Staging your home is important so that it’s at its best when on the market. Staging is a great way to make your home more appealing to buyers. Most people focus on staging larger rooms in their home, and the home office is one area that might get overlooked. However, most people nowadays are looking for a home office room in their house, even if they don’t work from home full time!
So if you already have a home office, this is a wanted feature! Having an office space will add value to your home. Make the space even better by staging it properly for potential buyers. Here’s what you need to know about how to stage your home office.
Staging a home helps buyers see the house as a potential home for themselves instead of seeing it as your home. Learning how to stage a home properly will help your home sell faster. Let’s work on how to stage an office space to show off your home office.
Types of Home Office Areas
There are many different places in your home that can be used as an office space. Sometimes homes have a designated room for an office (with no closet or attached bathroom), and other times home owners take over other rooms in the home for their office spaces.
The most common way to add an office space to your home is to turn an extra bedroom, or bonus room into an office. You can either utilize the entire space or only a section. If using only part of the room, try to secure a spot near a window for extra lighting. This makes it a more appealing work area for potential buyers.
Buyers may want to copy your idea and use a room for more than one purpose, but only if it’s presented well.
Other, more creative ways to add a home office include using an old armoire (or wardrobe). Add shelving and pull out tables as needed and then pop a chair in front. Boom! A custom workspace and now office space in your home! Another idea for older homes would be to use any desk spaces that are located in the kitchen. This was a huge feature years ago that can be perfectly adapted into a modern day office space.
Colors for an Office
Now that we’ve covered the different areas in a home for an office space, let’s talk colors. Staging an office will be similar to staging other areas in your home. This means no bright walls and no busy patterns.
Even though bright colors are great stimulants for work areas, you don’t want these colors on the walls. The delight that buyers feel from seeing that you have an office space with be lessened by the fact that they will need to paint the wall. Even though painting is an easy task to accomplish, most buyers can’t get past it.
So, ideally use neutral colors for the walls, desk, and furniture. A sleek chair will pair perfectly. Make sure the chair fits the space nicely, stay away from anything too bulky. Be sure to patch up any holes and paint over any marks or scratches in the walls. Don’t let something like a mark ruin your perfect office space staging! An easy paint over will fix this.
As with other rooms in your home, feel free to use pops of color in the space to make it more vibrant and fun, but don’t go overboard. You still want your buyer’s focus to be on the room and how they can use the space rather than them focusing on a decoration.
You can add colors in more fun ways in an office space. Add color in accessories such as pencil holders, organizational folders, or lamps. Ideally keep them all the same color to keep from a color overload.
A plant or a bright vase with flowers is a nice touch of color for an office space.
An office space can even have a bright painting added to bring the area to life. Stay away from mirrors and also keep any personal diplomas or pictures on the wall to a minimum. We we talk about decluttering in the next section.
Just like with other spaces in the home, you want to make sure there is plenty of light for the office space. No one wants to work in the dark! If there is a window nearby, keep the blinds or shutters open, and keep any drapes pulled back. Before a showing, turn on table lamps. If needed, add a sleek floor lamp to brighten the space.
Cleaning and Decluttering the Office Space
Cleaning and decluttering your office space will be similar to how you clean and declutter other rooms in your home. Once you stage a room or two, you’ll have the basic foundations down for all the spaces in your home!
To get started, clean the entire space. This includes the ceiling, windows, the desk area itself (and anything on top of it), the baseboards, the office chair, and floor. Be sure to dust very well! Remove all items, including folders, accessories, or decorative items and dust everything. Since there will be light shining all around your space, any dust left behind will show!
Next, depersonalize your office space. This means no family photos, work awards, or certificates. A colorful painting is acceptable as it will accentuate the space. Keep in mind that you are just creating the idea what potential buyers can do for an office space.
Keep the office area decluttered and don’t have too many pens or folders out. If the space is too busy buyers may begin focusing on the stuff rather than the space itself.
The focal point for the room should be the office space itself, not anything else in the room.
The good news with the office space is that buyers won’t open up the cabinets or drawers in the office area like they would in the kitchen or bathrooms. Which means you just have the keep the top spaces cleaned off and ensure that nothing is sticking out of the drawers!
However, since you will be removing everything to clean the space, now is the perfect time to not only declutter, but throw out any items or paperwork that you no longer need. You’ll thank yourself for doing this once it comes time to move.
If you are currently using your office space as your main work space, pick a drawer where you can stash any of the paperwork on your desk inside of when there’s a showing. There is no need to change it so much that you can no longer use the space for work.
The Finish Line
Congratulations! Now your office space is staged properly. Buyers are going to be excited about the fact that the house has an office area in it, and this should help them lean towards choosing your house as their next home!
Most sellers want to know how to sell your home fast and you’ve just found one of the ways, staging! While staging your office is important, don’t forget to stage other areas in your home. We can help you learn how to stage your kitchen, your living room, your master bedroom and master bathroom, your entryway and dining room, and even how to stage other bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets in your home and your garage! Just click on the links and start staging!
Want to skip the individual room posts and learn how to stage your home? Read this post that covers how to stage your entire home inside and out!
