We’re continuing to make progress on our goal of putting our house on the market this spring. The bedroom is done, the bathroom is done, and last week I got the guest room finished. The guest room had been sort of a multi-purpose room for the last few years. It had a bed, but it also had a desk and computer, filing cabinet, and another desk with a sewing machine on it. It made the room very useful for us, but it was very cluttered and not exactly what anyone would call “staged” for sale. So we cleared out everything except the bed and a night stand. We took all of our random maps and travel posters off the walls, and put up a single black and white framed Ansel Adams poster above the bed. The result is a classy room that feels wide open and spacious – exactly what we were looking for.
When we first started thinking about selling our house, my parents kindly offered to let us store our stuff in a house they own that is currently vacant. So last weekend we rented a 17 foot moving truck and packed it from one end to the other. All of that stuff is now stored in my parents’ vacant house, and our house feels so much bigger! We took our bookcases, a loveseat, two desks, our TV and the table it was on, a bunch of baby stuff that our son has outgrown, and TONS of other, smaller stuff. We donated quite a pile too, and threw out a bunch of stuff. It feels so much better in our house now without all of that stuff taking up space. It’s easier to clean, because there isn’t as much stuff to clean around. The best part is that our entire main floor is now babyproofed. All of the stuff that we used to have to block off (gigantic plant, TV, bookcase) is now gone, so he can cruise around to his heart’s content. Much easier. I have a feeling that when we eventually get a new house and go to pick up the stuff we’ve put in storage, we might find ourselves donating even more stuff in order to keep things clutter-free…
I recently googled “staging a house for sale” and have been reading everything I can find. You can pay someone to do it for you, but that’s not my style 
The basics are obvious: clear out as much stuff as you can, paint, clean, etc. But there’s a lot more that you can do to help a house sell, and we figure we can use all the help we can get. So I’ve been happily browsing the various sites that pulled up in my google search. I had thought we were almost finished with our sprucing-up projects, but now I have a list with about 15 more things on it. For the most part, we’re only doing things that are free (or very inexpensive) and just require time and elbow grease. And things are truly shaping up around here. Hopefully it works and someone will want to buy our house!
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