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Home staging has been promoted in the mainstream for a couple of years now, and the nice thing is, it’s still a relevant tool when selling a home. Home staging works to make your home more appealing, which in turn means it a) sells faster, and b) sells for a higher price than most non-staged homes.

However, many people don’t completely understand what home staging is. Staging is a relatively simple concept that involves some key principles to make it work.

First, de-clutter. This is the essential rule of home staging. If you do nothing else, do this when selling your home. The kind of de-cluttering I am referring to is more than just clearing the papers off your desk, though that’s recommended too. The kind of de-cluttering required for a home sale is deeper. It requires you to evaluate every room in your home and eliminate everything you no longer absolutely need. Beyond spring cleaning, even, this is about paring down your junk to the bare minimum. Then, in home staging, you take it another step further. To truly achieve the feel of a staged home, you need to de-personalize it.

De-personalizing a home involves removing things that you don’t want to get rid of, but that serve to remind potential buyers that this is your home. These include family photos or personal mementos or knickknacks of various kinds. The goal when selling a home is to make the buyer feel at home in your home: to create a space that they can imagine themselves inhabiting. But pictures of your family and highly personal items can diminish that, which is why they need to be packed up. Consider it a head-start to your much larger packing job once the home sells. But don’t store the packed boxes in the garage, these need to be gone, too.

Other than maybe a couple of storage boxes, it’s best to find somewhere off the property to store anything you don’t want to be around while your home is being shown to buyers. Since garages, spare rooms and storage space are features buyers appreciate in a home, you don’t want to over-fill these spaces with your boxes. Some sellers rent storage space. Others make use of friends or family’s storage space. Whatever you do, stick to the rule of keeping out the clutter in your home for sale, no matter what.

Other than boxes packed with family mementos, you may want to consider moving out appliances you rarely use but aren’t ready to part with. Having clear counters in the kitchen is another imperative. Same goes for the cupboards. Don’t empty them, as an empty house is almost harder to sell than a crowded one, but keep everything, everywhere, neat, tidy and sparse.

Another aspect of home staging is often to modernize the look of the home. Many home-stagers, when they’re given the budget to go all-out on a home, rearrange and even replace furniture to give the home a better look. Usually, home stagers are interior design professionals. Sometimes they even own their own selection of furniture and art to use for staging, or have an arrangement with a local furniture company. If your budget just doesn’t allow for this, try to do it yourself by keeping bright and easy in mind. Your goal is to insure that one can easily move around a space, and nothing is awkward about the room. Consider getting together with some friends are rearranging your furniture until you get something everyone agrees looks best. Remember, this isn’t how you’d arrange it for your own convenience or livability. This is simply to make it look good at first glance.

Speaking of first glance, those first impressions are really the most important when showing your home, as a buyer makes a decision about whether a home is on their ‘maybe’ list or ‘no’ list within less than a minute of first seeing the home. Details within the home only minimaly impact that first impression. That means that the outside of your home needs to be in ship-shape, too. A clean and well-groomed yard is what you need.

The other first impression, often overlooked by the home-seller, is smell. Here’s where your friends can come in handy again, because while you are used to the unique smells of your home—so much so that you probably don’t even notice them—friends coming over will easily be able to give you their first impression of your home’s smell. If you have pets, or smoke, or even cook at home, the smell of your house will tell the story. Your goal should be to make that story a pleasant one. If it isn’t, then whip out the baking soda and sprinkle it into your carpets. Leave it sit for a few hours before vacuuming. Consider having furniture and drapes professionally cleaned. If you want to make a bigger olfactory impression, consider baking cookies on showing day and leaving them out for viewers. Some people recommend just having some mulling cinnamon sticks on the stove, but this may make buyers think you’re trying to hide something. A fresh cookie on the other hand, will give them something to remember your house by. Don’t forget some bottled water sitting in a bucket of ice. Now your home staging is complete, and if you did it right, you won’t need to put up with too many showing dates, and will be able to enjoy viewing other people’s homes as you get ready to buy anew.

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