Curating your home: the secrets of staging your own stuff.

You know how you look at a staged home on the market and you think that your home could never look that good? It's really put together. Everything seems to go together or complement each other. It's that same feeling of when you put on a perfectly tailored suit and your tie and pocket square are spot on. It looks like you were dressed by Art Lewin. That's how the house feels.

What you may not know is that your house can look that good. We have a great technique that we use to help organize and curate your belongings to get that staged look and feel.

Before we begin, when was the last time you really looked at your house? When we live somewhere, it is rare that we actually look at our home. We're walking in with a kid in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other, trying to set the keys in the dish and wondering how you're going to disinfect everything and everyone and still get dinner on the table before 8PM. Life is crazy busy. No wonder we don't stop and look. If you are selling, you should take a few minutes to do just that.

Also, almost all of us have too much stuff. We collect. Our kids bring home clay sculptures from art class. We receive gifts. Things accumulate. We understand how this happens.

So, How do we do this?

Go out of your front door and take a deep breath. Imagine you are someone else, a buyer, a long lost friend, a realtor, perhaps. Then open your front door and look at it from their perspective. What catches your eye? How would you describe the space? What does the flow of the house feel like? These may seem like very esoteric or odd things to think about, but it works.

Now, let's curate!

Let's pick one room to do as an example: the living room. You need to really understand what you have. We like to pull out everything--all of the baskets, sculptures, art, tchotchkes, collections, candles, throw pillows, etc. (the art is your choice, but you might be moving that around as well)--and put it on the dining room table or on your bed. It's important to put everything in one place.

Now you have a room with only furniture: a couch, a couple of chairs, bookcases, a coffee table and maybe a rug. Take a look at the arrangement of the furniture. Is it good? Is it symmetrical? Can it be used for watching TV and having a conversation? You'll know. Rearrange if necessary, or just for fun.

Now go to the collection of items you pulled out. Pick a few things that go together. Perhaps they are related by color. Maybe by style. That red throw pillow works well with the art and the carpet, two vases, a candle, and 9 books. Put those things in the room. Now go do it once more, but with a neutral color. That stainless steel bowl goes with the pewter candle holders, 8 gray books, the coasters, and the coffee table base. Put that in the room.

Now let's arrange these things. Pick one main focal point in the room. The coffee table is a great place to start. If you have one very unique piece, place it there. Now go around the room and stage in vignettes. It's like taking snapshots. In fact, using your phone for this can be really helpful. That table in the corner needs a lamp, two paintings above, one candle, and one carefully chosen tchotchke. The bookcase needs a few books, a vase, that small collection of similar works of art, and the stainless bowl. If you are truly staging for sale, don't put back personal pictures. You want the potential buyers to envision themselves in your house, not you. The trick is keeping it simple and relatively sparse. Give everything room to breathe. You don't need to fill every space.

Now walk out of the room, reimagine yourself as a visitor, and walk back in. Better? Absolutely.

Okay, about the rest of the stuff you removed…store or throw away everything you are not going to display. For storage, we like using simple decorative boxes or baskets that fit inside closets. Why do we want pretty ones? Because people touring your home are going to look inside!

One room down, 7 more to go! We find the big challenges in the children's rooms, the bathrooms, and the kitchen. For the kids' rooms, go big on storage. They don't like to throw away toys. Do your best, but we totally understand that this is tough. For the bathrooms, just throw things away. Get rid of those rarely-used moisturizers, old shampoos, and unnecessary makeup brushes. Get rid of that gnarly bar of soap and use a liquid dispenser. Countertops should be uncluttered. Same goes for the kitchen. Weed the pantry and remove as much as you can from the countertops. The living herbs on the windowsill should be in proper planters, not clear plastic cups or coffee mugs. Throw out mismatched plastic containers. As with all rooms, de-clutter, replace, walk out and walk back in.

Sometimes, it's better to think of these spaces as a retail store rather than your house.

It's a dance. Curating and staging takes practice. Even in our own houses, we practice this at least once a year because we receive gifts and things accumulate. Life happens and every once in a while, we have to step back and really look at our home. Good luck!

If you want to work with a professional interior designer, we highly recommend Daniele Turiace. She is the talented stager and home stylist we work with. Find out more about her at https://blackdesigngroup.com/