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When you're selling a home, first impressions are everything, especially for smaller properties. Limited square footage or closed floorplans can make even the most charming home feel cramped and uninviting. That’s where skilled staging comes in.
Staging is all about highlighting a property's potential, not hiding its size.
One of the most powerful (and cost-effective) tools in a real estate agent’s toolkit? Paint.
With the right strategy, you can use a fresh coat of paint to make even the coziest of spaces can feel open, welcoming, and market-ready.
Discover techniques, like:
- Applying coordinated palettes that create a seamless, expansive feel.
- Using accent walls and brightened architectural features to enhance perceived space.
- Leveraging trends, when appropriate, while ensuring light and styling harmony.
Not able to paint your listing? Check out 7 more top tips for home staging success later in this article.
Now, let’s get into it.
Practical Painting Tips for Home Staging
From creating visual depth with light tones to using color to draw the eye upward or outward, paint has the ability to completely transform the perception of space.
Monochrome or Coordinating Color Schemes
Highlight with Color Strategically
Applying a bold accent color on one wall, while keeping surrounding walls in softer tones, can help enhance a room’s depth and highlight key features, like a fireplace or a set of windows. This contrast helps define zones within the space, guiding the eye and making the room feel larger and more dynamic.
For built-in bookcases or niches, try applying a contrasting or complementary shade inside the recesses to make them pop.
You might also consider painting an entire compact space, like a powder room (or half bath) or a dining area, in a rich, saturated hue. While it may seem counterintuitive, but this method can soften the edges and boundaries of a space, creating an impression of expansiveness.
Thoughtful enhancements like these can transform overlooked areas into standout features, providing buyers a memorable point of interest and the chance to envision the possibilities the space holds.
Brighten Architectural Nooks
Accent colors don’t always need to be bold, deep or saturated. When it comes to many architectural features, a lighter approach may work better.
Why? Features, like alcoves, bay windows, and dormers, can often feel shadowed or closed-in. Choosing subtle, paler shades for these spaces can help dissipate shadows and draw the eye both outward and upward, making the entire area feel larger.
This approach creates the perception of depth and openness, while maintaining harmony with the overall color design.
Consider Paint Trends & ROI
Painting for home staging is not meant to be about expressing creativity or showing off the latest design craze — it’s about strategic presentation. That means choosing timeless, buyer-friendly styles that create a spacious and inviting atmosphere, no matter what’s currently hot.
It's not always a clear-cut choice, so it's important to make strategic calls. For instance, if the interior of the home is painted with colors trendy 10 or 20 years ago, making the switch to something either neutral or popular now can de-age the space.
As I said earlier, always consider the return on investment of staging choices.
Painting a home’s interior before putting it on the market can add value, make it easier to sell, and offer a good return on investment, especially for smaller homes with walls in decent condition.
Interior paint provides an average ROI of 107%, adding between $2,140 and $16,050 to the selling price on average.
Successful staging uses a timeless, neutral foundation that allows buyers to imagine their own style in the home. That doesn't always have to be neutral, but trendy choices can limit that imagination, making it harder for buyers to envision changing or personalizing the space.
So, choose wisely.
Top Seven Home Staging Tips for Small Spaces
If repainting isn’t an option for your listing, no problem.
There are plenty of high-impact staging strategies that can help you achieve a welcoming atmosphere that resonates with buyers and positions the property at its best — without ever picking up a paintbrush.
And they can boost home value, too.
According to the 2025 Profile of Home Staging, a survey conducted by the the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), approximately 30% of real estate professionals reported a 1% to 10% increase in the dollar value offered that they attributed to staging.
Here are seven top techniques you can use to showcase your listing and make small spaces look bigger.
1. Pare Down Furniture
If your home is packed to the rafters, it'll be difficult for buyers to visualize themselves living in it. After all, their first impressions of a home, and whether it's a yes or no, comes within seconds of stepping through the front door.
The most obvious home staging tip is decluttering. That means sellers usually need to remove (donate, trash or store) around 30% of their belongings. One overlooked slice of the decluttering pie: furniture.
A small space with either too many furniture pieces or furniture that's too large for the space (or both!) simply makes the space looks even smaller and more cramped.
So, how do you decide what furniture stays and what goes? Consider functionality. Buyers need to be able to move through the home easily. So, make sure nothing is blocking hallways, pass-through areas, or the home’s standout features, like a fireplace, built-in bookshelves, or bay windows.
2. Rework Furniture Placement
Part and parcel of paring down furniture is the placement of what remains. There's a common belief that a room will seem larger if all the furniture is pushed against the walls. Don’t do it! That isn't the case.
Let’s use a living room as an example. Imagine everything — sofa, chairs, side tables — all pushed up against the walls with a disproportionally vast space in the middle of the room. That’s generally not a harmonious look for any space.
Instead, make sure your furniture floats. Place pieces at least a few inches away from walls to create some breathing room throughout the space and avoid a cramped look. Reposition sofas, chairs and tables into groups and be sure the traffic flow between them is clear.
This will open up the room and make it seem larger.
3. Create Functional Office Space
The world of work changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, working from home every day or maintaining a hybrid schedule is commonplace. As a result, over the past years, a dedicated workspace/office has been a must-have feature for many homebuyers.
If the home doesn’t have a functional office, consider transforming a guest bedroom into one or simply carving out a small nook for a desk.
If there’s not a room available, create an area for a functional workspace in the living room or even a closet.
4. Showcase Storage Spaces
Storage is always a plus for buyers, especially when the home is small.
Show it off by decluttering closets and cabinets, so each space feels open and accessible. Use matching baskets, cloth bins, or clear containers to group similar items and present a clean, unified look.
Adding storage solutions, like shoe racks, under-shelf baskets, and multi-level organizers, will also demonstrate the full versatility of the any closet or cabinet.
By presenting storage areas as spacious, functional, and attractive, you can highlight one of the most desirable features in a small home and support buyers in imagining themselves living clutter-free.
5. Upgrade the Kitchen
Kitchens sell homes, so any updates, even inexpensive ones, have the potential to go a long way.
According to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) 2025 Remodeling Impact Report, 48% of Realtors have seen increased demand for kitchen upgrades. The report also estimates that homeowners can expect a 60% return on investment for both minor and major kitchen projects.
In a small home, an upgraded kitchen can add major appeal and keep buyers from rejecting it outright — even minor, budget-friendly changes can make a dramatic impact.
Minor Kitchen Upgrades That Appeal to Buyers
- Functional storage space solutions
- New hardware and fixtures
- Updated lighting
- Fresh coat of paint in a neutral color
- Refreshed or new backsplash
And be sure to prioritize timelessness over trends.
While style preferences evolve, foundational aspects, like quality cabinetry, neutral color palettes, and classic finishes tend to age better than of-the-moment designs.
6. Amplify the Lighting
Great lighting is key to staging and showing a home effectively, especially if it’s small. You want it to look warm and welcoming, not dark.
With that in mind, when evaluating lighting in a home, determine the purpose of each space and make any changes to the lighting based on that purpose.
Lighting is comprised of two characteristics: brightness and color temperature.
- Lumens: The brightness of a light bulb is denoted by its lumen rating — the higher the lumens, the brighter the light.
- Kelvins: Color temperature is denoted by a Kelvin rating and accompanied by a descriptive name, like soft white or daylight.
Make sure you have three types of lighting — ambient, task, and accent — represented throughout the home.
7. Fool the Eye with Curtains
One of the easiest ways to make a small home feel bigger is with the use of window treatments.
When hung the right way, window treatments can help make the rooms in small homes look far more spacious. Specifically, curtains.
Instead of hanging curtains right above the top of the window, aim higher. Have them start at the ceiling (just under any crown molding) and brush the floor without puddling to create an illusion of height. You can also use curtains that are the same color (or at least similar) as the walls, so you have a single continuous hue.
Combine these two tips and the space will look both wider and taller.
Staging That Sells
In a competitive market, staging with purpose is one of the smartest steps you can take to help a home stand out.
Whether you're working with a compact condo or a sprawling family home, focusing on timeless design, functionality, and a clear understanding of your target market makes all the difference between a listing that lingers —and one that quickly sells for top dollar.
We’re writing more blog posts than ever to help agents like you achieve lasting success with both digital and print marketing. Check them out here — and be sure to bookmark the page to see what’s coming next!