The process of staging your home to ensure a sale involves a lot of different practices. First and foremost, you need to thoroughly declutter any and all space you’re showing to make things nice and tidy. You’ll also need to do a thorough cleaning, manage small repairs, and invest in more significant improvements if possible. Amidst all of these efforts though, you should also keep your furniture in mind.

It can almost be easy to neglect furniture, because the general assumption is that prospective buyers are considering investing in the home — not what’s in it. Unfortunately though, taking furnishing and décor out of the picture when assessing a property is easier said than done. Even if people viewing your home are well aware that they aren’t buying the furniture as well, how it looks and how it’s arranged will impact their impressions of the property.

Given this, we’re presenting a few furniture-related staging tips to keep in mind.

Get Rid of Old or Damaged Furniture

The first and most important tip is to get rid of old or damaged furniture. This may seem like an obvious tip for those who are used to staging successfully, or those who are inclined to take a thorough and careful approach. But again, many make the mistake of assuming prospective buyers will look past furnishings, and thus ignore any disrepair in this area.

The truth is that furniture in bad condition is considered to be one of the main reasons home staging can stall a sale. Simply put, furniture that appears old, worn, broken, or even outdated can change the entire complexion of a space. It can turn an otherwise beautiful, inviting, and well-staged home into a less appealing space, and in doing so prevent a sale. This can even happen on a subconscious level, such that someone viewing the home doesn’t necessarily nit-pick about furniture, but still comes away with a worse impression than he or she might have had the furniture been in better shape.

Find Sale Pieces

Aside from the misguided assumption that home viewers will simply look past old or unimpressive furnishings, another thing that holds some homeowners back in this area is the simple fact that new furniture can be expensive. Staging a home can actually be a costly process given that it often involves a few repairs or remodelling projects, and budgeting in new furniture simply to make a good impression isn’t always a priority.

For this reason we suggest that anyone considering staging and/or selling a home in the near future should begin keeping an eye out for some of the sales occasionally run by respectable brands in this category. For reference, an up-to-date overview of retail sales recently pointed out that customers can sometimes get as much as 50% off items from brands like Silentnight, Hudson Living, and others in the furniture space. Sales of that nature, as well as the occasional discount at a major online retailer, can give you plenty of options, such that you may well be able to affordable re-furnish a home for staging. You may just set yourself up with some excellent pieces to stock your own new home with as well!

Look Into Rentals

If the idea of buying new furniture specifically for this purpose seems a bit much, or exceeds your budget, furniture rental for home staging is also an option. In this case, you simply need to find a local company that will rent out pieces (or which at least has a lenient return policy) and figure out what you need in order to temporarily replace old furniture, or make a few key rooms stand out.

Where rentals are concerned, the issue is sometimes the effort required. Ultimately it’s a fairly big job to find the right store, choose the right pieces, and organise them in your home, all on a temporary basis. And it still costs money as well! For these reasons alone, some prefer to simply purchase new pieces. That said, renting is sometimes more affordable in the long run, and can thus be worth considering. For that matter, you can also try a mix of buying and renting — perhaps purchasing furniture you’re confident you can use wherever you may be moving, and renting the rest of what you need.

These are simple tips, but vital ones if your home staging effort is to be effective. The state of your furniture is every bit as important as presenting a tidy space or emphasising desirable features. It is thus necessary to ensure that old pieces or those in disrepair are replaced by newer and more attractive alternatives.