Prepare a Home for Sale with KonMarie Method

In January, 2019, Netflix released Tidying Up with Marie Kondo staring Japanese organizer and author Marie Kondo. In the series Kondo visits various cluttered American homes and helps families get organized with the help of her KonMarie Method. The method consists of grouping all of your items together by category and keeping only the items that “spark joy”, then finding a “home” or specific place in your household for the items.

While this may sound unexciting, the show has been a viral success inspiring people of all ages to organize their spaces. The popularity of Marie Kondo’s KonMarie Method has been proven at resale stores that are reporting big increases of charitable donations this year. Meanwhile we’ve discovered that the KonMarie Method can be very helpful for preparing a St. Louis or St. Charles County home for sale.

Organizing and decluttering the interior and exterior of a home are of upmost importance to make it look good to potential buyers. However this task can be daunting if you have lived in a home for a long time and accumulated a lot of stuff. Getting rid of stuff can be tough for some people but we’ve found that Kondo’s view to focus only on the things you really love helps make it easier to say goodbye to the other stuff.

"I was obsessed with what I could throw away… And I realized my mistake: I was only looking for things to throw out. What I should be doing is finding the things I want to keep. Identifying the things that make you happy: that is the work of tidying." – Marie Kondo

Using KonMarie Method on a Home Exterior

Consider all of the items on the exterior of your home by category, for example patio furniture. Do you have extra chairs that are just “there”? Get rid of them. Do you have an old BBQ grill that doesn’t work correctly sitting next to a new one you love? Focus on the one you love and let go of the other one. What about lawn ornaments? Do you have more than one? Choose your favorite and donate the rest. Continue to do this by category until you are really happy with the exterior of your home.

Using KonMarie Method in a Garage

Garages are a great place for extra stuff to accumulate. Go through the garage by category. Do you have doubles of any tools, lawn maintenance equipment, or car maintenance equipment? Is anything broken or no longer needed or that no longer spark joy? Sell or donate the items. No longer playing a particular sport because you’ve fallen out of love with it? No need to keep that equipment any more. Someone else would love to have it. Finally, create spaces within the garage to rehome the items you are keeping in an organized manner.

Using KonMarie Method on a Home Interior

To best implement the KonMarie Method on your home’s interior, it helps to make a list of all the categories of items in your home. This way you can mark off the completed categories as you go. Categories might include: clothes, shoes, jewelry, towels, bedding, dishes, placemats, holiday decorations, chairs, couches, tables, porcelain collectibles, candles, books, keep-sakes, etc. Or, print the Ultimate KonMarie Checklist for a premade list of categories to use while organizing.

Basically, if you aren’t in love with something in a particular category enough to use it every year or display it all the time, it isn’t worth keeping as clutter that hides the things that truly bring joy to your home and life. When done removing the items that don’t spark joy, be sure to find specific places to display or store the items you are keeping.

Notice the special items displayed at right in an organized way so the homeowners can enjoy them.

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Check out our more detailed list of items to be sure to address when listing your home in our article: Prepare a Home to Sell. Or contact The Boehmer Team for a professional consultation on what you need to do to ready your home for sale. We’ve helped hundreds of folks determine the changes needed to bring in the most value from their home sale.

Here's a summary of KonMarie Method for reference. Enjoy!