I’m Ilyce Glink with expertrealestatetips.net.

I don’t know about you, but every time I have a party, everyone always winds up here in my kitchen. It happens, even if I shoo everyone out and back to the living room.

I guess it’s just that kitchens are often the center of the home. Kids do their homework at the kitchen table while mom or dad cooks. In many houses, the family room is attached to an open kitchen, just to keep everyone together.

When it comes to selling your home, having a great kitchen will help elevate your home over others in the neighborhood. But making any kitchen shine will help you sell. The way to do it is to stage your kitchen, just like you’d stage any other room in your house.

Any time you’re going to stage a room in your house, you’ll need to do some major cleaning and organizing.

In a kitchen, the countertops are often filled with appliances, mail, paperwork, pots and purses.

But when you stage a room, you want it to look pristine, like it would if you were being featured in a magazine. So cleaning and organizing the kitchen is the first step toward staging it successfully.

Your countertops should be empty. This means removing all excess clutter like keys, receipts, reminder notes and vitamins.

Be sure to sweep and wash your floor. It’s worth it.

Next, organize your cabinets. You can buy risers to help you line up canned goods and spices more neatly. You’ll also want to organize your cabinets, especially if you have glass doors.

Staging also includes straightening up the cleaning supplies underneath the sink. Don’t forget to straighten your kitchen bookshelves, and be sure to put away any unused appliances. You just want one or two things on your countertops.

Finally, put the trash in the garbage cans outside. You don’t want prospective home buyers to be turned off by a foul smell.

The whole concept behind staging is to make your home look well cared for. Home buyers are more likely to want a home that they feel is clean and has been taken care of.