Anyone who's sold their home knows how hard it can be to best stage their home for sale with the furniture and artwork that they have in their house. Many of us use the spaces in our home in ways that suit us and our lifestyles but leave the rooms in our homes looking messy or cluttered.

The purposes of staging a home are to give the home a "show home" quality and minimize the amount of our own personalities remaining in the home so that other people can better see themselves living in the house. Most people do not buy furniture as soon as trends change and because of that their furniture may be somewhat dated, or it might be a holdover from the Nixon administration.

A few well-placed neutral or classic pieces of furniture can do wonders to brighten up a room or even just make it feel more welcoming to prospective buyers. Not everyone has the perfect furniture to complement a particular space and the furniture that you do have may not be in the best shape, especially if you have pets or children. An appropriately sized piece of art in colours that complement your room can also make a huge difference to how your house is viewed.

Another problem that homeowners may find is that they don't use all the rooms in their home and so may not have enough furniture to effectively show buyers what potential the rooms have. Prospective buyers in an empty house are forced to use their imaginations to see how they might use these empty spaces, which often results in a lack of interest in your home. Entire empty houses are even harder for a prospective buyer to feel at home in as it's really just a big empty shell.

Whether you work with a stager or not, consider renting updated furniture from either a reputable rental agency or a staging company to help showcase your home and show off its best assets.  Matt Barker