Center Stage: Tips for Staging Your Home on a Budget

Between buying a new home and transporting yourself and your belongings to it, moving can be an expensive process. One often underrecognized cost of moving occurs before one’s original house has even been sold, and that’s staging the house. Homeowners often spend hundreds of dollars making a home appealing to potential buyers. To ease the financial burden of moving, here are several tips for staging your home on a budget.


Downsize Instead of Storing

The goal of staging a home is to create a blank canvas that potential buyers can imagine their own lives painted upon. To accomplish this, homeowners should depersonalize the home as much as possible, removing items that are specific to their family and eliminating clutter. This is where homeowners often incur their first costs as they rush to put as many older things in storage as possible.

To cut costs, focus on downsizing rather than storing items. Look for items that you can sell, donate, or give away. For remaining items, look for alternative places to store them, such as a friend or relative’s house. This will also reduce the cost of moving your belongings when it is time to go to the new house.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

DIY What You Can

There are times when homeowners should bring in a professional to manage home renovations and decorating, such as when a task requires specialized skills. These types of jobs, when done incorrectly, will incur even greater costs if attempted on your own. However, many of the home improvement tasks that go into staging a home are simple enough that the homeowner can DIY them, such as painting, installing a backsplash, or refinishing the deck. Doing these tasks yourself will save you a significant amount of money.

Don’t Redo, Update

Homeowners are often eager to make their houses look as appealing to buyers as possible. However, recall that the point of staging is depersonalization, making a home presentable so buyers can mentally impose their own style onto it. When staging a home on a budget, focus less on completely transforming the space and more on making what is there look presentable. For instance, if you wanted to give your bedroom a facelift, trying to replace the furniture and flooring would be pointless unless it was damaged or unkempt. Simply organizing the space and replacing the bed’s comforter would be sufficient.

Maximize Space

Another way to update the space without entirely redoing it is to rearrange it to maximize the space that is already there. For instance, pulling the furniture away from the walls will make a room appear bigger and allows more space for those touring the house. Using window trimmings that maximize natural light and incorporating wall mirrors can also make a room seem more spacious.

string(3112) "
Between buying a new home and transporting yourself and your belongings to it, moving can be an expensive process. One often underrecognized cost of moving occurs before one's original house has even been sold, and that's staging the house. Homeowners often spend hundreds of dollars making a home appealing to potential buyers. To ease the financial burden of moving, here are several tips for staging your home on a budget.

Downsize Instead of Storing

The goal of staging a home is to create a blank canvas that potential buyers can imagine their own lives painted upon. To accomplish this, homeowners should depersonalize the home as much as possible, removing items that are specific to their family and eliminating clutter. This is where homeowners often incur their first costs as they rush to put as many older things in storage as possible.

To cut costs, focus on downsizing rather than storing items. Look for items that you can sell, donate, or give away. For remaining items, look for alternative places to store them, such as a friend or relative's house. This will also reduce the cost of moving your belongings when it is time to go to the new house.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

DIY What You Can

There are times when homeowners should bring in a professional to manage home renovations and decorating, such as when a task requires specialized skills. These types of jobs, when done incorrectly, will incur even greater costs if attempted on your own. However, many of the home improvement tasks that go into staging a home are simple enough that the homeowner can DIY them, such as painting, installing a backsplash, or refinishing the deck. Doing these tasks yourself will save you a significant amount of money.

Don't Redo, Update

Homeowners are often eager to make their houses look as appealing to buyers as possible. However, recall that the point of staging is depersonalization, making a home presentable so buyers can mentally impose their own style onto it. When staging a home on a budget, focus less on completely transforming the space and more on making what is there look presentable. For instance, if you wanted to give your bedroom a facelift, trying to replace the furniture and flooring would be pointless unless it was damaged or unkempt. Simply organizing the space and replacing the bed's comforter would be sufficient.

Maximize Space

Another way to update the space without entirely redoing it is to rearrange it to maximize the space that is already there. For instance, pulling the furniture away from the walls will make a room appear bigger and allows more space for those touring the house. Using window trimmings that maximize natural light and incorporating wall mirrors can also make a room seem more spacious.

"

Help! I Can’t Stop Stress Shopping

Image by Alex Green for Pexels

It always starts the same way: I’m lying in bed, eyes wide open, doom-scrolling my way through the horrors of the world — climate change, inflation, AI replacing everyone, weird vibes from my boss. My heart races, my brain pings around like a pinball machine, and just when I think I might try deep breathing

Considering A Microwedding? Here’s How To Plan Yours

Microweddings are the next hottest trend.

Traditional weddings can be incredibly stressful, not to mention super pricey – many newlyweds couldn’t even buy a house with that money. What’s supposed to be the happiest day of your life can often feel like an endless quest for absolute perfection – almost as if the ceremony doesn’t come off flawlessly, the marriage itself

You Might Be A Hoarder – Without Even Knowing It

Image by Serkan Gönültaş for Pexels

As the old saying goes…the proof isn’t only in the pudding it’s in your closet, your cupboards, your back porch and – if you have one – your garage. You’ve got too much stuff. Everywhere. It’s not just a bunch of grandmas building enormous collections of margarine tubs or Uncle Bill’s believe it or not

How to Get a Better Job That Pays You More

Jobs don't have to be miserable!

Photo by Charles Deluvio (unsplash)

Though the wave of tech layoffs and the threat of a recession has overshadowed yesteryear’s news of the great recession, everywhere you look, employees are asking for more — and getting it. Though this time of uncertainty could have given employers back the power, it’s still in the hands of the workforce. From Gen-Z’s boundary

What Is Kris Jenner’s Net Worth? 

Kris Jenner

The Momager May Be Worth More Than You Think… Kris Jenner is a pop culture icon for many reasons. While you may have watched her meteoric rise to fame on Keeping Up with the Kardashians — which originally debuted on E! — she’s actually been a fascinating figure in the public eye for ages.  As

Living la Vida Frugal – Spend Less With Frugal Living

Tiny Home Image by Clay Banks_Unsplash

Everyone says the economy’s healthier than ever, but some of us still find it necessary to make that paycheck stretch…and stretch…and stretch. The better we understand our spending habits, the better we can manage them. Living frugally can benefit you in many ways. You’ll grow more self-reliant, creative, and resourceful as you learn to make

Spring Clean Your Personal Debt

Photo by Miha Rekar for Unsplash

Spring is in the air — and while you’re clearing out closets and scrubbing the back corners of the kitchen drawers, why not do a deep clean on something that really weighs you down? We’re talking about debt. Yep, those sneaky credit card balances, student loans, Buy Now Pay Later plans, and subscriptions that keep