Kitchens are at the heart of any home, so when it comes to selling, presenting a kitchen beautifully is a must. Whether you are tweaking a few features or considering a full-blown renovation, make sure you know your market and what features attract positive attention.
1. Deep Clean Your Kitchen
Clean your kitchen from top to bottom when you are preparing to show it. This means cleaning countertops, floors, stovetop, inside the fridge and inside cabinets. Work top to bottom, and then left to right—this will help you make sure you do not miss a spot.
Be sure to use the right cleaning product for each of the different surfaces. The labels on most cleaning products will specify on which types of surfaces they should be used.
2. Put Away or Store Personal Items
Avoid leaving personal things out on the counters, or even inside the drawers. Things like paperwork, mail, photos and even magnets on the fridge should all be taken out of the kitchen and packed up or stored elsewhere. Potential buyers want to see a clean slate so that they can imagine their own lives in the space, rather than feeling like they have walked into someone else’s.
Keeping the counters as clear as possible will help showcase the spaciousness of the kitchen to potential buyers. If you have a lot of small appliances covering the countertops, store those elsewhere when showing the home. Consider boxing and storing things you do not really need out, or that might be cluttering your countertops, like coffee mugs or spice racks.
3. Remove Extra Furniture
If you have large furniture items in your kitchen, like hutches or unattached islands, consider getting rid of these when staging your kitchen. They can make your space feel confined and appear smaller. By removing these items, your kitchen will look larger to potential buyers, who will then be able to imagine putting their own imprint on what they see.
If you have bar stools at the kitchen counter or chairs around the dining table, remove any extra seats you may have added. Use as few of these items as possible to let the room feel open.
4. Stay on top of Kitchen Odors
Since you will likely still be living in your home while trying to sell it, chances are you will still be using the kitchen to cook and have meals. When showing the home, avoid cooking meals that leave residual odors. Air out the kitchen and take the trash out daily to keep any odors from lingering in the kitchen.
- Keep pet food dishes and other pet items out of the kitchen when showing the home. These can create smells you might not notice yourself, as you are used to them.
- Drop a piece of citrus into your garbage disposal. A chopped lemon works well. This will defeat odors in your sink and leave a lasting, pleasant aroma in the room.
5. Clean Up Messes as You Make Them
Rather than spending a large amount of time cleaning the kitchen prior to showing it each time, just do one deep clean, and then clean up smaller messes as you make them. Wipe counters, and wash and put away dishes after cooking and serving meals. Put away items that may have gathered on your countertops throughout the day.
When you start to cook, fill the sink with hot water and dish soap. This way, you can drop dishes in it to soak while you eat, and cleaning up will be much easier and faster as the dishes will be easier to wash after soaking.
6. Organize Items in Your Pantry and Cabinets
Potential buyers will likely open the cabinets and pantry doors to take a look inside and get a better feel for the storage space in the kitchen; you do not want them to find cluttered messes. Keep dishes and food items organized and neat.At U-Lock Mini Storage, we offer storage units our clients across Greater Vancouver and Greater Vancouver Island by offering storage units in Chilliwack (Chilliwack U-Lock Mini Storage), South Surrey and White Rock (White Rock U-Lock Mini Storage), Burnaby and Vancouver (Burnaby U-Lock Mini Storage), Victoria (Victoria U-Lock Mini Storage), Nanaimo (Nanaimo U-Lock Mini Storage) and Parksville (Parksville U-Lock Mini Storage). Please contact a U-Lock Mini Storage self-storage facility near you to inquire about our storage units and our team members will be delighted to answer any questions you have!