What is home staging? Home staging is an essential part of preparing your home for sale. Your property is the same, but home staging strives to make your house the best it can to potential buyers. 

Home staging is important because most buyers don't see the house as what it 'could' look like, and instead see it as what it does look like. If your house is cluttered, could use some cleaning, and seems small, chances are that's how the buyers will see it as. To make your house more appealing, home staging involves decluttering items, rearranging furniture, lots of cleaning, and depersonalizing, and possibly even landscaping if the house.

Every home has its messes. You're not selling your home, you're selling a house. I hate to say minimalist, but that's what your aiming for. The more things you have in your house, the smaller it's going to look.

- Take the random papers and miscellaneous objects off the counters, tables, coffee tables.

- Declutter those overfilling kitchen cabinets! Clear off those kitchen counters too. You can leave small appliances like the microwave, and maybe a bowl of fruit for aesthetics, but that's it. It might not seem practical, but you want to maximize the amount of counterspace you seem to have.

- Take excess clothes (and other stuff) out of the closets. Store them somewhere. You might have difficulty cramming everything into the closet, but you don't want buyers knowing that. And don't think they won't look in the closet, they will.

- Take a look at the things in your house. Whatever accessories you have, make sure they're contributing to the house.

- DEPERSONALIZE. House, not home. This involves taking down familly pictures, drawings and magnets on the fridge, and all that stuff. When a potential buyer comes, you may want to temporary store your personal items like toothbrushes and shampoos somewhere (not the medicine cabinet!) Keep the bathroom counter clear.

What does this mean? Say your living room has a big, 3pc set consisting of a threeseat sofa, a loveseat, and an armchair. Your living room isn't spacious, but you get around, in fact you get around quite fine. Well, perhaps your living room needs to be made spacious. You can't make the room bigger, but you can create more space to walk, which makes it seem bigger. How about moving out the armchair or loveseat? Move it to the garage. If that's not an option, rearrange it for more space.

Basically, if you have a lot of furniture in a not so big room, if you can, take it out. IKEA may endorse 2-in-1 family room/offices, but buyers may just see 'too much stuff'

When you stage your house, it may just be as clean as you've ever seen it. Scrub the floors, the baseboards, behind the fridge... Sweep up those cheerios under the fridge, clean the gunk on top of the fridge. Just clean everything everywhere.

If you maintain a very clean home, this part won't be so difficult. My house however, was not in great shape. My entire family spent an entire day of deep cleaning, and had to maintain it every time we had a showing appointment. It was hard, but no one said selling your house would be easy.

A fresh coat of paint can make a big difference - if you have the time to let the paint fumes evaporate. Paint is one of the least expensive but most effective investments you can make for home staging.

If the colors in your house work well, repaint the same colors. If not, try to stick to neutrals. Go to Home Depot or another paint store and look at the brochures, and paint. You want a color palette that's going to be (almost) universally appealing. If you still have white walls, I highly suggest you paint them. In most houses, white walls can seem plain and unwelcoming.

If you don't want to repaint the walls, try the baseboards. (You can see I'm really big on baseboards). A fresh coat of white on baseboards makes a huge difference. A fresh coat of paint on the front door (and/or garage) is high impact too, because it's the first thing buyers see. Makes the house seem newer.

Certain houses can benefit from new floors, new counters, new carpet, new whatever... But if you make an investment like that, you have to be sure you can make it back. You may spend $5,000 on new hardwood floors, which is a big bonus to buyers, but the buyers most interested in the house may not even like the hardwood floors, and even if they do, it doesn't mean (i.e. rarely means) you can sell the house for $5,000 more.

However, if your floors are in bad shape, installing new floors can be a worthwhile investment. It may be the only thing deterring buyers from making an offer. For example, my aunt put her house up for sale. Her agent told her to install new carpets, as her current ones were old and dirty. She thought, "If someone doesn't like my carpet, they can get new ones themselves. It's not a big deal." WRONG. After six months of no offers, she finally got new carpets. Within a week the house sold.

Professional home stagers are industry specialists that will come and for a fee, optimally stage your home. They will put the house in its best showcase condition. They consider the views of the room, the path that buyers will take when they come into the house... all that stuff.

Professionals can also lend you accessories, artwork (to replace family pictures on the otherwise empty walls), and even more appropriate furniture. Professionals claim that a professionally staged home will sell for much more. But remember, intense home staging is yet another investment. It's not a personal decision, but a financial one. It also depends if you have time, or you need this to be a fast sale. If you're unsure, call a reputable company for an estimate.

Home staging, unlike a home makeover, consists of more subtle things to make your house more appealing and more attractive to buyers. It usually just means making your house seem 'nicer' and more spacious. Don't overlook it, I can't emphasize how important home staging is, even if it's just minimial staging.

After you stage your house, you might not even be able to recognize it. It might seem different, bigger, maybe even unpractical. Having to store your toothbrushes away for showings is hard. Make use of boxes and the garage. Take it as an opportunity to clear away all the junk.

Selling a house isn't easy. Sometimes you have to let go of the emotional appeal. It's easy to think that buyers will see beyond the little messes and clutter, and look at the facts, like the general layout, and the number of bedrooms, the location. But if that were true, they wouldn't be coming to see the house. Home staging is preparing your house to make buyers fall in love with it.