Home Staging, styling or property presentation, is not just about painting the front door of your house, tidying your lawn and brewing fresh coffee before prospective buyers come round. Buyers will buy the best home at the best price that meets their needs. Professional home staging consultants or 'house doctors' can advise on and carry out de-cluttering, repairs, redecoration and dressing of houses ready for viewing and offer a very valuable service. However, if you have creative flair, organisation skills and a commitment to sell your own house then here are some tips on property styling you can do yourself.

Prospective buyers will often look round houses with their eyes peeled to find faults, to find a reason why they should not buy your home, or to be able to offer a lower price. Some buyers know they are doing this, but for many it is subconscious. As a vendor, you need to ensure that you give the potential buyers as little reason as possible for them to find fault. You need to stimulate their senses and help them visualise how they can use the space to suit their own needs. Declutter, and de-personalise! Its also a good time to review your contents insurance to cover breakages when you move home.

You need to create balance and harmony. Don’t be afraid to use some colour – but don’t go overboard! Soft muted shades are best used for home staging. We all get emotionally attached to our homes, but sometimes changes need to be made to enable us to move on. A few hours making simple changes may be all you need, although a thorough home staging project could take anything from a day to a week.

It is often hard to think of spending money on the house you are leaving, but if well thought out you should generally make a return on any investment, shift your house and not miss out on the home you are hoping to buy!

Top tips for staging your home:

Tidy the front of the house

Ensure that the front of the house is attractive and inviting. Are your rubbish bins visible, do you have peeling paintwork and rotten windows? Is your hedge trimmed? Do you have any colourful hanging baskets or pots? Does any of the guttering need replacing? You need to entice people in, and, assuming you use a for sale board to advertise the property, many people will see the front of the house before even booking an appointment to view.

Ensure your hall is inviting

Create as much light as possible in your hall. If you have an ugly radiator, use a radiator cover. Put some greenery in the hall, and perhaps a mirror to reflect light. Paint the walls a warm neutral colour so people feel cosy. If you have wooden floors, lay an attractive runner to break up the floor.

Clear your house of clutter

We are all hoarders to some degree! Take one room at a time, or even a drawer at a time, and sort through every bit of paper, every ornament and every item of clothing. You’ll be amazed how much you throw away! Have four piles: items to keep in your home until you move, items that can go into storage until you move, items to go to a charity shop or sell at a car boot sale, items to skip. Hire a skip if necessary for a weekend. On average, we use just 20% of our belongings, 80% of the time. It will make a huge difference if you remove excess clutter from your home, and people will be able to see the house instead of all your stuff!

Clean the house

Your house needs to be spotless. Have your furniture and carpets professionally cleaned, remove cobwebs from the ceiling corners, remove dust from under the bed. You’ll be amazed where people look. No one wants to see crusty washing up littering the kitchen. If the place is messy, many will not be able to see past this and will immediately close up their minds to the house. Ensure the house smells nice. Walk outside and in again to check the smell. If you are a smoker or have lots of pets, you might need to work harder to shift the smell!

Neutralise

You do not need to make your house bland. However, if you are living in a house with swirly carpets and gaudy walls it’s advisable that you change them. More and more people want to move into a house and have nothing to do. They don’t want to think ‘I’ve got to change the carpets throughout’, or ‘I need to redecorate every wall’. Your personality will initially pervade the entire house, and you need to remove it. After all, the house is not going to be yours for much longer! You might have fantastic artistic taste with a beautiful bold mural on one of the living room walls, but, unless everyone who walks in is an equally artistic person whose style exactly matches yours, you are going to put someone off. Paint the walls in soft, muted colours. Have neutral flooring, and use accents and accessories to provide extra colour, texture and interest.

Use accessories and artwork wisely

Don’t clutter every shelf up with accessories and hang artwork randomly around the walls. Use architectural features to guide you into how to hang your artwork and choose a careful selection of your accessories and position them to create maximum impact. They should coordinate or complement with your décor.

Create a feature in every room

Many rooms have natural features. For example an original fireplace in the living room, or a beautiful bay window with fabulous window dressings. However, sometimes you need to be more creative if the house lacks architectural features. Always dress the dining room as a dining room and not a dumping ground. A table with a large bunch of flowers in the middle could be the feature in the dining room, a sumptuously dressed double bed in the master room can be the feature there. Allow one feature in each room to dominate, don’t have several features competing for attention.

If you feel overwhelmed by what design decisions to make then you might want to hire a professional. Shop around for the package that suits you best. Some will offer basic consultations; some will want to oversee the whole thing. One way of keeping costs down if you enjoy DIY is to have a written consultation. The Home Staging Consultant can provide you with a complete analysis of your home and the work required including all colours and swatches. You can then go ahead and do any de-cluttering, DIY or decorating required. At the end the Consultant can visit for a few hours to style the house ready for viewings. This might involve carrying out furniture placement, accessories placement, sourcing suitable furnishings such as window dressings and linen, and creating that all important ‘WOW’ factor!

Contributor: Zoë Beaudro, Property Presentation Consultant

Professional home stagers offer declutter, house doctor, property presentation and interior design. Home styling and property staging services provide advice for home owners, money saving ideas, space planning, interior design, staging your property for a speedier sale. Get professional help in preparing your home for sale, furniture packs for rental or purchase, and show-home staging by property professionals.

Zoë Beaudro is an Interior Designer who specialises in Property Presentation. She was trained in Property Presentation by Ann Maurice, the original House Doctor. She describes her natural interior décor style as fresh and simple, happily mixing the old and the new with a love of fabrics and furnishings. However, for her property presentation she always has her eye set on what will make the particular house in question sell and works to create change so that the owner can achieve their goal, move on and receive the maximum return on their investment.