When staging a home, overall composition matters. Potential buyers don’t come into a home looking at walls, cabinets, or windows alone; they take a tour to see the house as a whole.
However, when staging a home, paying attention to specific elements is a must. In particular, paying attention to the floors in every room can help tie together the overall look of the house, motivating buyers to make higher offers more quickly.
If you’re trying to sell a property, don’t forget to improve the appearance of floors. Here are just a few home-staging tips to impress buyers with beautiful flooring:
Clean Hardwood Floors ’til They Shine
While flooring trends come and go, hardwood flooring will always be very popular among buyers, and for good reason. Woods in all tones bring a warm natural beauty to a space, and hardwood is incredibly durable. With proper care, wood elements can last for hundreds of years without rot or wear.
The trick, however, lies in properly cleaning and maintaining hardwood floors. Take a dust mop or vacuum and do your best to remove dry particles, like dirt and pet hair. Then, go to town with a liquid cleaner designed to deep-clean and polish wood floors. Finally, look for small scratches that might mar the beauty of the wood. Take a brown crayon and rub the scratch until the gap is filled, then buff away access wax. With a little elbow grease, even old hardwood floors can gleam!
Use Rugs to Your Advantage
Hardwood floors are beautiful, but they should be protected and broken up visually with well-placed area rugs. To truly tie together a space, a rug needs to be the right color, the right size, and placed in the correct position.
To choose the best rug, first measure the space. Remember that rugs should be at least 12 to 14 inches away from the perimeter wall. Generally, larger rugs make a space feel larger, so try to lean towards the biggest size the space can afford.
Next, consider where the rug will be placed. Any couches or chairs should at least have their front legs resting on the rug. Coffee tables should fit entirely on or off the rug. When placed properly, rugs tie together groupings of furniture, which is especially important in homes with open floor plans.
Finally, make sure that a rug’s colors, texture, and pattern work with the surrounding room. Try contrasting the hue of the rug with the hue of the furniture, but matching the color family. For example, a dark blue rug will make light blue or green furniture pop. Additionally, avoid choosing fluffy rugs for high-traffic areas, since the threads will likely wear more quickly, and stains from spills will be difficult to clean.
While clean floors can impress potential buyers, good care of hardwood and carefully chosen area rugs can take your home staging to the next level. With a little creativity, your property will sell in no time!
