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If you are about to put your house on the real estate market, bedroom staging is important. Beautiful-looking and practical bedrooms will add instant value to your home. It is time to make your property more competitive. Let’s learn how to stage a bedroom.
Think from a buyer’s perspective – you are not purchasing a house, but a home. This means, among other things, that the master bedroom should be cozy and inviting.
When thinking about how to stage your home, make comfort a priority. You want to cause a wow-effect for everyone who comes inside so that people will be excited about living there.
This rule applies to all rooms of the house, but they matter the most to the master bedroom. You need to be creative and artistic, and ensure all necessary items are there.
How to stage a bedroom to add value for home buyers
Bedroom staging is not simple, but you are still not expected to be a professional interior designer. Look at our guide and you will gather many amazing ideas.
Keep it simple
Image source: For People design
When it comes to modern interior design, less is more. We’d even recommend removing all personal items and hiding them from plain sight, as this could discourage the buyers. The same applies to excess furniture you know doesn’t belong in the bedroom.
The nightstands, for instance, should have two decorative items on top the most. If there is a lamp, leave only a book or a small accessory, and hide the TV remotes, watches, or teacups away.
It may also be the time to get the treadmill out of the room, as the buyers may believe the room is not spacious enough.
Clean thoroughly
Image source: Seattle Staged to Sell and Design LLC
Before you let prospective buyers inside your home, clean thoroughly and carefully. For instance, don’t only vacuum the bedroom floors, but make sure the curtains and the upholstered furniture are also dust-free. Don’t forget to wipe the window blinds. A 1:1 mixture of vinegar and water should do the job perfectly.
You can even have the duvet and the comforter professionally cleaned. Next, replace the old linens and pillowcases with new ones, and wipe down the headboard. Check some tips on making the bed like a hotel pro, and the buyers will be amazed.
Decorate neutrally
Image source: Fortin Construction, Inc.
The same as the guest room, the master bedroom should be appealing to both sexes. To achieve this, keep the color palette neutral. The decorations should be well balanced between masculine and feminine items.
Bedrooms are foremost private and personal, and that is how they are supposed to look. Keep them gender-neutral and everyone will like them, even if you are selling to single buyers and not couples.
Work with a mild color scheme
Image source: Home Frosting
The rule of thumb is that bold colors don’t sell easily, so keep dark and bold variants outside the master bedroom. We discourage you from red, pink, or dark blue, as these make it difficult for buyers to envision themselves in such homes.
Instead, use beige, white, grey, or any other light pastel, and let buyers decide which additional colors they would use. This doesn’t only refer to the walls, but also the furniture and the decorations.
Image source: Sims Hilditch
Light colors also make it easier for natural light to be distributed in the room. Imagine how awesome an eggshell finish would look.
Let natural light inside
Image source:Home Staging Auckland by STAGY
Speaking of colors that distribute natural light with ease, let’s also discuss the fixtures. Good lighting should not be underestimated, as it adds up to the visual size of the room, and it creates a fresh and homey vibe.
Image source: Instant Interiors LLC
Keep the windows open during the daytime, and ensure you can replicate the result for evening visits. Subtle lamps on the bedside provide a similar soft glow that invites buyers, so make sure the lights are not too harsh or distracting.
Pick light bulbs with warmer tones and lamps with shabby-chic features. Depending on the style, you can even opt for black lacquered lamps or Asian-inspired fixtures.
Reposition the dressers
Image source: New Black Designs
To show your buyers that you appreciate function, place dressers in the appropriate places. For instance, you can accommodate them against walls with mirrors above them, ideally opposing the bed. By doing so, the mirror reflection will make the master bedroom look even better.
At the same time, balance the furniture around the bedroom in a smart way, and remove excessive and large pieces that make the room look cluttered.
Get extra throw pillows for the bed
Image source: Kermans Flooring
Get creative and choose some accent throw pillows for the bed. Throw pillows are great for master bedroom staging. Prospective buyers will appreciate how luxurious and comfortable they look. An elegant throw blanket may have the same effect.
Depending on the size of the bed, arrange between 5 and 8 pillows, and make sure they come in similar colors but varying tones and patterns. It is also not the worst idea to enhance the room feel with pops of color on the bed, assuming they work well with the rest of your decor.
Image source: Virtual Staging & Rendering Group
Neutral colors are the safest option here, but you can also play with the palette to give the room some extra character. This trick is more encouraged for the guest bedroom than the primary bedroom.
Keep wires out of sight
Image source: Instant Interiors LLC
Exposed wires are unpleasant for you, and they will have the very same effect on your potential buyers. IF they see them, they may instantly get a feeling of danger, so hide them the best way you can.
Make sure they don’t travel from one end of the room to the other. If you can’t remove them and keep them out of sight, replace them with neutrally-colored cord covers so that they don’t attract that much attention.
Image source: Nia Morris Studio
You should hide wires with care so that there is no fire hazard. For this purpose, you can buy heatproof boxes and hide the power strips inside smartly and safely. In the best-case scenario, they will run under the bed and no one will be able to see them.
To simplify the process, you can also disconnect them and remove them during the showings of the place.
Mirrors are always a great idea
Image source: Limerence Design
Mirrors are not only practical, but they also reflect light and make the room look larger. They are probably the only furniture items you can get that don’t clutter the space but double it instead. Best of all, they are not expensive and they come in all shapes and sizes, and you can easily place them anywhere you want.
Image source:Mãkena Interiors
Modern buyers will also appreciate mirrors placed next to artwork pieces. This detail will remain in their memory when making their decision. If you have a small bedroom, use mirrors to make it cozy and stylish.
Don’t forget to put an area rug
Image source: Instant Interiors LLC
When staging a bedroom, don’t forget the floor space. It is extremely important to keep floors in a good condition since no one wants a home with dirty and old floors.
Redoing the floor might sound too expensive, but our bedroom staging tips can help. For instance, you can replace the overused wall-to-wall carpet with an area rug placed strategically.
Image source:Virtual Staging & Rendering Group
The rugs should also come in corresponding colors and textures so that the viewer can distinguish the different areas in the room. If the room is large, rugs will neutralize sound and make the space look cozier, and that’s exactly what buyers are looking for.
Stage the bedside tables
Image source: The Staging Place
Bedroom staging means staging everything inside, including the nightstands. You can do this easily with modern and simple decorations.
As a rule, there will be a bedside lamp and a book to define the reading area. You don’t have to use the same lamps on both sides, but make sure they are similarly styled. For instance, replace one of your shabby-chick white laps with an Asian black-lacquered lamp.
A balanced look can only be achieved with nightstands on both bedsides. If you don’t have enough space for this, install light fixtures on the wall.
Impress buyers with hotel-inspired bedding
Image source:Home Staging Auckland by STAGY
The focal point of each bedroom is the bed, so make sure it looks breathtaking. Give your current bed a look, and think from a real estate agent perspective: does it look new and cool, or old and overused?
Worn-out bedding won’t do you any favor, so replace the linens immediately. The best linens for bedroom staging are the neutral and soft ones, as they give the bedroom a high-end hotel look and can raise the price.
Image source:Home Staging Auckland by STAGY
They don’t have to be all that expensive. Home improvement stores offer all kinds of essential kits with coordinated patterns and colors, so take some time and look around.
Stage the headboard
Image source: The Staging Place
Bedroom staging is sometimes complicated, and the reason is that you don’t have that many options. You are only working with a bed, a closet, and a couple of windows.
So how can you spice the room up? How can you facilitate the real estate transaction? The answer is simple than you think: Get an inexpensive headboard!
Image source: Fiona Andrews Interiors
Headboards are simple, but they can do miracles for your master bedroom or the guest room. Better yet, they are affordable and you can find them in local thrift stores or on garage sales, or even create them yourself. A piece of an old wooden door and some paint is all you need to design a focal point.
You can also accentuate the bed by hanging curtains behind it. You will be surprised by how elegant and luxurious the bed will look.
Clean the dressers
Image source: The Unruffled
Remember: real estate agents and potential buyers will leave no stone unturned, especially in the most important room. They care significantly about closet space and storage space in general, so take clutter away.
Clean the closets and leave only the items you need. This way, the closet looks bigger and more organized, and buyers can make their decision.
Move the bed around
Image source: Home Frosting
Most of the time, we don’t get to choose the position of the bed. We simply settle for the best possible option to keep the bedroom open and organized, especially if it is not that large.
Strategical placing means putting the bed away from the door, but ensuring it is the first thing visitors see during an open house. The bed should also be placed on the largest wall to make use of the space in a small bedroom.
Whatever you decide, make sure there is enough walking space on both sides of the bed.
Make a day out of it
Image source: Tammy Bowen Design, LLC
Staging an open house is not the most pleasant experience for you, so make the most of it for yourself and your buyers. Put low but inviting music on the TV in the bedroom, and buyers will benefit from upbeat energy while exploring the space. If you don’t have a TV, connect your phone with a portable speaker and play some classic jazz.
Consider the traffic flow
Image source: Katia Janowski
Let us complete our guide on how to stage a bedroom with the most important thing: traffic flow. The traffic pattern should be natural on the way in and the way out so that visitors don’t feel jammed or confused.
This is a serious consideration to make before you bring any furniture to the bedroom. When planning the traffic flow, consider how furniture interacts with your doors and windows. Here are some basic tips:
- There should be at least 11/2 to 21/2 feet space surrounding the bed
- In guest rooms, twin beds should be divided by at least 11/2 to 21/2 s feet
- To add visual space to a small bedroom, get a new bed that is smaller and more modern
- You should be able to open and close the closet or the drawers at all times, so leave at least 3 feet of space in front of them.
If you enjoyed reading this article about how to stage a bedroom to look amazing, you should check out these on how to keep an attic bedroom cool in the summer, how to divide a bedroom into two rooms, how to convert an attic into a bedroom, and how to build a small closet in a bedroom.
We also wrote about similar topics like how to add a walk-in closet to a bedroom, how to turn a basement into a bedroom, how to turn a living room into a bedroom, how to fill the empty space in a bedroom, and how to convert a garage into a bedroom.