Sellers: Make Your House Feel More Spacious

When selling your home, it's important to make the rooms feel as spacious as possible to maximize the appeal to buyers. Even if you feel like your home is too small, there are ways to make it feel bigger! Here are a few tips from our real estate agents for creating a light, airy, spacious feel inside your home.

• Clear the clutter. The first, and possibly the most important, thing you can do is to clear as much clutter as possible. Sometimes, this will mean making a long-overdue trip to the thrift store to donate all the stuff you no longer want or need. But when you get down to the stuff you don't want to get rid of, consider getting a storage unit for things you don't use daily, such as off-season clothes and other items. Even decluttering the closets is valuable since ones only partially filled emphasize available space.
  
  
• Utilize blank spaces. Sometimes the spaces we don't fill are more important than those we do. For instance, maintaining clear surfaces such as counters and tabletops during the selling process will make your home seem uncluttered, bigger, and less personal so that potential buyers can imagine themselves living in it. The same goes for both wall and floor space. Less is more when it comes to furniture, even if you need to put some things in storage to maximize the open floor space. Pull your furniture away from the walls to make the room feel less crowded, and emphasize wall space by having less hanging there.
  
  
• Update lighting. If you're planning on making a few inexpensive updates before listing your home for sale, updating lighting should be one of them. Browse other Wichita homes for sale if you need ideas on what types of lighting are popular with buyers. Even something as simple as swapping outdated fixtures for modern ones can improve the home's overall look. Don't forget to open the curtains or blinds and turn on all the lights before a showing! Don't worry about having too much lighting, as floor and table lamps can complement overhead fixtures and create multi-layered lighting. Brightly lit rooms will feel larger and airier to prospective buyers.
  
  
• Paint the walls with lighter colors. Dark colors may be in fashion, but lighter, neutral tones will better help to sell your home. Neutral paint colors appeal to a wider range of buyers and allow them to imagine themselves living there more easily. Dark walls also close in a room and make it feel more intimate by absorbing the light, while lighter walls open it up by reflecting and enhancing light. And remember: well-lit rooms sell homes! Leave trim and moldings white or paint them lighter than the walls to give the impression of the walls being farther away.
  
  
• Hang mirrors. Do you have small spaces in your home where no amount of light paint is going to change? When you hang a large mirror, narrow hallways and entryways can seem much bigger. The mirror provides an illusion of more space and reflects and maximizes the light. Place your mirror strategically to catch the light just right, and visually expand the space where it's most needed.

Staging is one of the most important steps when you're getting ready to sell your home. For more tips on how to stage your home or to get the selling process started, contact us today.