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I hope all the projects you’ve been doing the last few weeks are starting to make a big difference in your home. This week, let’s focus on the finishing touches and stage your home for you. Trust me, moving is messy and work and expensive, learning to love where you live can save a lot of time and expense. Really, if you don’t figure out how to create the home you want where you are, then you usually just bring all the same issues with you to a new house.

IDEAS TO STAGE YOUR HOME

The main focus with home staging is to find the strengths of your home and accent them, and make the weaknesses of your home less noticeable. I’ve got a few ideas to help you.

• Hide clutter, contain knick-knacks. Unless your clutter is particularly beautiful, like leather-bound books, hide it. Get kids toys in baskets, DVD’s behind cabinet doors – hide  anything that isn’t beautiful.
• Paint small spaces like little bathrooms, tight hallways, and tiny bedrooms with light, bright colors.
• Remove extra furniture and objects from small rooms. Less things inside them make them appear bigger.
• Keep decorations simple: one centerpiece on a cabinet top, a grouping of 3 or 5 coordinating pieces on a mantle.
• Use framed art and decorations that match the size and scale of where they’re going. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen tiny candles and picture frames on enormous fireplace mantles. No no no. Decorations should be themselves, or with a grouping, match the scale/size of the space. Large walls need collages or large art. An 8×10 is not considered  a big picture. Either is a 11×14 … for some walls, even a 16×20 would be too small.
• Remove floor rugs that are too small. I get it, I know smaller area rugs are sooo much cheaper than the big ones, but I’d still choose NO area rug over a dinky one that doesn’t fit the space. This goes back to the last point about choosing things that match the scale.
• More important than anything else: keep it simple.

LET’S REVIEW

All the weeks of this challenge were designed to help you work towards loving your home and staging it for yourself. Repeat any week as needed.

• LOVE YOUR HOME – INTRO
• LOVE YOUR HOME WEEK 1 – PLAN & PREPARE
• LOVE YOUR HOME WEEK 2 – BEAUTY + FUNCTION
• LOVE YOUR HOME WEEK 3 – FRESHEN UP DECOR
• LOVE YOUR HOME WEEK 4 – FURNITURE UPDATE
• LOVE YOUR HOME WEEK 5 – A LITTLE PAINT
• LOVE YOUR HOME WEEK 6 – MINI-MAKEOVER

And maybe your home needs something more. A remodel, or a landscape renovation – we haven’t even gotten into all the things you could do outside! There will never be a perfect time, but some of these are easier in different seasons. For instance, remodel your kitchen during warmer months when you can prepare most meals on the grill. Even this bigger projects are easier than moving – trust me on this. We can often fantasize about moving as being the quick fix to all our home problems. This is forgetting about all the packing, cleaning, selling, unpacking, decluttering, cleaning, selling, paperwork x 1 million, cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. Moving is never a quick fix. I understand it still has to happen sometimes, but maybe put some energy into loving where you live first. You just might surprise yourself that you already live in a home you can love!

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CHALLENGE OVERVIEW

If you’re just getting started -> start here. If you haven’t yet, read this blog post and download the FREE Printable Guide.

From my home to yours,
Mary

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