Selling and Decluttering – Kitchen Counter Tops

Posted on January 11, 2010 
Filed Under Listing and Selling Your Home, Valerie Zinger

Perhaps you have learned to do all of your food preparation on the 18″ X 18″ bit of space not covered by stuff on your kitchen counter.  Living and cooking in your home is not the same as trying to sell your home.  If you have a real estate person coming in to do a market evaluation, start getting your house ready, before he or she arrives.  It may impact the list price.  Certainly, take time, before the first Buyer walks through you house, to open up the space on the counter.  Be merciless. This photo depicts how real people live.  When you are selling, no Buyer cares that you are a “real person”.  What the Buyer wants to see is him or herself living in the house.  So….

  1. Remove all the appliances – the exception may be a Kitchen-aid mixer in a decorative colour.
  2. Your coffee pot has got to be stored and never leave home with cold coffee in the pot on the counter.
  3. Put your dish rack away and certainly all of the dirty dishes.
  4. Put your paper towels and shrink wrap and storage bags in a drawer.
  5. Take your bucket of utensils and your knife rack and find a place in your cupboards.

Having removed almost all “working” gear from the counter, first scrub the counter until it shines and then stage it with an odd number of decorative pieces:   a colourful appliance, a vase of lemons, a small fruit bowl with fresh fruit, or three bottle of San Pellegrino water. 

It is not about your clutter but how you show it off. 

 Photo credit:  Cluttered kitchen corner @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasetheclouds/2832715068/

Comments

Leave a Reply