Thrifty Thursday-A Staging Trick

With a yearning to live a more seasonal life,
we are headed further north.
As soon as we sell our house.
We need to sell in order to buy acreage in North Carolina.

One of the most important things a homeowner can do 
when selling a home is to declutter.
We've been paring down for a few years in anticipation of this,
selling a few things, but mostly giving things to the 
Meals on Wheels thrift store or to folks on Craig's List.
The house needs to look as if no one lives there.
Crazy, right?
I guess the idea is to create an atmosphere where potential buyers
can picture themselves living in your home,
with their furnishings and decor.

Whatever it takes, people.
We are beyond ready to go...

We live pretty simply, so we have just what we need to be comfortable, nothing extra.
Our spare room only had a futon in it and a wall-mounted tv, 
as we use this space to watch movies or complete projects
(and occasionally nap).
We didn't want to buy extra furniture just to fill up the space,
so we figured out this neat trick to stage our spare room.

Here's what we did.

 See this little table next to the futon?
It's handy to have the remotes or a good book right at your fingertips,
along with a small lamp for extra lighting
(I found these lamp bases in someone's recycle bin).
A side table is commonly found on either side of a sofa or in this case, a futon.
But, it's not actually a table.

We simply stacked two bins and placed a large canvas on top
(Mimi painted this, but we haven't yet found the right spot for it).

Two bins work best to achieve just the right height,
but you could use tackle boxes, tool boxes,
milk crates, or even cardboard boxes, if that's all you have.

Guess what's under here?

The covers are old twin-sized sheets that we aren't using.
We just tweaked them until they fit around our bins.
I just. love. simple.

For brilliant staging tricks,
you can visit Leslie at Goodbye House, Hello Home.
She has some wonderful tips for showing your house in its best light.

In fact, I think I may spend some time this weekend
perusing her posts on organizing and staging for a quick refresher.

Tomorrow we'll talk about some quick tips when showing your home.