De-cluttering or Packing?

I thought the idea behind de-cluttering was two-fold - to remove your personal items - so the prospective buyer can more easily envision the property as his or her house rather than yours and to remove extra things that might make the property appear smaller than it is.

I didn't think it would take long to de-clutter. Mark started packing up the items I was removing from tabletops and walls. Then he kept going. Before I knew it, the entire kitchen was packed up except for pots, pans and cutting boards. (It actually wasn't before I knew it - it was a grueling three days. I just hadn't expected to do that right away - because I thought we were de-cluttering, not packing.)

I kept trying to hold Mark back. He wanted to pack everything. He would have packed up everything and left the stager nothing to work with.  As it turned out, that's pretty much what she wanted. Nothing. The only things that are to remain on my kitchen counters when they get ready to take the pictures is a cookbook holder and a kitchen scale. Everything else is to be tucked out of sight - including salt and pepper shakers, knives, and the canisters with sugar and flour. Seems pretty  extreme to me but I'll go along. The china cabinet is empty. The curio cabinet is empty. I'm not sure how empty display cabinets help sell a house. It just makes it look like we've already moved, except that we haven't. I know the stager would prefer that I remove the curio cabinet altogether. But it has beveled glass sides and I'm not even going to attempt it. I'm leaving that for the pros. It can be pushed out of the way for pictures.

But here's the reservation I have based on the houses we looked at when we were in Florida. There were two that had the same floor plan. One was vacant and people were living in the other one. (People who had lots and lots of furniture and pictures of grandkids!)  We viewed the vacant one first and I remarked that I didn't think my furniture would fit in the master bedroom. It just didn't look big enough to me. When we got to the second house, identical floor plan, but showing with furniture, I realized that my furniture would fit because they had the same number of pieces that were similarly sized. The point is that stripping out all or even half the furniture doesn't always work. I may be the odd one here, but I find houses with furnishings much more appealing than empty rooms.

I'm looking at my house now, becoming more minimalist by the hour, and thinking that I don't really want to live here anymore. (Seriously, even the teapot has to be hidden. - As well as the bathroom rugs and towels.) Maybe I did have too much stuff - I'm planning to display fewer items when we move but perhaps rotate them on a seasonal basis. But without my "stuff" it's just not seeming like home anymore.

Ready to be gone.