Home Staging Tips for Pet Owners
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As much as you love your pets, not everyone is an admirer of animals. If you plan on putting your house on the market, chances are there will be more than one person buying a new home in your area that isn’t exactly a pet-lover. If you want to keep their interest and increase your chances of selling your home in a reasonable time frame, you want to do what you can to reduce your pets’ impact and hide their presence when it is time to show your home.
Home staging is the process of cleaning, decorating, and curating the details of your home to be its most appealing on the market. There are many ways to stage a home. Some of them require huge projects that overhaul entire rooms or areas. Sometimes even the smallest things can have a huge impact. Properly staging a home helps people get the maximum sale price possible — the median sale price in Laveen, Arizona, is $235,000, for reference.
Some commons ways people stage a home include:
- Polishing wood surfaces with orange oil
- Removing clutter and depersonalizing the home
- Replacing towels and linens
- Adding mirrors to open up space
- Highlighting storage areas by boxing up items
- Hiring professionals to clean rugs and carpets
- Organizing books and knick-knacks into small groups
- Storing extra furniture and large items off-site
- Touching up paint– or re-painting altogether.
- Replacing light bulbs with energy-efficient versions
For homeowners with pets, staging has to go a step further than these simple tips. Pet owners need to take the necessary precautions to remove smells, hair, dirt, and any other evidence of their furry loved ones around the house.
Remove Stained or Ruined Items from Around the House
Every pet owner has something around the house that shows blatant evidence of their pet’s destructive abilities. Whether it is that rug that Fido left a spot on or that old loveseat that kitty took to be her personal scratching post, it is best that those items be out of sight and out of mind before you show your house to a potential buyer. Advertise the items as free-for-pickup on a website like Craigslist or Nextdoor, donate them to a local charity, or contact a local junk and bulk trash disposal company to get them out of your hair. In addition to these big things, also hide the little items that betray your pet’s presence.
Eliminate Pet Odors
As much as a good stove top potpourri can help your home smell inviting during an open house, nothing gets rid of musty old pet odors quite like a good cleaning. Pet odor is the result of chemical reactions caused by bacteria, dander, molds, and other icky things our pets leave behind. Getting rid of these unpleasant odors means disinfecting from top to bottoms.
- Sweep and mop floors to completely remove dirt, dust, dander, and debris.
- After having carpets and rugs professionally cleaned.
- Wash all of your pet’s items, including beds, blankets, and toys.
- Access a black light to find evidence of pet messes.
- Use an odor-sealing primer to address urine smells on drywall or wooden furniture.
Reduce Allergens
Even if they can’t see or smell your pets, people with allergies will know they are there once their eyes start to water and their noses begin to itch. You can help reduce allergens with daily cleaning, but that may not be enough. Replace air filters in your HVAC systems and consider buying purifiers that you can place strategically throughout the house. Open the windows and let some of the fresh air circulate to help dilute dander. Also have your entire home — especially carpets, curtains, and furniture — steam cleaned to help kill bacteria and allergens.
Staging your home takes a little more work when you have pets. You want to remove any visual evidence of your furry friends by getting rid of ruined items and hiding their accessories. Pet odors are caused by bacteria, dander, and mold, so the best way to get rid of them is through a good cleaning. Finally, you can reduce allergens in your home with steam cleaning and new filters in your home’s air filtration system.
Article provided by Medina at DogEtiquette.info.