The Difference Between Cleaning, Decluttering, And Staging A Home

You’re selling your house, and your agent tells you to clean up before they take pictures. You scrub, dust, mop, and do your best, but then they tell you there’s still too much stuff, and you need to declutter. But then, they start talking about how they’re going to stage your home, and you’re confused because you thought you were doing that already.

Cleaning, decluttering, and staging are distinct tasks that share a common goal: to make your home look its best. It’s essential to keep your house clean and minimize clutter to enjoy a comfortable and calm abode. If you’re selling, staging your home focuses on depersonalizing spaces and arranging furniture and decor to appeal to most buyers.

Do you always need to stage your home? No. Declutter? Probably. Clean? Hopefully. But it’s easy to lose the distinction between these different activities, for example, assuming your house is clean if you declutter.

The Differences Between Cleaning, Decluttering, And Home Staging

First, you might be wondering why you should bother understanding the reasons why cleaning, decluttering, and staging are different. In a nutshell, they serve varied purposes, and you don’t always need to do all of them.

However, you should know when you need which one, so you don’t waste time, energy, and money on unnecessary tasks. In most cases, the three work in tandem, especially when you’re planning to list your home for sale. If selling your house isn’t a goal, decluttering and cleaning typically remain ongoing priorities (or at least they should). Here’s a quick breakdown of each of these home improvement practices.

Cleaning: Keeping Your Home Healthy and Sanitary

The main reason you clean your home is to get rid of things like dirt, grime, germs, and other ick factors. It’s about maintaining a fresh, healthy environment for you and anyone else who lives in or visits your house. Cleaning includes things like dusting, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing toilets, wiping down countertops, and washing windows. It also covers doing the dishes, tackling the laundry, and cleaning appliances.

Overall, when you clean your home, you aren’t changing how it functions, but rather, you’re restoring its freshness level. Plus, a clean house is a healthy house. Regular cleaning keeps things like mold, allergens, and germs to a minimum. It’s best to implement a routine for handling chores, especially daily cleaning tasks, to prevent them from becoming overwhelming. It’s much easier to manage small messes than to let them grow into larger ones that require a lot more time and effort to conquer.

Decluttering: Less Stuff, Less Stress

Decluttering centers around getting rid of the things you don’t need, want, or use. Instead of eliminating dirt and grime, you’re omitting unnecessary stuff from your life. When you declutter your home, your main purpose is to edit your belongings to create more space and breathing room.

Some examples of decluttering are tossing broken and damaged items, donating clothing you no longer wear, and getting rid of duplicates. You may go through cabinets, drawers, and closets to find items you no longer want or use. Decluttering often comes hand-in-hand with organizing your home. You declutter before you organize, so that you don’t waste your time arranging things you plan to get rid of later. The main purpose of decluttering is to make your home (and life) calmer and more functional.

Staging: Giving Your Home Mass Appeal

Home staging is usually a strategic design step that is part of the selling process. If you’re listing your home, your agent may recommend bringing in home stagers or simply give you some suggestions on staging your home yourself. How much staging your home requires depends on what condition it starts off in and how much it already appeals to most buyers. Elements of staging include arranging or swapping out furniture, decor, and lighting to highlight your home’s strengths and downplay its weaknesses.

A stager may add or take away certain artwork, remove personal items, and rework layouts to attract a wider pool of buyers. In some cases, they work with your existing items, but many times, stagers bring in rental furniture or stock pieces to create a specific look. Successful staging typically makes spaces feel brighter, larger, more inviting, and updated. A well-staged home entices buyers to envision themselves living in it without having to do a lot of work first.

How Staging, Cleaning, And Decluttering Your Home Work Together

You can clean without decluttering, but less clutter sure makes cleaning a lot easier. Likewise, it’s pretty much pointless to attempt to stage your home for sale if you plan to leave clutter tucked into every corner and spare room. Basically, cleaning, decluttering, and staging usually work together on some level, depending on your overall goal. Getting rid of clutter means you spend less time cleaning. And, although you don’t always need to stage your home, you rarely are going to do so without decluttering and cleaning first.

Which One Do You Need?

So, should you clean your house? Or is a massive decluttering session what you really need the most? Actually, it’s not so much a matter of which of these tasks you need, but when you need them and how often.

Cleaning

If you could only pick one of these three things to do in your home, it would likely be cleaning. You clean regularly to maintain your home and keep it healthy. Theoretically, you could get by with never decluttering or staging, especially if you don’t acquire new items or plan to sell. However, never cleaning is an entirely different story. Neglecting to clean your home would eventually lead to an unhealthy living situation. It also increases the wear-and-tear on your house, adding to deferred maintenance and repairs.

As for when to clean, it’s common to clean before guests come over, but you should also have a regular cleaning schedule for basic chores. In addition, plan to do a deep clean at least two or three times a year, for example, in the spring and winter.

Decluttering

Decluttering is also critical if you want your home to remain as fresh, clean, and inviting as possible. Of course, you can clean without decluttering, but that's kind of like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it. You’ll work harder and never quite get it how you want it to be. Plus, never decluttering but continuing to get new things has several drawbacks. Too much stuff could lead to injuries, pests, allergies, and stress.

If you’re getting ready for a renovation or a major lifestyle shift, such as marriage, a new baby, or moving, decluttering is a game-changer. Reducing the stuff you own makes these milestones less overwhelming.

Home Staging

If you’re selling your home, some level of home staging is likely in order. You might also need to stage your home if you’re getting an appraisal for some other reason, such as a home equity loan. Home staging is the only one on this list that truly requires you to do the other two. In other words, declutter and clean before staging your home, so that your home looks its best for potential assessors and buyers.

Should You Clean, Declutter, Or Stage Your Home?

It’s hard to motivate yourself to clean or attempt other projects and to-dos when you’re not quite sure where to start. If you think you have to do everything all of the time, it’s a quick road to burnout and quitting before you begin. Instead, prioritize tasks based on what you’re trying to achieve. When you know the difference between cleaning, decluttering, and staging, you ensure you’re focusing your energy on the appropriate task.

Overall, cleaning is always going to be on your to-do list, but you can create a manageable schedule to accomplish it. Decluttering should be a priority that you keep in check, and staging may only be on your radar if you plan to sell.

Sometimes, you‘ll only need to worry about one of these things, and other times, you may need all three. Think about your end goal, and let it determine where to concentrate your efforts.

Related Guides:

• Household Cleaning Tips Before Your Baby Is Born
• How To Stage Your Home For A Quick And Profitable Sale
• What Not To Fix When Selling A House?