Home for Sale: 3 Simple Open House Tips

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!

#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.

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.

#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.

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.

A silverware basket holds all of the items we keep out on the counter. It works perfectly at keeping our sink organized. And, look! Sitting inside it is the mason jar we pulled out of the Open House Box, corralling our toothbrushes.

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.

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.

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.