If you want to stage your home so it sells in a flash,  93% of Realtors highly recommend that you declutter and organize the house first.  Having a house that potential buyers can imagine themselves living in takes some work, but it pays off in higher sale prices and shorter time on market. 

In this article, we'll be sharing ideas for organizing and staging the living room, master bedroom, and kitchen, so you you can sell you house faster.  AreaReal Estate professional Leigh Bryant, of The Temple Team at Keller Williams, will also share some of the tricks of the trade with our readers. 

Source: ​National Association of Realtors 2017 Profile of Home Staging

1. Paint your walls a neutral color​​: now is NOT the time to show your personality through color. Potential buyers want to be able to envision themselves living in the home; it's tough if they are distracted by blazing lime green walls. Freshen the space up with a new coat of a soothing, neutral color. 
2. DECLUTTER: this is the number one piece of advice Realtors give to their sellers. Warning: Do NOT "hide" the excess clutter in closets....buyers look in closets, too.  Remove excess clutter, box it up and put into storage.  
3. Help buyers imagine living there. Create "cozy" vignettes, like a quiet reading nook in the corner. 

Pro tip from Real Estate professional Leigh Bryant of The Temple Team at Keller Williams: The day the house is photographed for the online listing is the most important day of the selling process. The house should be perfectly staged for photos: those pictures are what cause buyers to want to visit your home...or not. 

1. Remove all personal items.  Yes: even your wedding photos, photos of your children, and any religious icons.  Same goes for any clothing, personal care items (like perfume bottles), and artwork.  There should be no evidence of the people that live in the home. 
2. Stage the closets, too.  Buyers are always thinking about storage space; show case the available space in the closets. Real Estate professional Leigh Bryant suggests that clients "channel  Martha Stewart" whenorganizing their closets before photographs and showings. A good suggestion is to have the closets 50% empty.  
3. Make the room calming and spa-like.  The room should be well-lit, be spotlessly clean, and smells pleasing.  Creating vignettes, like a reading area or a window seat, helps the buyers envision how they would use the space. 

Pro Tip from Professional Organizer Candi Ruppert of Sage Organizing Co.: to make your closet appear larger, use hangers of the same color throughout the whole closet. Organize the shortest garments at the front of the closet and the longer items toward the back. 

Related Articles:

• How to Sort Like a Pro: Advice from a Professional Organizer
• Declutter, Donate, and Deduct

• 4 Kitchen Organizing Secrets That Will Blow Your Mind

1. Pay special attention to decluttering and organizing the cabinets and drawers.  Home buyers can and will look inside your cabinets to assess the storage space. Cabinets and drawers should be 50% empty, clean and look like a Crate and Barrel display. Box up and put your excess kitchen items in storage. 
2. Only leave 2 appliances on the counter-top, at the most.  A coffee-maker is acceptable, but make every effort to not have anything else on the counter. Your counters should be clean, empty, and showcase the space.
3. Create a pretty scene at the sink.  Your sink should be spotlessly clean and smell like heaven (run lemons through the disposal if odor is an issue). Have a pretty dishtowel, some fancy dish soap and a new washcloth/sponge laid out. 

Pro Tip from Real Estate Professional Leigh Bryant: Don't let the decision of whether to hire a staging expert come down to money. 90% of the time, the cost of hiring a stager is recouped in a higher sale price or shorter time on market. 

Related Articles:

• 6 Things to Not Bother Collecting Anymore (and How to Tell What IS Worth Holding Onto)
• How to Sort Like a Pro: Advice from a Professional Organizer
• Hoarder, Pack-rat, or Just Messy: 3 Ways to Tell the Difference

Using these 9 tips and ideas will help you beautifully stage your home so it sells in a flash!

​I think it’s safe to say that if you are a normal person living in an average home, you probably have some strong feelings about your closets.  Are we talking about pride, joy, and/or total bliss?  Ah…. no.  If you’re anything like me, you have been embarrassed, frustrated, and sometimes just ticked off your closet.  Too many clothes!  Nothing fits!  How did the floor disappear?  Isn’t it crazy how that little bit of square footage in your house can make you feel so overwhelmed and unorganized?
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In this post, I'll be talking about how I used the Three Commandments of Closet Organization to totally revamp my personal closet.  After I learned these tricks of the trade, I started helping clients turn their closets in a happy place.  Today, I’ll share all the details to help you do the same.

​As a Professional Organizer, I’ve learned that whether you are organizing a closet, a garage, or a sock drawer, there are 3 steps you need to take with every single project. It can be so overwhelming to tackle a project, but if you can follow these three rules, you’re on your way.   Are you ready for me to drop this  closet organization knowledge on you?!?  Get ready to have your mind blown:
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Commandment One: Reduce
Commandment Two: Arrange
Commandment Three: Maintain.
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Sounds so simple, right!?!? Well, let’s take a closer look at how you can do it.

​Before you start organizing a closet, you first should reduce the amount of inventory on hand. Or, to put it in simpler terms, Just Throw Stuff Away, Already.


​I had all these items in my closet, and I’ll guess you probably do too. 
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• Sentimental garments (dresses from my rehearsal dinner 20 years ago, college formal dresses, a leather jacket my late grandmother bought me circa 1987).
• “Skinny” clothes (that totally don’t fit) and “heavy” clothes (that totally don’t fit)
• Clothes that I bought and never wore, but felt too guilty to donate.
• “Maybe I’ll Wear That If I’m Invited to a Alligator Allergy Awareness Gala” (or some other obscure event), which can also be the “I Once Wore That to a Fabulous Party.”  I’m looking at you, 2011 Steeplechase dress and hat.
• Shoes that don’t fit, are out of style, or are too worn out to wear
• Every handbag I had ever owned
• A floor covered by laundry, things I didn’t want to rehang, and other random junk.

I knew stuff had to go.  I KNEW it… but I needed some inspiration.  Lucky for me, this was right about the same time that the book,  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo,  was all the rage. So, I read it and despite all the Zen/hippy-dippy stuff in there, I walked away with one piece of true wisdom.  Only keep the things that make you feel happy.

Did the shirt I once wore to a company Christmas party in the late 90’s make me feel happy?  No : I just felt bad it was too small now. How about the leather jacket my grandma bought me? No: I kept it because my late grandma bought it, even though I hadn’t worn it in over a decade.  Did the expensive dress I wore once to a wedding make me happy? No, but it was so expensive I thought I thought I should hang on to it.

Did any of it make me happy? Well, yes!  There were a lot of garments that I loved, that fit me well, and/or that I loved.  And yes, I kept my rehearsal dinner dress. I will never wear it again, but it truly makes me happy.
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So that became my rule: If it makes me happy, it stays.  If it doesn’t, it goes. And once I made peace with that rule, it was amazingly easy to get rid of things. A LOT of things.  Like, bags and bags and bags of consignment and Goodwill items. 

​So now that you’ve got a lot less inventory in the closet, you can figure out how you want to organize it. Here are a few of my professional guidelines. 

Get rid of the wire hangers.  

​They are an eyesore, but they also don’t support your garments well. In time, they will bend and bow and ruin the lines of your garment. Ladies, you have nice things, so treat them well.  I don't care if it is a Target t-shirt: treat your clothes nicely!

​Have all your hangers match.
​This eliminates the visual clutter in your closet.    If you can afford it, slowly invest in and build up a supply of the velvet lined slimline hangers. (Better Homes and Gardens makes a box set of 30 that you can purchase at Walmart). Slimline hangers allow you to hang more garments in the same amount of space. I also love that garments don't slip off the hanger. 

​If slimlines aren’t in your budget, you can always purchase plastic hangers.  This may be my OCD, but try to do all one color.  Again, it eliminates the visual clutter.   Note: I've started seeing plastic slim hangers in stores, but have yet to try them out.  Let me know in the comment section below if you've used them!  I'd love to hear how they work.

Arrange by function (not color).  I believe you should put like-items together. That means all work tops in one zone, casual tops in a different zone, etc.  Then within each zone, arrange by length. So, in Work Tops, go Sleeveless to Long Sleeve.  In Pants, go Capri to Bootcut.  When you’re getting dressed, you think about what you are doing that day and/or the weather.  You don’t say “Oh, it’s hot today. I think I’ll wear green”.  You say “It’s hot and I have to work. I’d like a sleeveless top”. 

Put the things you wear most frequently closest to the door.
If you work 40 hours a week, put your nice work clothes up front.  If you seldom dress up, put your casual things closest to the door.  I personally like to put the trendy seasonal items at the front of my closet, and the classic pieces further back. However you dress is the way you should organize your closet. 

​Now that you’ve hauled out tons to donate and/or sell and your stuff is all gorgeously arranged, you want to keep it that way.  

Let's move on to the third Commandment of Closet Organization. 

Want to keep your closet under control?  Then it's all about the ratios, my friends.

Follow the One In, One Out rule.  It’s easy.  If you buy one new shirt, you must get rid of one old shirt.  Two new dresses?  Gotta donate 2 old dresses, pal. If you can make yourself follow this rule, your closet will never again get out of control.  PREACH~!

Need to thin out your items quicker?  Try a One In, TWO Out ratio.  
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Want to be even a little more hardcore?  Don’t keep extra hangers around.  That way you can’t “cheat” the One In, One Out rule because there aren’t extra hangers.  It’s brutal, but I’m here to tell you, it works.

I'm going to be honest: it takes time, patience, a couple gut-checks, and sometimes a little money, but you can organize and maintain your closet if you follow the 3 Commandments.   

Let's hear your questions in the comments section!  Do you think the 3 Commandments will work for you?!?

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