Steven Crews
(403) 870-2669

How to Make Your Home Feel Bigger When Selling

One of the most important aspects of selling a home is to create the kind of aesthetic and feel that the potential buyer can get into. To create the look that can make them think of your home as potentially being their home. If you are able to achieve this, you can get buyers interested in purchasing your home. When you make your home feel bigger the buyer will naturally imagine how they would design and live in the space.

The key to make your home feel bigger when selling is staging. Eliminate the clutter, minimize the furniture, strategically placing the right furniture and pick the right paint colors. Make your home visually appealing to the buyer by having the right balance of furniture in each room.

Let's review in more detail, a few of the things that you can do to create the illusion of space and openness when selling your home to any potential buyers.

  1. De-clutter
  2. Stick to neutral colors
  3. Bring on the Light
  4. Limit yourself to the essential furniture
  5. Have the right sized furniture
  6. Don't under-stage your home
  7. Create space in the bedroom
  8. Mirrors and area rugs are your friends
  9. Choose a focal point in your living room

We should take a more in-depth look at just how to create the illusion of space, making your home feel bigger and more open than ever before. There are a number of different ways to achieve them, some easier or more effective than others.

De-clutter

It seems like something of an obvious thing: don't leave excess stuff laying around. But this is not something that sellers necessarily think about. When you stage your home for potential buyers to look at, keeping things clean and tidy can help to minimize the amount of clutter.

Remove everything from counters and tables that don't need to be there. Flat surfaces should have as little on them as possible. This will make your home look larger than it may normally feel.

If you have kids, make sure that there are no toys laying about. Make sure that you've cleaned up mail or other items from the counter tops. Put things away that don't need to be out. Being able to see a good portion of the baseboards will project space, making the room feel bigger than it may actually be.

Stick to neutral colors

While neutral colors may feel and seem boring. They may not fit your design motif, there is one thing to keep in mind when selling your home: you are not appealing to yourself. You are appealing to potential buyers. Quite simply, neutral colors give the illusion of more space and keep the eyes of buyers moving throughout the home. Consistent neutral colors create a feeling as though one room flows into the next.

Neutral tones like grays, browns, muted greens and muted blues have a much wider range of appeal for home buyers. Most of all, those neutral colors will help to open up a room, giving it the feeling of more space even though there obviously is not.

Bring in the Light

One of the most important factors to creating a look of more open space is to allow as much natural light to flow into the room as possible. For this to happen, you may want to remove any dark window treatments that you may have previously had. When it is darker in a particular room, with less natural light flowing in, the room can feel closed in, restrictive and less open.

As more natural light flows into a space, there's the allure of more room without actually creating anymore room. Even better, if you have views outside of those windows that are worth seeing, it will only add to the aesthetic of that room. Lots of natural light and good views can not only enhance the overall appeal of the room itself, but give the illusion of more size to make it seem like a whole lot more room.

Limit yourself to essential furniture

Even if you typically make use of more than just a piece or two of furniture, try to pare it down to the bare essentials when staging a home. Remember, you are trying to create the illusion of more space than there may actually be. When you have too much furniture cluttering a room, you rob the room of that feel and make it seem smaller than it may be.

This is why you may see bedrooms in model homes that have nothing but a dresser and a bed. This is to create the illusion of more open space, which in turn allows more natural light into the room, which (you guessed it) allows the room to feel more spacious.

The name of the game is creating space and making your home feel bigger so that potential buyers will feel like they are getting more house than they really are. Cluttering up a space with unnecessary furniture will only rob the room of that illusion of space and make it more difficult for you to sell the home.

Have the right sized furniture

In the same vein, it is important to have the right sized furniture when staging. Having an over-sized sofa in a small den can have the opposite of the desired affect: that huge piece of furniture may accentuate how small the room itself is. This is the last thing that you want to do.

If you have a smaller room in your home, try to stick to complimentary furniture pieces that will not stand out in size and make the focus of the room seem small. When you have furniture that fits the space itself, you give the illusion that the room is bigger than it is and that will ultimately help you move your home far more quickly.

Don't under-stage your living room

While it might seem completely counter intuitive, having a room that is closer to empty than full can actually hurt your ability to sell. Buyers are always looking for a point of reference when it comes to size in a room so that they can envision their things in place of the furniture that is currently staged.

When you have little or no furniture, the room may look more open and therefore bigger, but the buyer has a more difficult time envisioning themselves in the space. Finding the right pieces to fit the room will go a long way towards not only creating a more open visual but allowing potential buyers to see themselves in the space as well.

Bedroom tips to feel bigger

In the bedroom in particular, there are a few different things that you can do to make the room feel larger on the whole. The first is to make sure that the bed is on the wall that is furthest from the door. This gives the allure that the room is bigger since there is the most amount of space between the door and the bed. This also lends to the previous tip: bigger beds will take up more of a smaller room. Avoid over-crowding a room with an over-sized mattress if at all possible.

The second bedroom tip is to always make sure that there is walking room on either side of the bed. If the bed is so big that you can barely move on either side of the mattress, If you cannot move around the bed comfortably and conveniently, the room will no doubt feel too small. Plan strategically so that you can maximize the space in the bedroom.

Use Area rugs and mirrors to make rooms feel more spacious

Area rugs are another tool that you can use to maximize the visual space in a given room. Go with a larger rug wherever possible instead of multiple smaller area rugs. This is not a necessity in every room; if the room appears sizable without the rug, feel free to skip it.

Mirrors, meanwhile, are another tool in which you can help transmit natural light to give the room a more open visual aesthetic. As previously mentioned, lots of natural light can make a room feel bigger. When you have mirrors placed around the room, primarily on the walls as complimentary decorations, it will reflect that natural light and project it back into the room.

It cannot be stated enough: natural light is the key to making a room feel larger. Mirrors will bounce that natural light around the room as well as reflect any windows to create the aesthetic of even more open space.

Choose a focal point in your living room

Believe it or not, the arrangement of the seating in your living room can be a big visually stimulating factor. Having a focal point such as a large window or fireplace is one of the more common selections when choosing your seating arrangement, but it may actually work just as well if you have a huge piece of art or perhaps a family heirloom to use as the focal point.

This works because it defines the room clearly, which helps the buyer to picture how they would enjoy using the living room. Not only that, one of the main purposes of a living room is for socializing. When the arrangement is done properly, the seating will give off the visual aspect of sitting and talking, making the space feel more welcoming and warm.

It is also important to arrange your furniture in a way that does not block entry points. The last thing that you want when selling your home is the buyer to come into the room and walk right into the back of a sofa. Create definite pathways for walking; this lends itself to defining the room for the buyer.

Summary

We have reviewed a number of ways for your to make your home feel more spacious. A well staged and furnished home is much better than a jam packed home and is also much better than an empty house.

Our first tip to de-clutter your home will give you the highest return on your time. If you do nothing else, remove as much clutter as you can. Every tip we offered will incrementally improve your space and give the illusion that your home feels bigger and more spacious.

If you have found these tips helpful, then connect with us and let us know what you implemented. If you have other tips that we missed, we'd love to hear them.

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