up! We took all the money from selling items this summer and put it in an envelope and are using it as our spending money on our trip next week.

Four} Deep clean. I hired a cleaning service, I found a great deal on Living Social and for under $60 my house was sparkling. We did it two days before our first open house, so that we would just have to maintain it for a couple of days. It was the best money spent!

Five} Stage! Staging is really more important than you think. Have you ever looked at houses for sale online? How many of them that are cluttered and messy do you hit the “x” button?  People want to see clean, simple and organized and not everyone has the ability to see past your clutter and use their imagination. The more simple it is, the easier it is for them to picture themselves living there! I went to HomeGoods and spent about $90 buying things to use throughout our house.

Want to see the final look? 🙂

  
  
  
  

One of the biggest tips that I followed was the “rules of three”. When staging I grouped items into clusters of three items. I’m not really sure why this makes such a big difference, but I found that two looked like something was missing, but four was too much!

Use fresh fruits and flowers where you can! A bowl of limes, lemons or other fruit is an easy focal piece. I placed cut hydrangeas from our yard in a vase next to the sink.

One tip that I found really interesting was to stage the top of your fridge! Since the fridge is the first thing that you see when you walk into our house, I decided to try it out. I used items that I already had in my house, and just created a nice beverage display. I think it looks so cute!

My agent told us we could keep one appliance out on our counters, so we went with our Keurig. I put it on a tray, with a glass jar of k-cups and a single flower in a vase. Rules of three again!

I applied this rule upstairs in our master bedroom as well, keeping three items on our nightstands.

And as a bonus – another group of three 🙂 Relaxing in my living room after all the hard work was done!

Now on to the fun part – packing!! I already have some tips and tricks coming up for you in the next few weeks 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!