We have learned the benefits of staging your home when selling and there is no question is pays off. Your home will look more tidy and clean and, most importantly, provide the potential buyers the ability to picture themselves living there. The reality of that task though, is that you now can't use the kitchen or the bathroom and you're sleeping on the couch because you finally got the comforter on the bed to look just right! The last thing you want to do is mess anything up for the showing coming up (in 3 days!).

OK. Let's slide back into reality. We all have busy lives. Some of you (my condolences) even have small humans running around your home. From what I'm told, they leave a swath of destruction in their wake wherever they roam. If you are raising 4-legged creatures instead (or as well!) they also bring their own challenges when it comes to keeping a spotless home for the showing. So how do we do it? Let's look at a few ways you can keep your home showing-ready without having to move to a hotel while it is on the market.

When poking around for this article, one suggestion was to take photos of the rooms in your home before you stage them. I would contend that if the rooms in your home are so orderly and perfect that you want to take a picture of them, chances are you don't need to stage that room.

"One of my favorite suggestions, one that I actually have adopted in my own (non-home-selling) life, is to keep a basket of some sort in the kitchen or the foyer/mudroom," noted Badger Peabody & Smith Realty (formerly Badger Realty) agent, Michele Jordan. "This serves as a really handy "catch-all" for the daily "stuff" we collect", she continued. Be it mail, flyers in the door, papers from work or even car keys, this basket provides a way to keep all of that clutter (albeit necessary clutter) together. When a showing (or guests) arrive, you can quickly move the basket to a more discreet location and not lose track of those items. I love this one!

If your living room / den is anything like ours it is filled with various blankets and pillows strewn across the room and couch. Only when we clean (or we're having company) do the blankets get folded and the pillows find their appropriate corners of the couch. This is a quick tidy-up and likely can't be avoided. What CAN be avoided (or helped) is the rat's nest of cables and cords around the TV. We have a couple different gaming consoles as well as various connections for laptops and other devices. Unfortunately these can get unruly and unsightly over time. Just take a few minutes to organize those cables so everything is accessible, but hidden under or behind the TV. As with most of these suggestions, you'll appreciate it on a daily basis as well as not having to deal with it right before a showing.

I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit this, but we have cobwebs around our front door. And I'm not talking about the fun ones that we strung up last week! That whole "curb appeal" thing continues right up until they walk in your front door. Take a minute to closely examine your entryway and get it cleaned up. This includes errant piles of leaves on the doorstep, falling apples in the walkway and hidden piles of snow tucked away in those shaded corners. (Yes, all of those are present in my doorway as I write this!). That first impression is critical and these are all crazy-fast ways to ensure it is positive.

As I get older (shut it!) I am finding myself enjoying gardening and appreciating those who do it well. As we've already felt the touch of old man winter, many of the greeneries around the house were hit pretty hard. And just as the normal course of the season progresses, lots of the potted plants have lived their course and are less than pretty at this time. I encourage you to take care of these things well before the season continues. Having to clean up a (totally frozen) dead plant a few minutes before a showing is not going to be pleasant. I think for now you could add some of those old dried corn stocks to the front of the house. If instead, you choose to put up anything related to Santa (especially before we eat turkey) I'm coming to your house personally to throw those items in the lake!

Lastly, and one of the more challenging rooms to keep spotless, is the bathroom. I have never been a fan of those decorative hand towels. Just keep your towels hung up neatly and maybe folded in half. It is mindlessly easy and makes a big difference. This is another great spot for one of those catch-all bins. You can keep all of the family's toiletries in the basket so it is super easy to toss under the sink during a showing. A quick wipe of the faucets and you're ready to go!

Keeping your home "showing-ready" is not a simple thing. Add to that mix kids and pets and you're likely to go insane trying. Try some of these suggestions and add a few of your own. The goal being to make it quick and easy to go from "daily-lived-in" to "showtime" in as little time as possible. Never lose sight of the fact that a staged home will sell faster! Whatever time, planning, effort you put in to this effort will pay off. Now go get some baskets!