Staging your home for sale? Remember the laundry room. Just like every other space, the laundry room must meet a potential buyer’s needs. When considering laundry room ideas, add eco friendly touches and fun accessories to create personality.
 
Clean, Tidy, Uncluttered
When you’re preparing to sell your house, take time to remove, pack and store unnecessary items that have been tucked away in your laundry room over time. If the room is finished, paint the walls a light neutral colour. Clean the laundry tub and taps so they are sparkling clean. And don’t forget the dust bunnies!
 
Organized and Useful
Make the space as practical as possible. Add a shelf near the washer and dryer to hold decorative baskets, keeping your laundry products organized and somewhat disguised. Or, a basic storage cabinet with doors is an inexpensive way to hide items that must stay in the area. If you have enough room, add a drying rack and table for folding clean clothes.
 
Eco friendly Products and Cheery Accessories
Keep in mind that some buyers are sensitive to strong scents. So choose and use eco friendly laundry products while your house is for sale. Place a few folded white towels on the dryer. Add fun accessories like a ‘laundry’ sign, vintage looking wall hooks or covered hampers to make the room feel cheery.
 
The laundry room doesn’t seem like a big deal when you think of a house overall, but it needs to be clean and practical just like any other room. So don’t avoid it. Small changes can make a big difference when you’re considering laundry room ideas for staging.
 
If you like these tips but want more help, get in touch with me. Staging homes to sell fast is what I love to do.

Life is easier when you have the proper tools to work with. These are some of my favourite tips and products of 2012 that I use when I’m home staging a property for sale.

1. Goo gone: A helpful gentleman at the hardware store gave me some of this when I was looking for a replacement part to update shower taps. It works great to make kitchen and bathroom faucets, sinks, shower heads, handles and drains look shiny and new. Rub it on and buff it off and you’re done.
2. Duct tape: Who can live without duct tape? For staging, I use it to hide tags and tuck in bedding to keep things looking neat and tidy.
3. Magic Eraser: If you want to save time and money by avoiding having to paint absolutely everything, use this handy product. Wipe away scuffs and marks on baseboard, window and door trim, doors, walls, floors, furniture. Give the area a wipe with water and a clean cloth afterwards and you’ll be amazed.
4. HomeSense: I love bargain finds to help with staging. It’s a great place to find white containers for organizing a kitchen or bathroom, clear glass bowls or jars for display, frames and decorative items. Browse every aisle with a creative eye and see what treasures you can find.
5. Vinegar: It’s eco friendly, versatile and economical. I tell my clients to use white vinegar to clean windows and mirrors, remove odours and do general cleaning. A spray bottle filled with vinegar (or dilute 1:1 with water if you prefer) is a must have when you’re prepping for staging.

I hope you find my tips helpful. If you are selling your house in the Calgary area and need an extra hand, I welcome new clients. Contact me to see how I can help you sell your house faster.

Before: Master bedroom before home staging. Buyers have a hard time visualizing if their furniture will fit in a vacant bedroom. As you can see this bedroom easily fits a queen set.

After: This simple, yet stylish bedroom is the perfect retreat for any homeowner.

Jennifer Campbell CSP & ISRP, Home Stager & Décor Specialist Quite often I get calls and emails from aspiring home stagers wanting to know what the home staging business is like: is it profitable, where do they start, will they like it etc.   I always knew I was supposed to have a career in the design field. My starting point was as a graphic designer, but I didn’t LOVE it. The company I was working for ended up going bankrupt so that gave me the option of continuing something I liked or taking a risk and starting a new career that I would LOVE.   I’ve achieved some really cool things since I’ve become a home stager. I won the 2011-12 CSP® Most Promising – Rising Star Award. As far as results for clients, I’m proud to say I’ve staged quite a few properties with great results including 3 properties that sold in 1 day on the market, two of them over asking price. I just staged my first $1.5 million dollar property last month – that was also really exciting.   Starting off I took as many courses as I could get my hands on: self employment courses, business plan courses, home staging courses (Certified Canadian Staging Professionals and QC Design School), sales courses, social media webinars, blogging webinars and self help webinars. Every single course I took helped and shaped my business to what it is today, three years later. I was very fortunate to have the skills to create my own website and marketing materials as it is important (and expensive) to create a professional looking brand. As with any new business, I realized quite quickly that having a professional brand doesn’t make your phone ring off the hook with clients wanting to hire you.   I was given the 100-10-3-1 ratio – for every 100 people, 10 of them will be a lead, three of them will be interested in your service and one will hire you. From this I knew I had to speak with a lot of people. One of the coaches from my self employment course suggested I contact real estate agents. Feeling this would be my lucky break, I emailed, networked with and even cold called a few local ones. The response I got wasn’t the result I was expecting. An overwhelming majority of them were not interested in me at all – I wasn’t established enough. I wasn’t ready to give up from one this roadblock. Lots of people decide to become a home stager, then a year later realize it isn’t for them so they quit. What will benefit that real estate agent by hiring someone could possibly not be there down the road? Not only that, they would be trusting you with their clients – everything you say and do reflects on them. Of course you know you will be tactful, but how do they know that?   Some aspiring stagers may be thinking they won’t need to do sales, they just want to be a home stager. There aren’t many large home staging companies out there, Set Your Stage – along with most staging companies are a home based businesses. In Calgary, I know of three that have employees. So if a partial career in sales isn’t for you, I would consider doing your research to find out which companies have employees, what education/experience they require and what wages you could expect.   As with the modeling, acting and advertising industries, TV makes home staging seem glamorous. You transform a regular home into a show home and instantly people love your work and want to buy. If it was this easy to transform a home, everyone would do it. Not only are you bringing in “pretty” art and accessories, (which you will be packing and moving from your storage to your client’s house, and then back when their house sells), but you need to coach your clients on certain updates that will bring value to the sale of their property that they may not want to do. As we all can imagine, it’s very difficult to make a pastel purple room look appealing but some may not want to paint as they feel they don’t want to spend any more money on a property they won’t be living in.

Before: Living room before home staging. After: This open concept space is perfect for entertaining or relaxing.

My favourite part of the job is the sourcing for accessories and yes, most stores will offer designer pricing. I have three 10×15 storage spaces full of art, accessories, bedding, lamps, rugs, trees and furniture. You don’t need to purchase everything at once, I buy inventory as I need it. You can also source from rental companies and other stagers. Team up with some local stagers who are at the same starting point as you. This is a great way to collaborate for ideas, get help with projects and double your inventory at a fraction of the cost (always pay each other for your time and accessories – if you don’t this could lead to resentment later on).   Now the big question – is home staging profitable? As with any start up business it takes time to make a profit. When I decided to start my business, I though I was special and it would take me less time than the average 2 years I was told about. I was wrong. My first two years every penny I made from home staging went into my inventory, marketing and other business expenses. It wasn’t until after two and a half years until I was making money on my projects.   To sum everything up, if you are willing to do sales, lots of packing and moving, learn and collaborate with your competition, stick with it as well as shop, paint and help people sell their homes, home staging may be a great career for you. If you have any further questions/comments, I invite you to leave a reply on this post, as others may enjoy your feedback.