Staging Your Closets With Feng Shui

January 20, 2010

If you’re like me, the thought of tackling a major job like cleaning out your closets makes your head spin, whether you’re doing it to stage your house to sell or for better Feng Shui energy.

In Feng Shui, having orderly closets and dressers is a very good thing. Having closets and dressers that incorporate some empty space is desirable because it allows room for new energy (and Jimmy Choos ) Holding on to old, damaged or unused items creates clutter, which slows down the flow of energy (Chi).

In order to get started organizing your closets, many professional organizers advise you break the project down into small chunks, so its not so overwhelming.

Only have a half hour to spare? Clean out a drawer. 15 minutes? Get rid of all the wire hangers and dry cleaner bags cluttering up the closet.

Remove everything from your closets. Assess everything and determine if it is really useful. With the exception of some seasonal items, if you haven’t used it in the past year, you should get rid of it (donate, give away to a friend, recycle or throw it away). If your closet is full of outdated, ill fitting items, there is no room for anything new to come into your life and it is a drag on your energy. The goal is to get rid of clutter and make space.
Vacuum out the closet once it is empty. You will be amazed (and grossed out by all the accumulated dust and dust bunnies you’ll find).
If you have the time, energy & money ($20-$50 depending on the brand of paint and what supplies you already have on hand) repaint your closet. It will look soooo much better when you’re done.
Put the items you are keeping back in the closet in an orderly fashion, and in a manner that allows the item to be useful and of service to you. No matter what anyone tells you, if the organizational system is not organic to your way of doing things, you won’t be able to maintain it and it will devolve into chaos quickly. I invested in Elfa type closet organizing systems for all our closets, and I consider it one of the best investments of time and money I have made. I can see everything I own and can choose what I want to wear quickly and easily. Stores like the Container Store will help you design your closets for maximum efficiency and you can install the elements yourself to save money. Need something even less expensive? Check out the closet organizing systems at IKEA or Target.
- If possible use all the same hangers (you can buy nice wooden hangers from IKEA and they are inexpensive)
- Have the hangers facing the same way (most people prefer hooking hangers over the top of the bar from front to back as opposed to under the bar back to front)
- Separate the types of clothes – group shirts with shirts, pants with pants, dresses with dresses
- Organize by style – group all short sleeve shirts with short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts with long sleeve shirts, etc. Go one step further and organize by color (all white shirts together, blue shirts together, etc.)
- Organize by color – after you’ve separated the clothes by type and style, the gold standard is to organize by color – all white short sleeve shirts together, all blue slacks togehter, etc.
Put all shoes on shoe racks, hanging shoe organizers, or clear plastic shoe boxes.
Whenever possible don’t keep anything on the floor of your closet except shoes and those should be neatly organized on shoe racks.

Home Staging Tip:

If you are staging your closets because you are planning on selling your home, then the closets should be no more than half full. Pre-pack any clothes that you want to keep but won’t need for the next few months. Put the unneeded items in storage. Label every box well so that you can grab a particular item in the event you need it. Follow the tips above regarding what to keep and how to organize the remaining items.

Charitable Clothing Donations:

If you have women’s business clothing you no longer wear, please consider donating the clothing to an organization like Dress For Success - The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Another great Los Angeles area orgnization is Clothes The Deal. They provide business training and appropriate business attire to men, women and at risk youth job seekers in need.

We’re here to help. Contact us if you need help organizing your closets or for more Los Angeles home staging or practical Feng Shui information.

Posted by Michelle Minch | Filed Under Feng Shui, Home Selling Tips, Home Staging Information, Occupied Home Staging, Our Services, Staging & Design Tips and Sales, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Listen To Your Home Stager – Part 2

January 18, 2010

Today was the first open house for our home staging project in South Pasadena.

I spoke to the listing agent after the open house and he was ecstatic. Despite the rain, he had a great turn-out and the comments were overwhelmingly positive. He said he got many comments about how the home appeared move-in ready (top on my list of the comments I want to hear about a home I stage) and how pretty everything was.

Dining Room before home staging

The dining room had too much furniture, and the furniture wasn’t really suited to the style of the house.

Dining Room after home staging by Moving Mountains Design

A fast recap of this home staging project:

The listing agent hired me for a home staging consultation on his South Pasadena listing. I met with him and his clients and we discussed everything I felt needed to be done to get this home ready to sell. The homeowners and listing agent were diligent about doing everything on the list, and they got it done in record time. The clients moved out, the house was repainted, re-carpeted, and cleaned over the course of a week!

Living Room before home staging

The living room furniture was too casual. It was better suited to a family room.

Living Room after home staging by Moving Mountains Design

Here’s the family room transformation:

Family Room before home staging

There was so much furniture, I wasn’t able to take the before and after shots from the same angle!

Family Room after home staging by Moving Mountains Design

Looking at the photos, I almost can’t believe its the same house or how quickly it was transformed.

Posted by Michelle Minch | Filed Under Home Selling Tips, Home Staging Information, Our Recent Projects, Pasadena Home Staging, Uncategorized, Vacant Home Staging | 1 Comment

Listen To Your Home Stager

January 16, 2010

Over the past few weeks we’ve done several home staging consultations in Los Angeles and Pasadena.

In 2 cases, the listing agents paid for the consultation and both agree it was a great investment based upon the transformations that resulted. In both instances I suggested repainting and new carpet. In both cases the interior of the homes had not been painted in several years and the paint looked tired and soiled. And in both of the homes the carpet had become so soiled and worn that it was not salvageable.

I’m happy to report that both homeowners made the investment to get their San Dimas and South Pasadena homes sold quickly and repainted the interiors and recarpeted.

I’ll be posting pictures of the South Pasadena home we staged later today (we haven’t staged the San Dimas house yet) so you can see what a difference listening to your home stager can make. But in the mean time, here’s some before and mid-way photos of how the South Pasadena home we staged was transformed by new paint and carpet.

Here’s the before shot: