Skip to Content

Home for Sale: 3 Simple Open House Tips

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

We are in the process of selling our first house and doing it DIY style too — as in For Sale By Owner (FSBO). This post is part of a series called, Home for Sale, in which I’ll share some of the details of our FSBO journey.

Preparing for an Open House or a showing can be a stressful task — especially when you have a toddler running around the house. Our little guy can spread his toys across our entire family room in a matter of minutes, not to mention things like dropping food on the floor and running into the house with mud-covered shoes. And, of course, we can’t stop using our bathrooms and kitchen while selling our home. So how do you keep a home “showing” ready and live in at the same time? We’ve learned a few tips along the way that might just help!

Simple Open House Tips

#1 Create an Open House Box

There are certain things you’ll have to do before every open house or showing — things like putting out fresh towels and cleaning off surfaces that you use everday. The purpose of an Open House Box is to make it easier.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

Here is what you don’t want to happen. A showing is suddenly scheduled for that evening and you realize you have zero clean towels in your house. So now, not only do you have to pick up, wipe down surfaces, etc — you also have a load of laundry to do as well.

Before you begin showing your home, take an empty box and fill it with clean bath, hand and dish towels. When we have a showing scheduled, we walk around to each bathroom and the kitchen grabbing all the dirty linens, and putting out the clean linens. We just throw the dirty towels in this box to pull back out after the showing is over. So the clean towels in the Open House Box never actually get used, only shown.

Some other items we store in our Open House Box:

  • a mason jar for bathroom counter clutter
  • some clorox wipes for quickly cleaning surfaces
  • all of our paperwork about the house {listing sheet, sign-in sheet, comparables, etc.}

We keep our an Open House Box in the bottom of the closet in our guest room. As soon as we fill it up with the dirty towels, we throw it back in the closet to stay until the showing is over.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD
#2 Hang White Towels in the Bath

Not only do you want your linens to be clean, you want them to look fresh too — like when you walk into a hotel bathroom. It’s a matter of opinion, I’m sure, but I think white conveys that feeling the best.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

White is also simple, too, so it won’t distract from the other details of your bath — which is what you are trying to sell!

#3 Containers are Easier

Our bathrooms can get cluttered and messy pretty quickly. We bought some simple containers at yard sales to make it simpler to keep the bathroom clutter-free.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD
3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

We picked up some ceramic dishes for inside the drawers {potential buyers may take a peak, as they’ll be living with the size of those drawer if they purchase!}. It keeps the drawers looking neat and helps us keep small items in their place, as opposed to leaving them on the counter.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD
3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD
3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

And a simple basket next to the sink keeps the toilet paper organized and neat for showings, but yet still close at hand for our family in-between showings.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

We use the same concept in our kitchen — another heavily used, quick to clutter, spot in our home. These two pretty boxes sit on our island. If we have a stack of paperwork, magazines or cards out on the kitchen table, we can toss them in these boxes until after the showing is over.

3 Simple Open House Tips, Home For Sale, Sell By Owner by @CraftivityD

Have you shown your house before? What tips do you have?

More Tips to Sell a House:

Sissy

Thursday 21st of May 2015

GREAT BLOG-I AM A BIG FAN OF FSBO SELLERS!!

sellmyhouseinaz

Thursday 7th of November 2013

Amazing styling tips! Especially the mix opposite theme looks awesome. Its great idea to combine old with new look.

Cost to Sell a House

Craftivity Designs

Thursday 10th of October 2013

Great tips!! Love the hot water with lemon & vanilla idea! Congrats on your sell :)

Emma

Wednesday 9th of October 2013

We just recently sold our house in New Zealand after the first open home. Our tips - new towels, a new shower curtain, a new colourful rug in the bathroom to distract from the horrible old bath and basin. Flowers on the kitchen table. Fresh fruit in a basket on the counter. New (cheap!) white bed linen on the beds. Everything as clean as possible. A few new plants in pots outside the doors. And as we have animals which probably smell worse than we think, we got a nice soy vanilla candle which we lit before hand. And in the kitchen we simmered some hot water with lemon and vanilla essence which smelt really good. good luck!

Craftivity Designs

Thursday 3rd of October 2013

Good! I hope it's helpful :) We've really loved having the open house box. It has made everything so much easier.