It’s the start of a new week and you have your work cut out for you. Now is not the time to buckle. You’ve spent a lot of time last week decluttering the inside of your house. Today is another purging and packing day, but the rooms you are tackling today may surprise you – the bathrooms.
That under-the-sink space can get unsightly, the medicine cabinets can get crowded, and the drawers can house stains and globs from things you don’t want to know, or show! And don’t get me started on the bathtub and shower. You know what you have to do, but let’s take a look so you don’t miss anything.
Your Assignment
If you think potential buyers are discreet, you’d be wrong. Buyers believe, and rightly so, that they have ‘carte blanche’ to look into every nook and cranny of your house, even your bathrooms. They have already looked in all your closets, cupboards, and under the beds. So, why not the bathrooms?
Buyers are looking for reasons NOT to buy your house. They are heavily invested in the process of elimination. Going from house to house with a checklist, buyers are anxious to eliminate as many houses as possible from their list of possibilities. It’s just easier that way.
Imagine a buyer coming into your bathroom and seeing rust stains or a soap scum coated shower door. How fast will they walk away? Now, granted, it may not be a deal breaker, but it will move your house from the “amazing” list to the “have to come up with a really good reason to look at this house again” list.
You might as well begin with the bathtub and shower. This is the area that catches a lot of the clutter and grime. Gather up the mess of bottles, back scrubbers, and bath toys and throw it all in a bin and set aside. Your bathtub must be empty, clean, and pristine. Now scrub, scrub, scrub until the area is sparkling like a gem.
The toilet needs a good scrubbing from top to bottom, not just the bowl. And, if you have any sort of cover on the toilet seat or tank cover, get rid of them. You want your bathroom to say “clean and germ free” and those covers, no matter how cute, do NOT say clean, or germ free. Save them for your new house.
Now empty out the counter and under the sink, the medicine cabinet, any closets, cupboards, shelves, or drawers. Put it all in bins and set aside. Get out your favorite cleaner and scrub everything until it sparkles and squeaks. You may also want to use this time to wash or replace your shower curtain, window coverings, rugs, and even your towels. Find a new out-of-sight place for your toilet plunger and scrubber.
All those necessities you’ve thrown in bins can now be sorted into convenient storage containers. And more importantly, hide your stuff away again after using it.
You have a clean slate now in the bathroom. Go ahead and add decorative towels and pretty soap. Remember the model homes? That’s the bathroom you are shooting for here. Everything must be presentable and pretty.
Besides being clean, why did I have you strip the bathroom bare? Even in the bathrooms, you need to give the impression of a lot of room – aka space. A tiny bathroom can seem larger than it is when it is stripped of clutter. Keep the surfaces clean and clutter free to give the buyer a feeling of more room to move around in.
When a buyer walks into your house and starts opening doors and pulling out drawers, you don’t want to panic. With today’s assignment completed, you can be proud of your perfectly presentable bathrooms. This was a hard day. Give yourself a break now and enjoy a nice hot shower.