Tips to Stage Your Home to Sell

by John Allasio

 

Put your best foot forward.

Make a good first impression.

First impressions are the most lasting.

What I’m trying to say is, when it comes to houses, prospective buyers are going to judge your house based on their first, two-second impression of it, whether or not they should.

When others make strong judgments based on first impressions, it’s usually seen as a negative. Instead, look at your home’s first impression as an opportunity for you to get a leg up on your competition by wowing potential homebuyers.

Home staging is setting your home up as a neutral space where buyers can easily imagine the drama of their life unfolding. Home staging doesn’t have to mean dropping 10 or 20 grand on remodeling. A lot of it is doing all the little things right – making your home appear as attractive as possible and then getting out of your own way so buyers can see how they, not you, would live in the home.

I asked Joe Delia with Keller Williams Royal Oak Market Place for tips on how to best stage your home for a quick sell.

The Basics

Listing Photos

Put some effort into the listing photos – maybe even hire a professional photographer. Buyers sort through many, many listings online. If your photos fail to grab their attention, they may not even give your home a chance.

Clean Up

Clean and tidy goes a long way. “When it’s dirty, people focus on that,” explains Delia. Clean isn’t enough – make your home spotless.

Declutter

The close cousin to clean and tidy is decluttering your home. People have a hard time envisioning their belongings in a home when it’s packed with someone else’s stuff.
The seller should remove as much clutter as possible. Less furniture makes the space look bigger. The furniture you do leave out should be up for entertaining. Make traffic flow obvious to buyers.

Depersonalize the Space

Removing personal items like family photos is another important thing to do. It’s hard for buyers to envision themselves in an empty home and equally as hard to envision themselves in a home full of someone else’s life and mementoes.

Make it Bright and Open

Lots of natural light and storage space are helpful too. Bright, open, refreshing and relaxing are some of the feelings potential buyers want to sense when walking through your home.

Decorating and Updating

Be Consistent

A consistent décor theme is more important than having all the newest updates/materials. A buyer should be able to come into your home and immediately sense a flow, an order to the home and be able to picture themselves in that flow, Delia states.
If you have some brushed nickel and some brass hardware in your home, for example, replace one or the other so that everything matches. Avoid a combination of styles, like ultra-modern and antique, as much as possible too. Decide on a look for your home and commit to it.
Putting in new cupboard or drawer fronts and hardware and repainting your home in neutral colors are some relatively cheap fixes that will significantly revitalize your home. Setting out fresh fruit or flowers greatly increases the appeal and hominess of your home, without making it feel personal to you.

Remodeling vs. Updating

You can go for more extensive remodeling like a whole kitchen or bathroom overhaul if you want, but just adding some nice furniture, art pieces or stainless steel appliances (that stay with the home) will be more cost effective in increasing your home’s appeal.
Make bedrooms as serene as possible; don’t make bedrooms gender specific. Update bathrooms including tub, shower and vanities, clean grimy walls, change fixtures, clean shower doors. Paint out dated tiles on bathroom walls.

Outdoor Tactics

Remember that first impression? It started with the images the buyer saw online and is largely cemented in their mind when they drive up to your home, so make it look great!

• Power wash your driveway, deck, outside of home, etc.
• Cut the grass regularly
• Keep bushes and shrubs well-trimmed
• Clear out weeds
• Add flowers or other colorful accents to improve curb appeal
• Get rid of any dead plants

The bottom line is that it’s absolutely worth spending some time, effort and a little money to increase the appeal of your home. At the same time, don’t think you need hardwood floors, granite countertops and vaulted ceilings to get people to look at your home.

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Jennie Garth's Four Easy Tips to Decorate Your Home

Jennie Garth attends Watch What Happens Live, June 28, 2014. 

Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images

 

Actress Jennie Garth is best known for having starred in the iconic “Beverly Hills, 902010,” but now she’s taking on home improvement. 

In “The Jennie Garth Project,” a series on HGTV, viewers follow along as the 42-year-old actress purchases a dated Hollywood Hills home and renovates it for herself and her three children.

 Garth appeared on “Good Morning America” on Thursday to share the knowledge she’s gained while remodeling her home. 

Here are some of her suggestions for sprucing up a home: 

Jennie’s Tips

1. Barn Doors. Interior barn doors add privacy without taking up floor space. They’re easy to install and can be done in just one weekend. You can use recycled or new doors to suit your budget, and you can choose traditional, rustic or contemporary hardware finishes to complement your style. You can chose either a single door that slides from one side to the other; a bi-parting door, consisting of two doors that meet in the middle; or a bypassing door, in which two doors are mounted inside a frame and slide one behind the other. 

2. DIY Medicine Cabinet. Medicine cabinets are a great way to solve storage situations in the bathroom, and they are easily installed, simple do-it-yourself projects. Choose a medicine cabinet that stands out in the same way that a piece of art does – especially if you consider adding a fun graphic pattern to the cabinet. Adding wallpaper inside a medicine cabinet also adds character and style. Check flea markets and garage sales for old medicine cabinets and spruce them up, then install them to enhance your space with vintage charm. You can also buy new medicine cabinets at a local home improvement or bath and bed specialty stores. 

3. Tile, tile, tile. Adding a glass tile backsplash to your bathroom is easier than you think, and it provides a way to bring contemporary class to any bathroom remodeling project. Consider using a laser level to save time on large tile projects, and, to personalize your project, add a tile border to complete the look. You can also revamp your existing tiles with tile paint and a grout pen. 

4. Custom Artwork. Create meaningful artwork that reflects your personality and life, and make sure to get your family involved so they can put their stamp on the space as well. Creating your own artwork is much cheaper than purchasing works from a gallery. Another idea is to get out some of your children’s old artwork, copy and enlarge it, and then frame it or decoupage it onto a canvas and display it in your home. 

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10 Essential Tips for Designing the Bathroom by Sarah Lonsdale

Great article worth a share from Remodelista!

Among the many highlights of his Malcolm Davis of Malcolm Davis Architechtur projects? The bathrooms, which are light, airy, and full of well-considered details. So who better to turn to for advice?

Remodelista: What do your clients typically ask for in a bathroom?
Malcolm Davis: When someone comes to me, they usually know what bathrooms I design; there's always some sense of the outdoors and as much daylight as possible. When clients start looking at imagery, I ask them to think of their house as the best version of what they want it to be and what look will go with that in the bathroom, as opposed to their dream bathroom. I try and have a thread of the rest of the house incorporated in the bathroom so it feels connected.

Above: A marble-clad shower with an obscure-glass (frosted) door that opens on to a wooden roof deck and a small window looking onto the trees outside.

RM: How do you manage to make your bathrooms so light and airy?
MD: If I have any way of getting daylight into the bathroom, I do it. I always try and get a bathroom on an outside wall. In a city, you don't always get that option, so then I go for a skylight. It's important to have a visual link to the outdoors; it's neat to have some clear glimpse of the outside, even if it is just one panel of a window where you can see a tree outside or a skylight where a bird flies overhead. The more light the better. Sunlight is the best killer of mold. If you can make the windows larger that's the biggest change you can make.

Above: A Davis-designed bathroom at the Cook residence in SF.

RM: What's your approach to design?
MD: I like some bandwidth in the bathroom. It needs to be a place where if you are putting yourself together you can be the most spot on, but it's also a place where if you feel terrible you can unwind in warm water and find some solace. The bathroom has to provide a good backdrop, and not work against you. It should convey a sense of simplicity and clarity.

RM: How do you create a serene backdrop?
MD: I use simple, nice materials and work with a limited palette. I really like limestone, marble, and slate. I like to bring in some sense of nature, a piece of natural wood or a Heath tile that has a handmade quality. I use a wood shelf in a lot of bathrooms. If the surfaces feel too hard and shiny, it can feel too perfect. With materials that have a softer organic feel, that's when the person starts to feel they fit in.

Above: Baird Street project. Davis explains, "A tabletop is at 30 inches so the sink needs to be higher so you don't have to bend over so much. I usually have the sink height at 34 to 36 inches high, although I am currently doing a gentleman's sink that's higher."

RM: Storage?
MD: I like hidden storage (there's something about having a million little cupboards that looks overwhelming). I like to place a couple of tall shallow cabinets hidden in a stud bay. You don't need deep shelf storage, a shallow shelf can store a lot. I try and make as many things as dual function as possible. I like to put a recess in the shower and I try and integrate towel bars to feel built in. It's hard to pull off as it depends upon the space

Above: Davis favors plain ceramic tiles in a running bond pattern as opposed to stacked shown here in the Bole project. When using darker tiles he prefers the contrast of a lighter grout
.
RM: Choice of materials?
MD: A bathroom is going to last for a long time, so I like to keep it simple. It's not clothing. When it comes to materials, I always question whether it will last for a long time. I advise clients to set out a couple of materials they like and look at them every day before deciding. Often it's the one that you thought that was boring that works in the end.

Above: In this 21st Street project, Davis notes, "I use porches a lot in my mental vocabulary where people may think that this could have been an outdoor space that has been closed".

RM: Lighting?
MD: Industrial-looking Stonco lighting is my go-to. It's a vapor tight light with a guard and they are great for tucking in a skylight shaft.

Above: 28th Street project.

RM: Favorite fixtures?
MD: I like porcelain. Duravit sinks are a favorite, and the Dornbracht Tara line is super classic, although sometimes it can be a challenge to get the hot and cold taps to line up straight. I like Chicago Faucets, but it's too bad they don't have a bigger line.

Storage: A bathroom unit with a built in towel rail in the Bartlett project.

RM: Things to note?
MD: Bathrooms don't have to be huge. When I see a large standalone tub floating in space, that's a lot of space it's taking up. I always put my mind into the small places of New York or Europe and consider how you make a space compelling.

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 Article source: remodelista.com