While emptying your house of all your belongings before showing it to potential buyers could let them see how much space they'd really be getting, it also makes the house feel cold in an emotional sense. That's not very inviting, and a better option is to stage your home. Home staging is the process of placing furniture and other goods in a space to make it look more inviting without making it look too "lived in" and used. Home staging requires more than just plunking a clean couch in the living room; it's developed into an art form with rules. But it's not hard to do at all, and creating a well-staged space is well within your reach.

Create Neutral Space for Home Staging

Potential buyers want to see cozy, comforting rooms in a home, but if you show them the house as it is, the buyers might not be able to fully imagine how they might use the space. Plus, what you might consider neat and clean could seem cluttered to buyers.

It's better to create a neutral living space that's got just enough furniture and generic decorations to show what the place can look like when lived in. That ensures the home will be open enough so that most buyers won't think it cluttered. You can also remove all your belongings and place rented furniture sets in each room; this depersonalizes the space and lets the person viewing the home imagine how their belongings might look in the home.

Now's the Time to Add That Door You Always Wanted

If there's a spot in your home that you've always thought would look better with some sort of divider or door, now's the time to have it installed. If you keep thinking that spot needs something, then someone else might think it needs more, too. You can install sliding doors, such as barn doors, across openings instead of trying to build new walls to hold a regular hinged door.

Cover Carpet Dents

If you moved furniture around or changed the furniture in the room, there's a good chance that there are dents in the carpet where the old furniture sat for years. These dents make the carpet look terrible, but they aren't permanent. If you don't have time to have the carpet professionally cleaned, you can try some home remedies such as steaming the dents with an iron held a few inches above a damp cloth placed on the dent. If you don't have time or have too many carpet dents to take care of before showing the house, you may want to get a neutral-colored area rug and cover them up.

Be Careful With Smells and Sprays

One home staging trick is to make your home smell nice by baking cookies, letting orange peels and cinnamon simmer on the stove before the showing, and so on. If you don't have time to do this, you may think spraying each room with an air freshener will do. Be careful about using sprays and other artificial scents. These can be too strong for some people and unpleasant for others. Open windows to air out rooms, at the very least.