Three front porch staging mistakes to avoid

So you’re looking at a new home and you walk up the front door. However, you’re greeted with a not so nice front porch and it makes you cringe. What are some of those things that turn you off? What are some mistakes that home sellers are making that can easily be fixed when staging a home to sell?

Let’s get into the episode. So you don’t make the same front porch home staging mistakes.

You’re listening to the creative home staging show, the podcast, all about home staging for home sellers and realtors. We talk about home staging. How to appeal to home buyers and strategies that help you sell your home faster. I’m Kasia McDaniel, a home stager, mom of three who loves to travel and a military veteran who has moved 10 times in 25 years.

The military life helped hone my home staging skills. To get our houses sold faster each time we put it on the market. And I have helped thousands of home sellers like you to declutter stage and sell your home faster so you can move to your next home. Let’s dive into this episode.

Hey there, everyone. Thanks for listening to the creative home staging podcast show. You may be noticing a couple of name changes and a couple of cover art changes. Yes, we’re going to be focusing more on home staging in this podcast. Hello. My name is Kasia McDaniel. I am your host for the creative home staging show.

And I want to welcome you to this podcast episode, because there’s a lot of things that we need to cover when it comes to home staging. Um, so I want to do that with this and focus more on those types of tips for you, home sellers and realtors, because you guys are looking for that kind of information. I know you are always kind of stressed because you’re moving and selling your home.

I’ve had to do that for 25 years. We’ve moved 10 times. So. Yeah. I know how stressful it can be. Believe me. So let’s get into this episode and talk about front porch staging mistakes, because the front door area is basically your first impression. And that’s where you make that first impression, right? And what we need to make that great first impression when it comes time to sell your home, because you don’t get a second one, right?

So what makes me and other homeowners cringe when they come to the front door. Let’s start off with the cobwebs and dirt. Yeah, yeah. I noticed that after a storm on my front porch that the, um, there’s cobwebs and spiders. They just love to add to the ambience, especially around like, you know, October for Halloween.

I’m like, wait, I’m putting up fake ones and yet there’s real ones here too. Yeah, so I actually end up going, you know, just on a monthly basis I go out and check because, you know, we don’t go out the front door. Normally, right, we have our cars in the garage we go out the garage door and we rarely go out the front door.

But when home sellers come to your house. Where do they go? The front door. So it really needs to be neat and tidy and clean. So cobwebs, dirt, sweeping up, just taking a broom to sweep up that front porch area is a major, you know, thing that you can do that can be done so easily. Even your kids could do it.

Especially the ones who want to help, right? Cause the teenagers, maybe not so much, but maybe that’s something that they can do as an extra chore to help you out with the house sweeping the front porch. Yeah, it’s really important. Um, I know when we have our pest guy that he comes out once a quarter, he will actually take a broom.

He has a broom handle, a long one that he goes around and takes care of those cobwebs for us. But in between you need to take care of that too. So. Take a look at your front porch and see what is it that you see when you walk outside. So literally walk outside and go take a look right now. If you’re at home, go walk outside your front door and go, Ooh, yeah.

Yeah. And that dirt keeps coming back. I mean, it’s dust, especially here in North Carolina, we have clay. So maybe where you live, it maybe doesn’t get as dirty, but Man, it just sometimes just builds up after a storm. So take a look. Um, I know sometimes that happens to when the lawn crew comes by, um, at your house.

My house is, my husband cuts the lawn and sometimes he’ll blow the grass cuttings, you know, and it’ll get onto the porch. Frustrated going, why did you do that? I’m like, that’s extra work for me because I’ll just blow it out. I’m like, okay, but you need to remember to do that. Otherwise I’m out there sweeping the front porch.

So. Take a look and, um, see if that’s something that you need to work on.

What improvements to make that count and 10 home staging tips you can do right now. Go over to B I T dot L Y forward slash start staging now and download your free guide today.

Okay. Number two, uh, the front door. Maybe need some paint or a new coat of stain and polyurethane. Yeah. Take a look at your front door. Is it chipping cracking? Is it just not looking that’s great? Greatest, you know, cause maybe it’s West facing or East facing and it just gets a lot of sun. Um, even though our front door is East facing the stain on our door, cause it’s a wooden door, it’s stained.

So it’s like a nice rich mahogany kind of a dark Brown color. Um, after a couple of years, yeah, it’s all dry and brittle looking and I’m like, Ooh, yeah. So it was, let’s see, the first time we stained it, um, was when we, you know, built the house. Um, but seven years later, we’re like, Ooh. Yeah, we need another coat of stain on this and polyurethane.

And it just looks so much better. Oh my God. It was just so rich and inviting and everything just brand sparkling new. So if painting your front door is something you need to do, I would highly recommend doing that because again, it’s your first impression, right? And you need to make that first impression.

So take a look at that front door. Maybe it’s the door handle. Is it jiggly? Is it, you know, just not sometimes the handles, like the metal, it’s stuff can get kind of yucky looking corrosive looking. It’s like peeling or something. I had that on my front door. I’m like, what happened here? I’m like, there’s no chemicals that we use to clean it.

And I was like. Weird. Okay, fine. But take a look at your front door. Touch the door, you know, feel it. Are the windows, if there’s windows in the front door, are they clean? You know, um, mine, I have big, huge windows on the front door. Um, but that gets dusty too. So I got to wash those too. Right. So that’s another thing to take a look at or is that front door and the windows, if you have them on your front door.

Okay. Okay, now the third thing that you want to take a look at on your porch is the furniture. Is it dirty? Is it dusty? Is it, you know, maybe just not looking that’s best. Maybe it’s peeling or maybe you have a little table out there and some chairs and they’re just not looking so great. Maybe the cushions need to be replaced or washed or hosed down.

Right. Um, I have these beautiful white Adirondack chairs and of course, white shows everything, all the dirt. Um, so I have to hose those down like once a quarter, it seems like, right. Um, I also have a bench on the other side cause I have a pretty long front porch area. It’s kind of split kind of one side and then, and then the front door and then another side.

So it really depends on your front porch area, how much room you have. If you have room for a little, Table with a chair, you know, maybe you could put a potted plant there, something fresh, you know, maybe you need a new cushion or maybe just take off the cushion and just hose down the chair, you know, depends on the type of furniture you have.

If it’s metal furniture, then you probably want to put a cushion there. If it’s wooden, then you may or may not, you know, just kind of clean it off, hose it down. Um, I have a, a bench with a little side table and that side table gets dusty, dirty. And I don’t even know how I’m like, I have a plant on there.

What I water the plan. And all of a sudden there’s, there’s dust and stuff all over this table. I’m like, where did that come from? So, If you’ve gone outside at this point to look at your own front porch right now, take a look at your furniture and go, Oh yeah, we probably need to just clean that up a little bit, you know, hose down, wash those pillows, maybe replace them.

If you are going to replace them, then think about, okay, well I could take these with me to my next home, which is a great idea, right? You can totally do that. So, um, those are, that’s just another thing that can make homeowners kind of cringe and get Ooh, it’s kind of yucky out here. They got cobwebs and other things.

So, so those are the three things that you should take a look at on your front porch, if you are staging your house to sell. So we’ve talked about cobwebs and dirt. We’ve talked about the front door, whether it needs to be painted. Or restained with more polyurethane, kind of give it a nice coat or take a look at your furniture.

That’s the third thing. If it needs to be, you know, hosed down, cleaned up new cushions, take a look at all of those things. And that will quickly give you a great first impression on your home when you’re trying to sell it. All right. I hope you guys have a fantastic week. We’ll talk to you later.

Thanks again for listening to this episode of the creative home staging show. I hope you got some good tips in this episode and I hope you come back and listen for more. If you want to connect and want to take action, there are some ways you can stay connected with us. Number one, you can watch this episode on my YouTube channel at Blue Diamond Staging and Design to get more visuals.

I like to share some short videos there as well, so take a look at my channel there. Number two, you can also leave a review. Your feedback helps this show grow. You can go to the show and tap the three vertical dots to open a menu and hit rate the show. Number three, you can also find custom playlists from older homestaging episodes that I called Homestaging Do’s and Don’ts, as well as pre homestaging playlists, for those of you who are new to homestaging.

And number four, if you have any questions about today’s episode or need some homestaging advice, You can go to blue diamond staging and design. com forward slash chat and contact me via email or call me. I hope that this podcast is just a way for you to get to know me and how I can help you. Remember, you can do this and staging is temporary.

Keep up the good work and I can’t wait to connect with you more.