5 Tips for Staging Your Kitchen

Kitchens rank very highly on a home buyer’s priority list, and the condition of your kitchen can make or break a sale. Luckily, there are a number of home staging tips that can help make your kitchen look more appealing to a wider number of buyers. Remember, that when staging your kitchen, the result is not a practical kitchen. Living in a property and selling a property are two different things. It’s quite impractical to live with a staged kitchen. Benchtops tend to get cluttered and keeping it spotless is a pain in the butt. However, if your property is priced right and looks fantastic, you should only be inconvenienced for a very short time .

There are a number of characteristics that define a successfully staged kitchen. Firstly, it shows signs of life but is not messy. It looks, feels and smells clean and fresh and is tasteful and good looking. Lastly, it feels spacious and light and is also welcoming. Most importantly, when staging a kitchen, there is one rule I adhere to – Keep it simple, yet elegant. With all of this in mind, here are my top 5 tips for staging a kitchen.

1. Declutter. It’s hard to put away all the “stuff” you’re so used to seeing on a daily basis, but the more bare benchtop you see, the larger the workspace will appear. A toaster and coffeemaker are the only things to consider leaving on the benchtop, IF you have the space. Remove the art gallery from your refrigerator door! Anything on the outside of the fridge will make the entire kitchen look cluttered.

2. Clean, Clean, Clean. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a sparkling clean kitchen. Scrub everything! Wipe out drawers and cupboards. Polish your stainless steel appliances, door handles, sink and taps. Make your oven shine. Clean out the fridge, empty the dishwasher and remove the garbage. Also, remember to polish your splashback and scrub the grout clean.

TIP: Sprinkle baking soda over grout, fill a spray bottle with white vinegar and spray vinegar over grout. Scrub with a brush and wipe it up.

And don’t forget the floor! Remove any rugs. Don’t forget to make your kitchen window sparkle too.

3. Re-organize the pantry and cupboards. Potential buyers will look inside your cupboards. Cramped and overstuffed cupboards give the impression that there isn’t enough storage in your kitchen. Remove excess stuff, mismatched items and anything that simply does not look good.

If you’re having trouble fitting everything into your cupboards, consider some open shelving. This too must be styled well. The goal should be to show people how it can be useful and look great. Leave some open space on each shelf, and display only matching sets of everyday dishes.

Reduce the contents of your pantry until you have some open space on each shelf. Organise sets of matching food storage containers or open baskets. Make them look like grocery store shelves!

4 . Accessorise. The bench top will look pretty boring once you have put everything away, so now it’s time to accesorise with pieces that make sense in the kitchen. There are plenty of options here, depending on your kitchen style and house location.

Add new tea towels. It’s a great, cost-effective way to add a splash of color and pattern, especially to white kitchens that can come across as bland.
Set out fresh fruit. I can’t go past a simple bowl of lemons.
Cupcakes or cookies look irresistible when placed on a pretty tiered cake stand!
A wire or straw basket with natural colored eggs.
Bring in fresh flowers or greenery. Like a fruit bowl, freshly cut flowers, branches or potted herbs will bring life and cheer to your kitchen.
Stack your nicest cookbooks. Cookbooks are accessories that make a kitchen look appealing and useful.

5. On the day of the open house. Open blinds to let in as much natural light as possible and turn on all the lights. I like to cut up a lemon and run it through the garbage disposal prior to showing to have the room smelling clean and fresh. Don’t leave bottles of dish soap, washrags, scrub brushes, or sponges at the sink. And finally, put away the dish rack and take the garbage bin outside.

So there you go, my Top 5 Tips for Staging Your Kitchen to Sell. Follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to putting that sold sign out front. Have you staged a house to sell before? Let me know in the comments what some of your best tips are. I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading!