5 Tips for Decorating Your Home for the Perfect Open House

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If you are in the process of selling your home, the way your home is being presented has certainly become a priority, whether that be its presentation in your online listing, print ads, or (and probably most importantly) staging your home for in-person showings. An open house, one of the types of showings that homeowners have the option of scheduling and hosting to garner more interest, requires a bit more preparation and attention to detail than the average house showing.

Since your house becomes open to the public, there is a different feel to an open house than a one-on-one showing, and it requires a different approach – especially when it comes to decorating, and paying attention to the details that make a big impact. Below are 5 solid tips for decorating your home for the perfect open house and making sure your home makes the stellar first impression it deserves.

Keep Your Personal Style Out

Buyers focus a lot on aesthetics, and everyone has their own taste. The last thing you want to do is have your home decorated full-fledged in your style and leave a potential buyer unable to see the home’s potential because they cannot get past the fact that your taste doesn’t match up with theirs. The way around this is to keep things simple – keep the color palette simple and make sure the rooms look “livable” but there’s still space for the imagination.

Stay Sensory

While the general etiquette for open houses is that the potential buyers coming through should not touch anything, it helps to engage their senses. Choose fabrics that are soft and inviting. Find a comfortable blanket – cotton, while the priciest, is probably worth the investment here – and leave it over the couch or on a chair for them to touch. Engaging their senses in any way possible will aid in making sure they not only remember your home during their search but that they remember feeling comfortable there.

Lighting is Everything

It’s no accident that any visual content requires good lighting, and staging and decorating your home for an open house is no exception. Figure out what direction your home faces and find out how much natural light you can or would like to optimize to display your home in the best possible light – literally. This also comes down to the day and time you schedule your open house, since lighting changes during the year and even during the day. Location even matters here, for instance, if you are selling your home in Florida you may want to choose a time of day that really maximizes the warm sunset, especially if your house faces west.

In addition, pay attention to the lighting of your home that is not natural light – soften lights as much as possible, get rid of fluorescents if you can, and try to backlight furniture and rooms as much as possible, too.

Write Notes

If you have particular furniture pieces that are very much entrenched into your home, say, a chandelier or a certain armoire, and these pieces have a story to them, write little notes and leave them on certain pieces to tell their story, even if you aren’t in the room with the potential buyer. Of course, the idea here is to present these pieces as an option for the buyer to be the owner one day – so include the fact that the piece is not included in the sale price of the home and would be an addition.

Most of the time, and especially for particularly beautiful pieces, home buyers are open to falling in love with a particular piece and adding it into the sale price. Notes of any other kind that get a message across to a buyer walking through your home can be written and placed anywhere, but don’t overdo it. Pick the things you know are assets to your home and in no way would want anyone coming in to miss out on – then, you can relax and let the house do the talking, and won’t feel like you have to hound or shadow the buyers as they look through every room.

Put a Bowl of Candy at The Door

…And maybe a few other bowls in other rooms, too! Having a little bowl of tasty treats for potential buyers to have when they first enter and while they tour your home is a great way to not only get them in the door but entice them to have a look around. Take it a step further by putting the candy in a glass bowl next to a nicely printed “Welcome” sign that is easily visible once they enter the home. You can even make cookies a few hours before as well and have those in the kitchen – nothing says “sensory” and “home” like the smell of freshly baked cookies flooding the rooms of a house.

When it comes to decorating your home for the perfect open house, it’s all in the details, whether that be in paying attention lighting, engaging the potential buyer’s senses, and making sure they receive all relevant information without feeling overwhelmed. With these five tips, you are well on your way to a successful open house – followed by a successful closing.