Making your house look bigger than it actually is isn’t as difficult as you might imagine. Growing your house is done using small adjustments. Ask a golfer, or even a dart-master, how to become the best player possible, and they will tell you that the biggest gains are made through tiny adjustments. Experts who know all about the advantage styling gives when it comes to selling houses tell us that expanding your space can be done by making small adjustments in surprising places.
Focus on the Heart of the Home
Making your kitchen look big enough to prepare food for an army is all about organisation. If you take a moment to look in your pantry, or your refrigerator you will likely find duplicates or even triplicates of items that ought to be consolidated. How many boxes of lasagna sheets do you see on your pasta shelf? (This blogger has three – all open and surely gathering dust. Tsk. Tsk.)
If you march yourself down to the nearest bargain store and purchase a lidded, clear plastic container in which to confine such items, two things happen. You eliminate repetition and, secondly, add the see-though element which tricks the eye into believing more space is available than really is. If you take the time to do this for all of the dry goods in your pantry, you can make the pantry look larger, and have a better idea about your own inventory. (This will ultimately save you money at the grocery store.)
Canned goods can be installed in one of those clever racks that essentially dispense one can at a time. Perhaps you’ll have one for each kind of soup, vegetable, or fruit. This can be done for just about anything you store in your pantry from soft drinks to evaporated milk. Such an exercise will give you not just more space but an advantage that will be seen by prospective clients as more available space.
Spices can expand to take up lots of space in their drawer, shelf, or cabinet. If there is one item in a home that seems to multiply, it’s those specialty spices. Whether it’s a tin of dried rosemary, or a plastic shaker of garlic powder, the spices in your home will play hide and seek with you. The first thing you know, you have two of everything. Consider investing in one of the door-mounted spice racks. Not only will the spices be unable to hide behind each other, such a door rack takes them visually out of the pantry, saving space.
Work Like a Pro
Drawer spaces in the kitchen are populated by utensils and sundry gadgets that may or may not be particularly useful. Take a trip to a restaurant supply store or a good cabinetry shop and you will find drawer organisers that can seriously double or even triple your drawer space. These smart-looking inserts can fit one atop another to make your drawer storage seem perfectly orchestrated. You don’t have to eliminate anything, just use these inserts to calm the visual chaos which makes any space feel crowded.
The same sort of drawer organiser can be useful in helping with your silverware drawer. If you are like most human beings, you have bits and pieces of flatware from several generations. You may have two of your grandmother’s table knives that match nothing you now own. Of course, you also have salad forks from your university days and a spoon or two that came from places unknown. When you declutter your silverware drawer, it instantly becomes tidy and efficient. It also appears much bigger in the buyer’s eyes.
If you look around your kitchen with the eyes of a professional chef, you will likely see lots of vertical real estate that isn’t used to anybody’s advantage Styling your working kitchen could mean adding wall-mounted magnetic knife holders. This keeps your knives sharp and has the big bonus of keeping them out of drawers where they often slice the unwary cook. Another place that may not be used effectively is the ceiling. Consider adding a pot rack. Doing so can create much, much more cabinet space where you can stash the small appliances that clutter your benchtop.
Yes. We are actually talking about the dreaded chore of decluttering. It is among the first and the most important steps in making a house ready to sell. If you took a solemn oath to dispose of things you don’t use or don’t want, we think you might be surprised at the meaningful dent made in the mountains of stuff you’ve saved over the years. So take a bold step and use every decluttering advantage. Styling your home to seem larger begins with your decision to streamline your stuff.
