Prepping your Home for Sale, Sanctuary or Satisfaction

Prepping™ is enjoying your life in a personally creative manner, using the ‘zen’ approach where less clutter is more appreciation with a cleaner, friendlier feeling and use of interior space. It’s maintaining fresh, lively, grounded and strong energies in your home, garden and office places. Prepping™ combines historical architectural and housing styles, interior design, furniture trends, garden landscaping, psychology, quantum physics, feng shui, vastu, colour theory, and staging. This is the 21st century method to scientifically prepare your home for living and/or selling.

Prepping™ each room and area of your house, lot or office will combine all the best aspects of promoting relaxation, health, efficiency, cleanliness, vitality, comfort, happy pets,  and optimal human communication enhancing personal and family relationships.

Prepping™ starts with two things—removing all cluttered objects from rooms, closets, storage and yards, and then cleaning and washing all floors, walls and windows. Next you need to observe carefully everything in that room and decide what will go to garbage, recycle, Thrift store, gifts for friends and what will stay. Place these objects in boxes or bags and put them outside to deliver or for pick-up. Remove excess furniture like sofas, chairs, tables, lamps, bookshelves, and knick-knacks. Store or give away these items.

Now you’re ready for Prepping™! Clean all surface areas, and decide which paint colours you might need to change. Remember that dark wall colours close space and make the room feel smaller, while lighter colours especially higher up and on ceilings enlarge the space and make it seem bigger. Dark floors can enhance when the walls and ceilings are light-coloured, otherwise light floors are fine too. Decide what area rugs are needed or whether you would like an unobstructed wooden floor.

Let’s start at the beginning with the front yard and door. Fresh green, trimmed hedges and grass are optimal. If you have block, concrete, pavement, or gravel, make sure it is clean, smooth and walk-able as a path or entranceway. Plantings of colourful perennials, a weed-free garden, along with nice hedges, bushes and trees that are clipped of dead branches are important for that all-significant “first impression.” On either side of the door, I place red potted geraniums for freshness and earthy aliveness. The outside walls and doors have been power-washed and repainted if needed. Proper bright lighting for the exterior front door is essential.

The hallway entrance needs a clean, bright look with light colours, strong lighting, a cleared floor, and hooks or stand-up coat rack for all clothing. A shoe or boot rack is good, although you will want to remove this when selling the property. A nature poster, photo or painting is cheery and welcoming. Remember, the first sensation you want to create in the potential buyer or visitor is, “I would love to live in this home!”

The living room is most important as far as space in the house, as this is the primary living area for many people. There needs to be a nice visual enticement into this living space. Throw out dead flowers, dried things, old memorabilia and place fresh green potted plants in colourful containers on floors and cut flowers on mantels and tables. Have bright in-ceiling lights and stand-up and table lamps tastefully placed. The rules of Feng Shui and Vastu suggest optimal open space in the centre of the living room, along with a harmonious and easy, natural flow of energy as the person moves through the interior space of the living room. An appropriate and essential balance of colour, material, and five elements (earth, water, fire, metal, wood) needs to be dealt with successfully in order to create a healthy living environment.

Sparse, attractive and comfortable sofas, chairs, centre table and end-tables need to be arranged according to scientific principles of flow, energy, and vitalization from the modern and ancient living traditions like Feng Shui and Vastu. There are optimal placement strategies that can be mapped out in advance. Recall that health, happiness, prosperity and loving relationships are very much affected by how your living spaces are created and maintained on a daily basis.

The kitchen area feels and looks best when it is clean, fresh, and uncluttered with off-white or light warm colours on the walls, ceiling and floors. Sometimes an area rug works, although not always. The windows, walls, floors, counters, cupboard doors, tables, chairs, fridge, stove, oven, sinks and taps all need to be sparkling and constantly washed. Do repairs to any marks, gouges or stains on counters and sinks. The walls and window frames may require a fresh coat of paint. Store most of your cooking pots, pans, cookers, blenders, and electrical kitchen machines out of sight inside cupboards. It is best for Feng Shui and for visual effect to clear all clutter from window ledges, countertops, fridge top and table tops. Remove fridge magnets, photos and drawings from the sides of the fridge. Most folks will open the fridge to check, so you might as well clean and put proper lighting inside, along with a few tasty treats that intrigue the taste-buds.  Cleaning the stove top and replacing burner foil is easy to do. A few small tasteful green plants in pots may suit on the counter or table; also small bouquets of cut flowers look great on the table with the place settings with a central larger spray of colour. A clean table cloth and napkins improves the classic feeling of the kitchen. Remove all jars, glasses, bottles and other paraphernalia from sight, along with pet bowls on the floor. Bowls of fruit and/or squash are appealing and homey. Remove excess stools, chairs and tables from the kitchen so the space becomes easy to access and fun for the family to congregate. Removing garbage daily, and cleaning the garbage container as well as all surfaces refreshes the visual and olfactory senses.

Your kitchen storage cupboard or pantry should be designed with adequate shelving, whether wood or metal, to maximize the use of your space. You’ll want to whistle a happy tune while you clean the ceiling, walls, shelves and floor; a fresh coat of white paint works wonders and opens the space up. Sort and stack items so that organization becomes appealing to the viewer.

The master bedroom may be one of the bigger challenges to create a warm, clean livable feeling. Remove all personal memorabilia such as cards, dried flowers, old magazines, books, clothes, and photos, as these detract from others feeling they could move in and be happy with the space. Freshening the paint with warm colours, cleaning the rugs or carpets, bedspreads and curtains, not to mention the windows will give a good sense of vital energy in a room that can often feel depleted or cluttered. Keep the curtains open, lights on, and choose soft music to play. In our book, we deal with other necessary aspects such as colour, direction of the head of the bed, and the use of the 5 elements of earth, water, fire, metal, wood in the bedrooms and other rooms.

Why are bathrooms so crucial? The cleansing and daily rituals start and finish the day, so apt attention is essential here. And we’ve come so far from outhouses and latrines. Perhaps it’s the godliness and cleanliness connection. In any case, every small area of the bathroom needs to be dazzling when the lights are turned on. From the taps, sinks, counters, to the toilet and around the bottom and behind the toilet, including the floor and the tub and shower head, all is ship-shape. Clean mirrors, windows, lights, cabinets, grouting. Clean tile floors. When prepping for sale, I choose to buy fresh new white bath and hand towels, face cloths, and bathmat, folded and/or hanging properly on clean racks or shelves. Coloured towels work also to match coloured walls. You may need a new shower curtain, or at least wash the one you have. Needless to say, all clutter is removed and put away in drawers and shelves, especially toothbrushes and paste, eye-wear, shaving materials and make-up. Cut flowers in small vases go well on the toilet top and counter. Make sure, every bathroom is treated equally.

The dining room shows best when the table is formally set with table cloth, napkins, flowers, and perhaps candles. Again all clutter is removed from all tables, chairs, sideboards, and china cabinets. Store extra china, tureens, and chairs; four chairs are adequate. The flow of people and energy in the dining room enhances the feeling of ease, where congregating is natural, not forced or stuffy. As with all rooms and halls, make sure all light fixtures have high wattage bulbs and finished ones replaced. Tasteful art on the walls help potential buyers to linger and dream of meals and laughter here together.

Young people’s bedrooms and spare bedrooms need the same loving attention as the master bedroom. Clean the tornado clutter in the room by storing and/or donating books, magazines, toys, games, clothes and electronic head-sets. Organize computers on tables. Beds need to be made daily, including bed-skirts to cover mattresses and bed frames. Clean and shampoo carpets, including all carpets in the house. Take out TVs, and do leave a radio with soft music playing. Some appropriate paintings or wall art work, while taking off certain personalized posters. Organize book shelves and have one interesting book on the bedside table, along with some flowers. Curtains are pulled back to show views, and all lights are on in the room.

The office, den or family room also needs to be decluttered of papers, files, magazines, games, toys, and other personal objects such as photos and awards like diplomas and sports trophies. Take out extra sofas, chairs, stools, tables, tvs and objects stored in corners. Add extra standing lights and brighter table lamps. Replace pot lights with brighter lights. Clean computers and monitors, along with desk tops which should be empty except for a phone, computer and small green plant. Place potted plants on tables or floor/carpet, and fresh flowers on tables. Depersonalize the room, make it seem large, clean and inviting to walk into.

Garage

The most important aspect regarding the garage, out-buildings, and workbench area is that it is completely decluttered, clean and well-lit. Make sure all garbage, unused parts, machines, appliances and boxes are either stored appropriately out of sight, taken to recycling, given away to charities or ReStore Habitat for Humanity.
 
Take oil, gasoline and other noxious or toxic chemicals and liquids to proper recyling or safe community disposal industrial buildings.
 
Sweep and clean floors, add brighter lighting, store all objects off floors onto shelving, and make clean, open space on all workbenches. Washing windows and adding more lights may be good options to consider.

GARDENS AND LANDSCAPING
 
The yards, gardens, and lawns need to be properly attended. Lawns need to be cut and trimmed, watered and green. Pathways and walkways do well when cleaned, swept and neat. All hedges, bushes and trees require trimming off dead branches. Most importantly, they need a lovely “haircut” so that they look smart and well-cared for. All perennials need to be watered, trimmed back, and spaced well in the garden plots. Annuals need to be added during the appropriate seasons. Weeding down to the roots is also a given. Pots of plants placed according to Feng Shui on front and back decks, porches, entrances and yards give the beautiful, inviting “look” that potential buyers are waiting to find. Fountains, topiary, pottery, and exquisite pots for stand-alone plants might be considered as well. You will want to look at the Feng Shui, topography, compass directions and energy lines on both the front and back yards, along with all the above garden work around the entire property and house.

All content regarding Prepping™ is copyright material from my book