Fall House Hunt

All the world’s a stage, so make your home its star

We asked professional stagers and organizers for tips on how to make a property attractive to prospective buyers. Don’t worry. You don’t have to Marie Kondo the place.

Once dark and cluttered, this living room gets a lift from streamlined furniture, bright carpeting, and accessories that spotlight the room’s scale. Photos by Kimberly Hackett of KLH Home Staging

By Kara Baskin

5 minutes to read

Oh, happy day. Your beloved granny has willed you a Victorian in a coveted Boston suburb. A handsome profit awaits: That is if the new buyers overlook the gaudy furniture, dizzying wallpaper, and mothball aroma. It’s often aesthetically smart — and financially savvy — to hire a stager to present your home in its best light (sometimes literally: granny’s chandeliers really should go).

According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2023 “Profile of Home Staging,” 81 percent of buyer’s agents said “staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home,” and 58 percent said it “had an effect on most buyers’ view of the home most of the time.”

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The most important rooms to stage: the living room (39 percent), the primary bedroom (36 percent), and the kitchen (30 percent).

“In this market, houses are selling left and right, sometimes regardless of the level of effort that you’ve put into getting your house ready for sale. But, when a stager comes into the mix, you’re getting more potential buyers to look at the property and more competition when it comes to getting offers,” said Kimberly Hackett of KLH Home Staging in Woburn.

We asked the professionals for small staging upgrades that make a big impact:

Don’t strip your home bare. Your abode shouldn’t resemble an operating room.

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“The surprising fact is, we don’t want you to overly declutter your house. We want potential buyers to walk in and view this as a happy home,” said Kerry Landry of Kerry Landry Homes in Groton.

By all means, remove polarizing political memorabilia or garish wall hangings. But a barren house is often a sad one.

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“We don’t want shadows of picture frames on the wall that displayed happy memories and a happy life,” Landry said.

A few black-and-white family photos, a large coffee table book or two (larger items photograph better, experts say), and pops of colorful flowers in vases make a home look lived-in.

But do declutter. This means divesting high-impact areas like hallways and mudrooms of outerwear, dog leashes, and shoes.

“If you have clutter in those spaces, it can look like there’s not enough storage in the home. It becomes the first thing people notice instead of your house,” warned Arlington-based certified professional organizer Wendy Buglio.

Let mirrors work magic. Consider a mirror over a sofa or mantel where personal items once hung. The benefit is twofold: “Mirrors create the illusion of space,” Landry said. “They also help people picture themselves, literally, in the home.”

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Embrace kitchen storage. “People will be opening your closets, your cupboards, and your cabinets. They’re going to nose around,” Buglio said.

Fresh white bedspreads give rooms a lift. With the transformation of this space, buyers can see that, with artful arranging, a study can serve as a bedroom.

With that in mind, put half your dishes, glassware, and pantry food into bins. At the same time, take this opportunity to ditch expired spices and the exotic grapeseed oil you used once in 2012.

“If you open a cabinet and there’s a stack of six plates with space, it can really give that impression of breathability and space,” Buglio said.

Keep your closets (somewhat) full. Potential buyers shouldn’t open a closet only to have a broom hit them in the head. That said, empty closets don’t offer a sense of proportion.

“One recent seller had a huge walk-in closet, and they took everything out. It was really hard to scale how big the closet was and to visualize,” Landry said. She advises clients to pare down but to leave some items inside: shoeboxes, a few shirts, a couple of jackets for context.

Clean up after your pets. Landry often encounters homes unintentionally accessorized with dog dishes or a litter box.

“A buyer might be allergic to cats, for example. It’s hard to picture yourself in a home, if something is, for lack of a better word, attacking you,” she said. Store Rover’s necessities in a basement corner.

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Use your scents. If you have a little more time, Landry loves Kilz Restoration paints. The primer, sealer, and stain blocker eliminates stains and squelches pet, food, and smoke odors.

“Using a fresh coat of paint takes away a lot more smells than you think,” said Landry, who once encountered a home north of Boston that was smoke-ridden to the point that a stream of buyers opened the door, sniffed, and fled.

Match a room to its purpose. This means no Pelotons in the dining room or yoga mats in the den. If possible, move them to storage; if not, put them in the basement.

“Buyers should leave a property with a mental map of the space, so all rooms should be presented with the optimal function. For instance: Some people take over a small bedroom to use as a dressing room. For staging, they should convert it back to a bedroom,” said Allison Tilly Carswell from Red Door Design + Staging in Woburn.

Neutralize the walls. If your teen painted his bedroom maroon or grandma has paisley powder room walls, Hackett recommended Benjamin Moore’s “Simply White” paint for maximum neutrality.

“A lot of buyers don’t want to do any work once they’ve moved into their new house. This generation of first-time home buyers really don’t have the same skill set that people had 20-plus years ago. Everyone’s focused on working and their careers, and people don’t often want to come home and do a lot of DIY,” Hackett warned.

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While you’re at it, remove trophies, medals, or family galleries from the walls, too.

“These are the types of things that can be really distracting when you’re walking through a house as a buyer. You’re looking at someone’s home, and the next thing you know, you realize you went to high school with that person and now you’re looking around this house in a totally different light,” she said.

Nobody wants to move into their prom date’s old bedroom. Go minimal.

Invest in fresh towels and bedding. Often an afterthought, plump, fresh towels (Hackett recommended white) and fresh bedspreads give rooms a lift.

“Who doesn’t love walking into a space and feeling like they’ve just walked into a hotel room?” Hackett asked.

Don’t bottom out. Last but definitely not least: Don’t throw your junk into the basement and pray. Buyers will meander, inspecting wiring and utilities. They needn’t trip into your furnace.

“While basements aren’t always photographed, you want them to look tidy, stacked neatly, clean, and accessible. You want a clear path to the mechanicals so that buyers can get in there and see the equipment,” Buglio said.

After all, you get only one chance to make a first impression.

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