The laundry room and garage are the most forgotten and overlooked areas of the house. This applies to both everyday life and staging and yet, we all spend an awful lot of time in both. Why? We believe it’s because we know that our guests are not likely to see them, and they can be handy for “hiding” things we do not want seen and/or are too big to store in the main parts of the house.
The thing is, potential buyers WILL see these rooms and are very likely to judge you and your home based on cleanliness, care and organizational skills in all areas of your home, including your garage and laundry room. You may think this is unfair, but it’s true, important, and we can help you with it! We will talk about the laundry room this time followed by the garage in our next blog post.
Here’s what we suggest:
- Clean, Clean, Clean! – Okay, so we get that you are tired of hearing this and if you have been following our blog or video series you may want to cringe, sigh or simply skip over this section, but it is super important that you do it! Again, you will need to clean all surfaces, horizontal and vertical. Your laundry room should look like a place where your clothing gets clean and stays clean, even if it falls on the floor! Sniff your washing machine, if it smells, get out your user manual and clean it. (Throw a cup of bleach into the drum and run the clean cycle, if you do not have a clean cycle, throw in the bleach and run the hottest cycle you have available to you).
- Declutter – If it is not needed to do laundry get it OUT of your laundry room. If it is needed for laundry, it goes inside a cabinet or neatly on a shelf in a basket. It is a good time to switch to small bottles/containers of laundry supplies, those warehouse sizes do not “show” well. Also, think about it, you will be moving soon, do you really want to move or throw away a huge bottle of laundry soap?
- Paint – if the walls are not a neutral color or are tired looking, consider painting.
- Baskets – If you are storing laundry supplies in an area that is visible, consider picking up some nice-looking baskets or containers to “hide” them in.
- Laundry – Do NOT let potential buyers see your dirty clothes, and no it is not an option to throw them in the washer or dryer to hide them. If you do have dirty laundry, put it in a basket then hide the basket as best you can.
- The finishing touches – At this point you should have nothing on the floor, nothing on the walls, and nothing on the shelves (unless you are hiding laundry supplies in a basket on a shelf). Now you can add some decorative items such as fun laundry room themed artwork, a plant, flowers etc. As always, remember, groups of 1, 3 or 5.
When you are done, you will want to have a laundry room that looks like this all the time!
That’s it for today’s post, if you want more information on staging your laundry room or if you want to stay up to date on all things Anthem, make sure you like our Facebook Page at ‘Wise Move AZ’ or subscribe to our Wise Move AZ channel on YouTube.
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Remember, if you or anyone you know is looking to buy or sell their home, please give us a call! It’s always the right time to make a wise move with the Wise Move AZ Team.