If you’ve never had to move with kids, it’s important to understand how stressful it is for a young family to sell their home. A child’s schedule is thrown off when showings coincide with bedtimes or meals. Cleaning and packing are extremely difficult to do around children and there are tons of other details that are all harder to take care of with kids involved than without.
As a home stager, it’s up to you to make a space as beautiful and easy-to-sell as possible. Anything you can do as a home stager to help make this happen will be especially appreciated by parents with children because of the ongoing difficulties of living in a show home while their house is on the real estate market.
It’s almost a full time job to keep a home in ‘showing-ready’ condition for anyone, but babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers can’t grasp the concept of keeping their toys put away at all times. This is why it’s important for you to give the homeowners your best advice about staging a family home and to set up some good storage solutions for the children’s things.
Here are some tips you can use the next time you’re staging a home where small children reside:
- Encourage your clients to keep only one box of toys per child in the house. Make sure the pieces they keep aren’t things like Play-Doh or Lego which is impossible to clean up in a hurry for a last minute showing.
- Remove large items. Play kitchen sets and kid-sized furniture should be put into storage instead of taking up valuable floor space.
- Keep outside toys tidy. Remind the homeowners to keep bicycles and other outdoor toys stored neatly and not strewn across the yard as well – you never know when a drive-by will happen.
- Use attractive storage for remaining toys. A good way to store and showcase the toys that are staying while the house is listed is on a cubical storage shelf with canvas baskets in the family room or child’s room. When toys are organized this way it’s easier to clean up in a hurry.
You’ll find more home staging tips like this in the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans.
The presence of toys probably won’t turn off a buyer without children or a plan to have them, but keeping things tidy and preventing toys from overwhelming the home will help increase the property’s appeal.
If you want to be remembered by the family whose home you’re staging, give them this tip for moving with children:
When packing, put a toy or two in every box so the kids are excited about unpacking and the parents have their cooperation while getting the boxes emptied.
Do you have any favorite tips for staging a space where children live? Please share by leaving a comment below.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. There are currently over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates around the world. Debra created the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans to provide design direction to home stagers feeling they need it.
[tags]home staging for a family, home staging, home staging tips, home staging and children, staging diva [/tags]
Sometimes it’s really difficult to have children get rid of their things that they no longer play with or use. If you’re in the very early stages of getting your home ready for the market, I’ve used the following with great success: Offer a monetary incentive for each pound of “stuff” that your children are willing to part with. All their discarded items go to charity and your children actually earn some money as well. Here’s the catch — to get them to be really ruthless when going through their things, tell them that one-half of what they earn goes to buy a present for an underprivileged child. It may be a tad sneaky, but is it successful? Absolutely!
A great way to get children to help is to have a contest…..Parents can decide on the timing (per day, per week…), and on the “rewards” ( depending on the age, it could be stickers, a small gift, a special treat…). Being tidy becomes more of a game this way and kids love a little competition!
I love kids, & as a Stager I include tots-to-teens in every consultation. I meet with each child/teen that’s old enough to pick up a toy. I explain how important they are & how much I need their help to prepare this house for sell. I ask their opinion RE: their room: what they like; what they wish were different? I mention each child’s comments to the parents IN FRONT OF THE CHILD. [Makes them feel important, included, & heard.]
* I explain staging to the younger children as a “make believe time” when everyone must keep their rooms straight & toys picked up, sometimes really fast. I ask them to pick their five favorite toys, because the others must be packed. [I love Debra’s suggestions.] Their reward? A brand new room; a media room; a larger yard, etc. – whatever the homeowners are already promising them.
* With teens, it’s different. Its critical their room/bath smell & show successfully, so I offer them a free room consult. What’s the quid pro quo? They MUST promise to keep their room & bath clean & straight until the home is sold: beds made daily; clothes put away; closets straight; baths CLEAN; everything straight. Surprise: they do it. A promise still matters.
* When an outside individual shows often overlooked family such importance & trust, magic does happen. Cooperation is the norm, rather the exception – even with teens.
Sherry, these are great ideas!
I just finished staging my first home for a friend who has 4 kids, ages 7-13 & one of my main concerns was making it easier to live in the home through showings. Here are some ideas I gave them; 1. Pre-pick live zones – decide what rooms are easiest to re-stage/ pick up and try to stick to these rooms for now. Example, they have 3 living rooms which typically all become kid hang outs, with all the mess that follows. So for now I suggested they pick one hang out room so they don’t have to clean and pick up all three. They have a foosball table in one room (that we staged as a game room) and that room also has a TV. They love using both (no mess). I also suggested they invest in or borrow a WII (something their kids have been wanting anyway) as a great way to have an active way for the kids to entertain themselves without clean up mess. 2. Create a come and go flow – This family happens to have a mud room in the basement that leads to the garage. I suggested having a tote labeled for each child down there with hooks added to the wall of a large laundry closet to make coming and going more organized. Then the kids can easily hang coats and backpacks and throw loose items and shoes in their own bin. The fact that bins have a lid and a label for each child makes it easy for them to find their stuff in a hurry to leave, as well as giving them a place to leave the things they don’t always put away, but it’s out of site and orderly. 3. Finally – Leave some areas staged by using other supplies – I talked to them about their bathrooms, leave them in a staged state by using towels and cloths from the closet or a designated Tupperware bin and just keep the staged towels in place. This way you don’t have to re-primp these areas before a showing. Also add decorative baskets or bowls to a bathroom counter for a quick place to toss jewelry or head bands/pony holders. This way if the kids leave them out, (no matter how many times you tell them to put them away) they will at least be easy to toss in the decorative bin quickly. I think it is critical to think of living in your space and don’t assume the family has these ideas for themselves. They are busy and overwhelmed and processing these simple solutions may be more than they can focus on right now. That is our job as Stagers to help them through this time. Hope your find these ideas helpful.
Lisa, thanks so much for sharing your ideas!