Organize your closet. The expression “Never judge a book by its cover” applies in most cases. But when you’re selling a home, what else can potential buyers use to weigh their decision? It’s up to you, as the homeowner and seller, to manage impressions. This goes all the way down to the seemingly minutest of details, such as staging your closets for home sale.
As a professional organizer, I’ve spent no small amount of time staging closets, gradually refining my process through trial and error. In this article, I’ve broken my method down into 5 simple steps.
1. Place Excess Items In Storage
When you’re selling your home, there are two things buyers are going to be on the lookout for – storage space and proper maintenance. When your closets are cluttered with excess belongings, it not only creates the visual illusion of less space, but it looks disorganized. You don’t want to give the slightest impression that this disorganization reflects how well you live your life and take care of your home.
So thoroughly survey each of your closets in the house. Pull everything out and look at what you need, separating the absolute essential from the “nice-to-haves”. Then donate, sell, or place everything that falls outside of “bare minimum” into storage.
2. Keep Items Evenly Spaced
When decluttering your closets, try reducing the clutter to about 50% of the total volume. This will make it much easier to keep your closets neat and evenly spaced. Not only is this visually-appealing, but these extra efforts reflect well on you and diminish any doubts about how well-taken-care-of your home is.
3. Depersonalize Your Closets
Imagine walking into American Apparel or H&M to find mannequins holding tennis rackets, hockey sticks, or sporting religious talisman. You’d feel slightly lost or out of place because it seems targeted towards a different audience or “someone else”. Same goes for the personal items in your closet. You want to retain enough personal belongings as “placeholders” for buyers to mentally insert their own items into the picture. Too many personal items will to detract from this process.
4. Visually Organize Your Clothes
Another takeaway from clothing stores when staging your closets is visually organizing items on the racks. This makes it easy for both store personnel and patrons to find what they’re looking for. Likewise, if you organize your closet items based on item size, colour, and type, you’ll be able to efficiently declutter and pack while effortlessly accessing what you need. Not to mention, a well-organized closet serves as a blueprint for interested buyers to visualize how they’d organize their own belongings.
For example, have a designated section for linens, clothing, and towels. And then, within each section, arrange the linens and/or towels by colour, as well as clothing by likeness (e.g., long- vs short-sleeved shirts).
5. Use The Same Type Of Clothes-Hangers
Based on the size of your closets and what’s housed inside them, use the same hanger type and colour throughout your home to create a sense of cohesion, uniformity, and harmony. The type of hanger you use throughout your closet(s) might seem inconsequential, but paying attention to these little details actually does pay off!
As a general rule, I like to use velvet and sometimes plastic hangers for most clothing items. But I’ll opt for wooden hangers for heavier office jackets; they’re sturdy enough to keep the shoulders straight and prevent them from falling. They key is remaining consistent.
Selling your home is no small feat. But due to our busy lifestyles, it’s natural to overlook how small efforts, like staging your closets, can bring you that much closer to a successful sale.
Why not take a load off and hire a professional organizer in Vancouver today!
