The living room is a focal point of the house in which families spend a lot of time. When it comes to cleaning, straightening up, or staging your home to sell, you can’t skip the living room.
The living room is designed to be a space of comfort, relaxation, and family time. If this space is cluttered, it is sending stressor signals to you and your family. The signals may barely register in your brain, but over time, they can throw off the feeling of peace and security. These are the most common culprits of clutter in the living room and how you can fix them. It is especially important when it comes to staging and selling your home, since you want potential buyers to be “wowed” by the space and envision their lives there.
Exposed cords
Tangled wires have always been a sign of chaos. If your living room entertainment center contains a TV, DVD player/game console, speakers, and internet router, it gets messy and crowded fast. However, there are multiple ways to combat this. Cable management sleeves bundle cords together and get them all moving in the same direction. Similarly, cable boxes can organize and hide cords inside a fashionable façade. Homeowners may also benefit by hiding cords inside the walls, getting them completely out of the way. Ingenuitive organizers find clever ways to organize their cable in a way that looks like adding form to function. Finally, you can go with the tried and true method of using a cord cover that is painted the same color as the wall for a clean, modern look.
Unfluffed pillows and cushions
Pillows and couch and chair cushions get a lot of use and abuse over the years. Keeping your throw pillows fluffed and straight is one of the easiest ways to declutter the space. Additionally, take a fabric shaver or a cheap razor and shave pills and loose threads from the cushions and pillows. Doing this only takes a couple of minutes, but has a huge impact on the look of your sitting space.
Small, uncontained items
Even your decorations can get a little messy, but more on that later. This pertains to things that are found on coffee tables or end tables: remotes, gaming controllers, decorative candles, or coasters. Placing these items in attractive bins or desk organizers on the tabletop will clean up the space and provide a home for everything.
Pro tip: this same logic can be applied to the bathroom in order to free up counter space.
Knickknacks everywhere
This is the most important step to consider when it comes to selling your home. Your own little decorations are an integral part of the style of your house. However, too many little tchotchkes can quickly overwhelm the space and the senses. A cluttered bookshelf or mantle with too many figurines, antiques, or old books may bring you joy and tie the room together, but outsiders may disagree. When staging your home, pare down the decorations to a minimum and store the rest. Consider it a head start on packing.
All in all, these fixes won’t take very long to implement, but will make a massive impact on the sook and feel of the living space. Staging your home is one of the best ways to sell your home for top dollar. Check out more steps to maximize your home’s resale value here.