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Top Five Ways to Declutter Before You Show Your Home

Every home benefits from getting rid of clutter by opening up space and making rooms look larger and neater. Although there are many methods for getting rid of junk, there are top five ways to declutter before you show your home to potential buyers.

1. Pack Away Items You Don’t Use

The first step in decluttering should be to simply pack away items you don’t use every day. For example, if you keep a blender on your countertop and only use it once a month, you can pack this item away to make your kitchen countertops less busy.

Walk into each room and view it from top to bottom, deciding which items you use on a daily or weekly basis and which items you can pack away without missing.

2. Use Oprah’s Closet Cleaning Method

Although this little technique has been used for years by home organizing experts, Oprah is known for recommending a little tip that helps you clearly see which clothes you’re wearing and which ones need to go.

She recommends you turn the hangers backwards on all your clothing by making the open side of the hook face outward. When you wear something, return it to the closet and turn the hanger around with the open side facing inward.

After a few months, you simply remove any items with the hooks still facing outward. The exception would be a formal dress you wear only once a year. However, you can pack this item away while you wait to sell your home.

Freeing up closet space will make closets look roomier to potential buyers.

3. Use the Three-Box Method

Get three large boxes and mark them as follows:

  • Store
  • Give Away
  • Throw Away

Each day, spend some time choosing items to place into the three boxes. When a box is filled, do what it says.

4. Set a Timer

It is hard to keep up with everything when trying to sell your home. You are probably looking for a new home of your own, working, and spending time keeping your house in model home condition for showings.

However, you can accomplish a lot in just fifteen minutes a day. Set the timer for 15 minutes and focus on clearing out a shelf, a cabinet or other clutter.

5. Enlist Some Help

If you’ll be moving soon, have a packing party and invite family and friends to come over and pack up anything you won’t need to cook meals or get ready each day. Be careful not to clear out so much that the house looks cold, but do clear out any personal items and extra things taking up space in the closet.

Do you really need to keep eight sets of sheets or can you pack all but a couple away for now? Do you really need 40 towels in the bathroom closet or can you keep just enough to get you through the week?

Your helpers may even see things that can be packed away that you didn’t think of yourself. If you still need additional ideas for how to declutter or prepare your home for a showing, bring in your professional real estate team … the right Wans.

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