Staging Tips: Part 3.... The Smell of Your Home
You’ve heard the old saying to bake cookies or the like in order to sell your home. But really, who has the time when they are prepping their house for an open house or for showings? Also… making cookies = dishes… that have to be put away and spotless for showings!
This is not to say that the smell of your home doesn’t matter. On the contrary! It matters A LOT. If a buyer walks into your home and smells dog, cat, dust, stale-ness, garbage, diapers, or chemicals (looking at you Febreeze), a buyer could turn right around. And who can blame them? Funky smells signal to the brain, “SOMETHING IS OFF HERE!” You should never try to use smells to cover something up. If your beloved pet has made “messes” on your carpet, you are going to likely have to rip that carpet and pad up. Nearly no amount of cleaning/steaming/disinfecting is going to get that out. But if you just have an animal who resides with you and can sometimes smell a little… well… like an animal, here are some of our favorite smell tricks for selling your home.
Clean Your House
When you list with The Tucker Team, we bring in the most meticulous cleaning team there is. We do this for our sellers and buyers because again, who has the time to scrub!?
Lemon Drops/Lemon Slices/Plinks in the Garbage Disposal
Whatever your choice, when you are showing your home lemon + your garbage disposal will be best friends. Do it often— everyday is NOT too often. The smells that can waft out of that thing are wild.
Lavender Drops in Toilet Paper/Paper Towel Rolls
Put a few drops of lavender in the cardboard portion of your toilet paper rolls and your paper towel roll. Each time they get spun, a little fragrance boost is released.
Spring Clean your Washing Machine AND Dishwasher
Did you know that there are “secret” spots on most washing machines and dishwashers that need to be cleaned at least twice a year? Check out the laundry deep clean here and the dishwasher here.
The Scents
You have a few subtle options for scents at this point.
My favorite candle in all the world is Martha’s Vineyard scent by Archipelago. It is a powerful scent but clean and lovely. Burn it for an hour or so before you leave your house and extinguish with the lid so you dont leave a smoke smell behind.
Reed Diffusers. You can pick these up at Target and place them around your home. Get the same scent for throughout your house so it is not jarring to buyers. I recommend these from Target. Or these. Or these.
Essential Oil Diffuser. Again, go light on these. A subtle lavender scent or a clean laundry scent is the way to go. You can set these and leave them running when you leave.
Please, oh please, do not buy or use Glade plug-ins or anything of the sort. They smell like chemicals because they are made of chemicals and buyers notice their smell in a NOT positive way. So the rule of thumb is, Clean Up and Enhance the Smell. NOT clean up and cover up.