Not too long ago I took some clients to go look at houses.  There were these two homes that were very similar in floor plans and square footage.  Both houses were super cute!  But one house had closets that were stuffed, cluttered counter tops, an tons of pictures & decorations on the walls.  Not only did it seem that there was not very much storage, but my buyers could not take their eyes off of all the decorations and in the end, they could not picture their ‘stuff’ in the house at all.  The other house had very few decorations and pictures, and the closets were thinned out and neatly organized.  My buyers thought that the second house was so much bigger than the first (which totally cracked me up because they were almost the exact same in square footage!)

When you are selling your home, “decluttering” is a must!  Here are a few tips that may help you out:

1. Go through all your kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  Throw away anything expired.  And box up anything that you do not use very often.

2. Go through all of the bedroom closets.  Box up any non-seasonal items, for example:  If it is summer, box up all your winter clothes, coats, boots and shoes.  If it is winter, box up all your summer shoes and clothing. 

3. If you have an office, now is a great time to organize paperwork and files.  Again throwing away what you don’t need (like those tax returns and electricity bills from 10 years ago! hee hee!) 

4. Organize book shelves.  Box up any books that you, or anyone in your house, are not going to be reading in the time that your house is on the market. 

5. Take a minute (maybe get a friend or neighbor to help with this) and really look at your walls.  A nice decoration or two, or three can be very flattering to a wall, but are your walls overloaded??  Just remember, less is more. 

6. Don’t neglect the garage when you are “decluttering”.  Let’s face it, those guys really like their space in the garage!  So make sure everything has a place.

Remember that the whole idea to “decluttering” your home is to make it look like there is plenty of space in your house.  If you are fortunate enough to have a place to put all these boxes of extra items somewhere in your home, just make sure that you label, in detail, what is in each box.  And also that the boxes are put away neatly.  If you just don’t have the extra storage space (which is basically most of us!), then you may want to rent a storage space.  You could even store them at a close friends, or relatives home.

Let me know of any other ideas you have for “decluttering”, and good luck with the sale of your home!!