4 Ways Home Staging Can Help When You Are Downsizing
Downsizing to a smaller home is a great way to improve your lifestyle. It can help you save money, move into a place with more amenities, and give you less to worry about because you have less to take care of.
The actual process of downsizing can be challenging, though. It is emotional to part with things that won’t fit into the new space. However, home staging can be very helpful in making this transition a smoother one.
Here are some ways home staging can be beneficial to downsizing.
How Home Staging Helps with Downsizing
Decluttering
Home staging and downsizing have their #1 task in common: decluttering. When you are staging a home for sale, it’s important to declutter as much as possible so each space, including storage space, appears larger and more appealing. Similarly, when you are downsizing, your first priority is to pare down your items so you can comfortably fit into a smaller residence.
Before you put your home on the market, get to decluttering. Not only will this give you a jumpstart on the moving process, but it will also make your home more appealing to buyers so you can sell it faster and for top dollar.
Editing your décor
In a smaller place, there will naturally be less space to decorate. Plus, you may want to decorate a little differently to enhance the size of each room and make the home feel more open since you will be going down in square footage.
The same principles apply in home staging. Even if the home you’re selling is very large, a lot of distracting décor can actually make it seem smaller than it is. In home staging, we recommend neutralizing your décor to make it appealing to as many buyers as possible.
For downsizing, this will give you the opportunity to edit what you have. You may find that the more neutral aspects of the staging work well in your new, smaller place because it helps open it up. If anything, you’ll have less décor to bring with you so you can start fresh in the new place and give it its own identity.
Embracing that less is more
We all get used to having a lot of stuff around us in our homes as we accumulate it through the years. This is the hardest part of downsizing: parting with things we love and are used to having around. In home staging, too much stuff can be a distraction and deterrent to buyers. By editing your décor, you will also be getting used to having less around to benefit downsizing later. Once you’ve sold your home, you’ll already have had practice living with less, so it won’t be such a shock when you move into your smaller place.
Plus, it’s a little easier to get rid of things with the motivation to sell your home quicker and for more money than it is if you think about getting rid of it in order to downsize. It’s a little psychological trick that can be very helpful.
Thinking more about furniture arrangement
Furniture arrangement has a great impact on how large and open a space feels. As home stagers, we spend a lot of time making sure we choose the best arrangements so buyers will feel comfortable in each room as soon as they walk in. This often results in removing some pieces of furniture in order to open it up more. It’s a good introduction to optimizing a space so you’ll be prepared to do the same in your new place.