When staging your home, there really is no room more important than the kitchen. It has been called the heart of the home for some time, and how buyers feel about that one space can affect whether they buy your house or look for a different one. If you are selling your home, you are probably looking for home staging ideas that will keep buyers interested once they walk through the door, and that will help them see the value and the beauty in your home. Your entire home should be staged, ideally, but pay particular attention to the kitchen, you can really show buyers why they should choose your house over the others they have seen or may look at.
Make It Feel Like Home
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When buyers walk into your kitchen, you want them to feel like it’s their kitchen. They should feel right at home, and there are plenty of ways to give them that feeling. Some people have candles that smell like baked goods, or they actually bake something. While there are plenty of people who respond to that, some people may also have allergies, or they may thing you’re trying to hide bad smells by covering them up with good ones. Keep that in mind when you’re trying to decide whether you’re going to create a scent in your kitchen. In some cases it can work great, but it may also backfire.
Here are some useful tips to deodorizing your home.
Instead of choosing a particular scent, strive for something neutral and light. That will help everyone who comes to tour your house feel good about your kitchen, because it can provide them with their version of home instead of someone else’s. Warm, neutral colors can also go a long way toward helping buyers feel at home in your kitchen. When you choose colors that aren’t going to stand out too much, and that will appeal to the majority of people, you can help every buyer feel just a little more comfortable. That comfort can translate into a sale.
Avoid Making It Too Personal
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A lot of people really love to personalize their kitchen. It’s where they spend a lot of their time, so they want it to feel comfortable to them. With that in mind, though, that personalization can backfire when you’re showing your home to buyers. If it’s personalized for you, it doesn’t feel like home to them. Pictures of your family, aprons that make a statement about your life, coffee mugs with funny sayings, and even kitchen-related pictures or posters generally need to be taken down and stored when you’re about to have a buyer come through your home. A lack of personalization is the way to go.
Show Buyers They Can Really Cook
You want buyers to think your kitchen is pretty and cozy and welcoming, but you also want them to see that they can cook well in it. The layout of your kitchen is a big part of that, and most kitchens are designed around the “triangle” of sink, refrigerator, and stove. Even if your kitchen doesn’t have that particular pattern, though, you can still make it easier for buyers to see how they can cook in it. With clean appliances and a de-cluttered space that looks as large as possible, buyers will see that they can do a lot in your kitchen without making major upgrades. That helps them focus on all the positives, and can encourage them to make an offer on your house.
It All Has to Work
If there are problems with the appliances in your kitchen, if the faucet drips, or if the garbage disposal has been acting up lately, it’s a good thing to get all of that fixed before you start letting buyers come through. When preparing to list your home, look at everything in your kitchen with a critical eye. Test things out. Make sure they turn on and off properly, and there are no leaks, drips, loud noises, or malfunctioning appliances. There shouldn’t be any burners on the stove that don’t work, or lights burned out. All of those little things can really add up and make a buyer concerned about how well you maintained your home. That can mean no sale, and can be easily avoided.
When something in your kitchen doesn’t work right, you may just learn to live with it. Buyers won’t feel that way, so fixing it before they come through is critical. Then they can be happy about the great kitchen they’re getting, and you will be able to sell your home and move on. If you’re not sure about how to fix something in your kitchen the right way, calling in a professional is the best choice. You don’t want to fix something incorrectly and have a buyer worried that there may be other problems with the house that weren’t correctly repaired.
Don’t Forget the Accessories
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While you don’t want to make your kitchen cluttered or too personal, you do want to accessorize it to help with that homey feel and show how it can be used. Many people hang a neutral piece of artwork in their kitchen. They may also place a bowl of fruit or a small plate of cookies on the counter. A cookie jar, a kitchen towel, a knife block, or other types of accessories make sense. When they have a very neutral color pallet and don’t take up a lot of counter space, it’s easy to see why buyers will like them. Just make sure you don’t fill up your counter, because doing that can mean buyers see your kitchen as small. Having enough counter space is important to many buyers, and you want to make sure you give them what they’re looking for.
