Whether you are styling your home in Sydney proper or have a place that could benefit from some property styling Inner West or Sutherland Shire, there are many tips and tricks that can benefit you as you prepare your home for sale.

Of course there are the basic rules. The three most important of these are probably to declutter, depersonalise, and clean like there’s no tomorrow. But there’s also a treasure trove of other tips and tricks you may not know about. House stylists learn these in the early days of their training, but unless you have training in interior design, construction, and real estate sales you may not get the benefit of these property styling strategies. We’ve collected a few of them here to spark your imagination as you get ready to sell your home or apartment.

1. If appropriate to the style of your home, add architectural detail by installing mouldings. By adding a crown moulding on the ceiling, or wainscoting on the walls, you can make the rooms in your home look richer.

Architectural enhancements like these, when done well, can be worth a chunk of change in the sale of your home. Some of these treatments can be tricky if you’re not a carpenter, but you can hire someone else to do it and will almost certainly be happy with the investment. Whether you do this yourself or have it done, you will find that the resulting feeling of opulence will pay off in the end.

2. You already know that you should paint your rooms in a neutral colour in order to please the eyes of potential buyers. You may not know that if you want to visually add more space to the room and make it look richer, painting the trim and the walls the same colour helps. That doesn’t mean you’ll paint them in the same finish. Skirting boards and architraves should be painted in a high gloss finish that makes them easier to clean, but when they are done in the same colour as the walls, the eye takes in the entire room. One important pre-paint tip: be sure that there are no gaps between the mouldings and the walls. Use painter’s caulking to seal each piece of moulding to the wall and to any other moulding piece it touches. If you fail to do this, your hard work will appear half-finished and/or cheap.

3. Layer your lighting. A single cheap light fixture at the centre of the ceiling is a home stager’s nightmare. Such a light evokes a ‘jailhouse effect’. Not only will such a fixture make your furnishings look stark and unwelcoming, it will leave the potential buyer with an urgent need to escape.

Use sconces, lamps, and natural light to add depth and dimension to your rooms. Also make use of reflective surfaces within the room to reflect the light you provide. This can make the room appear larger, but also give it a warm and welcoming look.

There is no need to go to great expense to do this either. Take a bargain store tour of your suburb or head to IKEA or Bunnings to find great bargains on lamps and lampshades that will add to your lighting scheme. (If your time is limited, your professional at property staging Inner West has lighting fixtures for hire along with all the other furnishings you’ll need to transform your room with light and texture.)

4. If you must use window coverings, make certain they are long enough. Natural light is your best friend in staging a room, but sometimes window coverings are a necessity for the sake of privacy. If your window coverings are heavy and dark, take them down. If they do not extend to the floor, take them down. Add sheer panels on plain, basic rods and make sure they puddle at the floor for the maximum dramatic effect.

5. Add texture. Scatter cushions can be very expensive. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them lavishly in your rooms. Take a trip to a local fabric store and find remnant fabrics that ‘speak’ to you. Buy the scraps and a few cushion inserts and stitch up scatter cushions that you might otherwise pay top dollar for. If you are not handy with a sewing machine, ask around or advertise for a local seamstress.

There are other tips and tricks to making a room look luxurious without breaking the bank. Ask your chosen property styling Inner West professional to help you assess the ways in which you can create a top-dollar look within your budget.