Home Selling Tips | Staging Children’s Bedrooms

We very quickly went from considering selling our home to contracting a realtor, listing our home for sale and accepting an offer. Our house was only on the market for five days before we accepted an almost full asking price offer. We certainly hoped for the process to happen this way but are still in absolute shock it’s gone so fast. Much of the credit goes to our fabulous realtor, Megan of The Home Selling Team of Randy and Janine. After having a not so awesome attempt at selling our home a couple of years ago, we built a pool then decided to revisit this process again later. And here we are about to finalize this sale and move to a home we are ecstatic about. Shortly after our initial consultation with our realtor, she arranged to have a professional stager come to our home to make suggestions before the house was listed for sale. Alissa from Fauxnatic about Color spent an hour in our home and a week later sent a very long detailed instruction on how to stage each room. The list included removing art and rugs, rearranging furniture, decluttering and how to reuse items moved from other rooms in new areas for the ultimate seller’s effect. The goal was to spend nothing but made a big impact on the appearance of our home. I couldn’t wait to get started until I thought about staging children’s bedrooms. Luckily we pulled ourselves together and managed to get our home completely cleared of years of treasures pocketed by two little girls set on saving every item they ever thought was important. Thanks to Oriental Trading Company for adding to our staged children’s bedrooms with decorative throw pillows.

The before was not pretty but it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We lived here, really lived here and it looked like we lived here. Our eight year old daughter‘s bedroom was a magical place where she kept every special personal belonging and displayed many years of important milestones on her walls. I remember painting her bedroom in an ocean theme before we moved into this home. Then as she grew she decided she wanted the ocean wall to be fully blue so we painted the entire wall and covered the tops of the waves. One year she decided she would grow up to be a princess so coordinating pink walls were added. I was just as invested in this space as my daughter so taking items off the walls felt hard. 

Together we removed posters of favorite SeaWorld animal encounters, art she had created with friends and many different awards. She packed away all the books she read before bedtime with me from well before she could read. The surfboard the tooth fairy delivered on our beach vacation and her crafting supplies were boxed up too.

She had such a hard time taking down the poster she made to bring to the NY Rangers hockey game where Zuccarello threw her a puck. She had an even harder time asking her grandmother to pet sit her new baby tortoise and her very loved hedgehog.

We didn’t have time to process the fast changes and along the way we carefully labeled boxes and reassured our daughter everything would be back in her room in a new home soon. At the time I didn’t know what “soon” meant and was doing my best to have faith this process would be quick. The next day her room looked fantastic and was ready to be photographed for our listing photos.

Staging our children’s bedrooms cost nothing so I decided to add to the room appeal with decorative pillows. I turned to my favorite online retailer for inexpensive children’s items, Oriental Trading Company. They have many different sized throw pillows perfect for staging children’s bedrooms. My daughter’s bed looked comfy with three different Oriental Trading Company blue pillows and a sequined pillow she already owned.

Medium Blue Pillow | Large Blue Pillow | Jumbo Blue Floor Pillow

As imagined our youngest daughter’s bedroom also housed an eclectic collection of stuffed animals, toys, books and so much more.

By the end of the staging children’s bedrooms process, her room was decluttered and ready for potential buyers to visit too. 

Home Selling Tips | Staging Children’s Bedrooms

1. Stick to your budget.

Know your budget and stick to it. For us, we had expenses elsewhere because we are also in the process of purchasing a new home so we wanted to spend as little as possible staging our home prior to the listing photos. Check out online retailers like Oriental Trading Company for the finishing touches. You’ll be surprised at what you can find – these decorative pillows were much more cost effective than shopping in a home decor store.

2. Declutter.

Really really really declutter. If your child has items that must stay in their room house them in decorative bins or storage baskets.

3. Depersonalize.

This is not new information and if you’re trying to sell your home you’ve heard this before. But really think about your home as marketing material. In the slight chance a potential buyer visiting our home disliked the NY Rangers (shocking, I KNOW), the last thing we want on our wall is a giant handmade poster where my daughter proclaimed her fan love for Mats Zuccarello.

4. Remove all posters and wall art.

You can certainly add something neutral back later if you have blank wall space warranting art on the wall but in the beginning, take down everything and fill in those nail holes. Our stager advised it was okay to leave our girls’ name art because they are children’s bedrooms.

5. Wrap TV and electronics cords.

Remove all dangling cords or wrap around the back so the walls look neat and not messy. Your new buyers want to be able to see themselves living here comfortably, not battling with electrical cords!

6. Remove rugs.

Remove all rugs to show off your floor space.

7. Try to match furniture.

If you don’t have a matching dresser, consider not having a dresser in the room at all. You don’t want mismatched furniture to be the focus of the children’s bedroom. We did end up moving a few things around. Remember the brown dresser? It’s tucked neatly in my daughter’s walk in closet. We replaced it with a white storage unit that was in a different room. Same for our youngest daughter’s room. We moved out the black cube storage unit and replaced it with a white one that matched her bed. 

8. Clean!

Dust and wipe down all surfaces but also consider having your carpets, ceiling fans and blinds professionally cleaned. We also had our windows washed prior to our listing photos being completed.

9. Label boxes well.

This process was HARD for our oldest daughter. The reassurance came with great box labels. She is confident she knows exactly where all of her personal belonging are to unbox the day we move into the new house.

10. Don’t accidentally pack anything you use daily.

I won’t tell you how long it took me to dig through boxes to find my daughter’s computer. Her computer. She said she knew she didn’t have any SeaWorld blog posts due this week so she just decided to pack up her MacBook. Nope, an adult should definitely oversee all packing! 

What are your best home selling tips and ideas for staging children’s bedrooms?

Learn more about Oriental Trading and how they can help make staging children’s bedrooms easy by connecting with them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.