Lead Your Buyer Through Your House by Staging Outside to Inside

If your house or condo is for sale, remember that first impressions are very important. Buyers talk about curb appeal -- they look at your house from the curb and you have about 10 seconds to make a good first impression. When they open the front door and walk in, you have another 10 seconds. Make those seconds count! You want to lead your buyers through your house with your staging.

Now that we are almost at the first day of autumn, here are some ideas.

Most houses and condos have a walkway from the drive to the front door. Put a pot of chrysanthemums on either side of the walk way. Put pumpkins and/or gourds on the steps going up to the front door and put at least one more pot of flowers. At this time of the year, you can get some inexpensive flowers at Home Depot or Lowe's. To get great flowers that are full, try Claussen's in Colchester Village.

On the door, place a wreath of autumn silk flowers.Wreaths are not too expensive at Michael's but if you are crafty at all, they are easy to make. Buy a ring of grape vines and two strands of silk leaves. Wrap the strands around the front of the grape vine wreath and secure with thin wire, or wrap them in a spiral around the wreath. Add a couple of dried seed pods that are on picks that stick into open spaces on the wreath. And voila, all done! Hang it on the door.

If you have a large house with columns, you can get corn stalks and attach them to the columns on either side of the front steps. The pumpkins can be placed at the bottom of the corn stalks. Be careful not to overdo the stalks. They can look corny (oops, no pun intended!) if you put up too many.

As your buyers walk in the door, place a small table that has a couple of chunky, fall colored candles, some more gourds and some dried corn. Have fun!

On the dining room table is another place to decorate a little. Again, small gourds or baby pumpkins, cranberry or burnt orange candles in holders, a couple of scattered silk leaves. These leaves come in a bag and nice to drop on the table. Place a bowl of candy corn for buyers to eat and put a simple sign that says, Please eat the candy!

Total investment with pumpkins, silk garlands, flowers, etc, will be less than $75 and well worth it.