Styling your bedrooms to help sell your house..

We have talked a lot about how to style your home to encourage a fast sale. In our experience, there are far more people who can’t see past aspects they don’t like in a home – which includes the decor – than there are people who can see straight to the bones.

Whatever side of the divide you fall on, if you’re trying to sell your home, we always encourage you to take whatever steps you can to ensure that people can see themselves living in your house, right away.

When a potential buyer views your home, they’ve already decided it’s pretty much in the right location, it has the right number of bedrooms and isn’t a complete do-er upper. They’ve read the details, seen the photos and are now ready to step over the threshold and see if your home could become their home.

In an earlier post we talked about decluttering, which is a vital step to take before allowing viewers into your home. We have also talked about how to make those first sights of your home – from the front door to the hallway and living room – more enticing.

Today, we’re looking at bedrooms.

You will no doubt have heard that every home for sale needs a ‘wow’ room – the kitchen or the bathroom MUST knock viewers’ socks off. Not so. In fact, these are the two rooms people are most likely to change first. What people really want to know is – will I feel at  home in this house? And this is where a beautiful bedroom comes in.

What makes a bedroom tempt a homebuyer? Here are our top tips for making your bedrooms the icing on the cake.

1. The master bedroom

In this most important of rooms, aim to create a luxe hotel feel. This can be done inexpensively and quickly. 

First – invest in some plastic boxes with lids and clear as many shoes as you can from the room. We often keep shoes in bedrooms that aren’t used every day – from Saturday night stilettos to Sunday golf shoes. A build up of shoes can cause not only clutter, but a build up of shoe whiff. Box them up, stack them in the garage, or even in the car during those times you have viewings.

Next: clear the dressing table of everything but a bottle of scent and a luxe magazine. Hide everything you usually leave out, from hair brushes to lipstick, away in drawers. If you simply don’t have room, invest in a couple of pretty trays, and carefully organise your bits and pieces into these. 

The bed: you want your bed to look hotel-pristine, as if the viewer could simply throw back the duvet and climb in. This isn’t going to happen if you present them with a wrinkly duvet cover, haphazardly strewn pillows and mismatching bed linen. We don’t suggest you strip and redo the bed before every viewing, but consider (for the duration of the house sale) ironing the duvet cover and pillow cases, and channeling hotel chambermaid when you make the bed each morning. Alternatively, find a bedspread that matches your decor and neatly cover your bed with this before any viewings. Add a couple of scatter cushions (don’t go overboard!) and it’s an immediate hotel luxe look

Take a look at your bedside tables. All they should contain is a lamp, an alarm clock and, maybe, a book. Like the dressing table, clear surfaces are suggestive of plenty of storage space – and are far more relaxing to look at than clutter, and a bedroom is supposed to be relaxing. Make sure the bulbs in your bedside lamps are the same wattage and type. Before a viewing, switch these on, rather than the overhead light.

If you have an ensuite – declutter it to the max! Clear down the surfaces, make sure every inch of porcelain is sparkling clean, add as big and bold a houseplant as you can find, and pop a reed diffuser in there. 

2. Children’s bedrooms

Again, decluttering is your first step. If there are toys in abundance, provide storage boxes they can be easily and quickly tidied into. If you have teens, remind them they have a wardrobe, not a floordrobe, and threaten sanctions for non-compliance. Do check before every viewing however. The old joke about visiting a teenager’s bedroom being akin to a trip to Ikea is based in fact. Teen boys, especially, can get a bit smelly. It’s not their fault, but nipping in to open a window and squirt a bit of freshener might not be a bad habit to get into.

3. The spare room

It might be that you have set up a home office in your spare bedroom, if you have one. This is fine, home offices are almost expected these days. If you have – make sure it’s super-tidy. If there’s a bed in there too, create a cosy, welcoming feel with beautifully pressed sheets, or a cosy bedspread, and add colourful scatter cushions. Make sure bedside tables are clean and clutter-free, check the curtains are hanging straight (it’s so easy to not notice these things in rooms you don’t use often) and carefully place a set of towels on the end of the bed as if visitors were expected. 

Home buyers buy in to a potential lifestyle as much as they buy in to a location and size of property. If you show them a relaxing, stylish and enviable space, you’re half way to convincing them that your home is the one they want.

Eddie – Friday 27th January 2023. (Picture used from Hartington Road, Chorlton).