Staging: Before & After Photos
July 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
Staging (in the mid-range of home prices — not the very high end) is often referred to as “undecorating.” We take great pains to remove all the homeowner’s treasured collections, family photos, and personalized sense of style and substitute a more generic brand of “decor” that is most likely to appeal to a broad range of potential home buyers. Sometimes the job entails de-cluttering and a little rearranging of the furniture. Other times, we strip wallpaper, repaint, and rejuvenate a house that hasn’t seen any upgrades in… ahem… awhile.
For those of you who are curious, I just posted some Before & After photos of some recent projects to give you an idea of what happens with staging. Most of the homes pictured sold within 2 weeks of going on the market (with the help of superb real estate agents, of course, setting an appropriate price for each property, and very motivated and cooperative sellers who were willing to go the extra mile– it’s a partnership!).
Here’s the link:
Update Your Backsplash to Sell
June 17, 2011 § 3 Comments
Honey onyx mosaic tiles — love ’em! We switched out the old ceramic backsplash in a “modern” kitchen (still had Formica counters with oak trim) and updated the look of the whole room (okay, we changed the cabinet knobs too). The white melamine cabinets, Formica counter tops, and linoleum floor all stayed! It was a wonderful transformation for a minimal cost to the homeowners who were updating to sell.
We chose the onyx for its variety of warm colors (would blend the oak trim nicely), its scale (the small tiles would add interest to the plain white cabinets), and its ease of installation (mosaics require fewer cuts!). The biggest benefit? These tiles came from one of our prominent “big box” stores so the homeowners did not pay a lot for materials. A bonus when you’re preparing your home for the market!
Vacant Home Not Selling? Stage It
June 16, 2011 § Leave a comment
Home buyers these days have no imagination! No offense intended, but let’s just say that home buyers are not in the mood for trying to figure out how a room is intended for use. If they walk into a house with no furniture anywhere,
potential buyers are likely to say, “Oh, forget it!” and move on to the next property. Since the market is flooded with perfectly nice properties that are furnished, selling a vacant one is risky and maybe a tad foolish. Only because there’s a reasonable solution.
Stage it.
And here’s how: If you are a seller about ready to pack up and head for your new home, hold the movers at bay for one more minute. Go through the house (with your realtor or a professional stager) and tag the furniture that will stay in the property while it’s on the market. Things like a table and chairs for the dining room — under the chandelier — and maybe the breakfast nook, a couple of comfortable chairs for the living room or family room, a sofa if possible, an area rug in decent shape, some dishes and glassware for the tables, and at least one piece of “generic” art (something that will appeal to ALL buyers, not just some). The rest of the furnishings can go!
Then at least when the potential buyers open the front door, they will see an uncluttered yet welcoming arrangement of furniture in the appropriate rooms and get the idea of where their own furnishings might go. You’re on your way to selling!!
When Tiling Goes Over the Top — Literally
February 16, 2011 § 3 Comments
If you have ANY plans to sell your home within the next, say, 10 years, I do not recommend dipping your bathroom in a vat of mosaic glass tiles. I know they are stunningly effervescent especially in cool swimming pool shades of blues and greens, but my gut tells me that the extreme application of almost any material will become the “avocado green” of the next generation of home buyers.
When Leslie Marshall cautioned, “Choose your color confidently because retiling can be a costly venture,” (http://www.bhg.com/decorating/color/colors/add-color-without-paint/) she might have added that you should think twice before tiling every surface at ALL!
I know that floor-to-ceiling (including the ceiling!) tile is becoming popular in newly created “spa” bathrooms — yes, they’re easy to keep clean and they look spectacular too. Just keep in mind that somebody is going to have to chisel that color down from the rafters when the time comes to prepare your home for sale. Chances are pretty good that we will have moved our design aesthetic along to new ideas by then and your bathroom will be “just so last decade.”
The alternative? Think longevity for your bathroom. Add trendy color in ways that will be switched out easily either by you or whoever gets to whip your home into shape for resale. A little bit of tile color in the bathroom– on the floor, in the shower area, or around the mirror–will go a long way toward modernizing your bathroom without taking the room over the top.
10 Tips from a Home Stager
January 25, 2011 § 1 Comment
Whether you’re preparing your home for the market or just yearning for spring, here are some suggestions we stagers use that might give you or your home a jump-start:
1. Box up what you’re not using currently. This process is the hardest if you’ve been in your house a long time, and it may require someone to help you go through everything and decide what to keep, throw out, or give away. That person may be a family member or a professional organizer. If you’re feeling overwhelmed at Step 1, there’s help for you. Ask your Real Estate agent for a referral.
2. Be clear about the original function of each room. If your home office has taken over the dining room table, it’s time to reclaim the room. Move the computer to a spare bedroom or finished basement. At least for now!
3. Neutralize your walls. Neutral doesn’t have to be beige, but light and bright are preferable to dark and moody paint schemes. You will optimize your room size by lightening up the walls.
4. Edit your bookshelves, entertainment units, and china cabinets. Keep out only enough items to display. It’s okay to leave some shelves empty! Space sells! And see number 1 above if you’re overwhelmed.
5. Box up all your family photos and other items of great personal value. This applies to sellers only, obviously, but it’s very important to remove family, cultural, and religious identifiers so that you reach the maximum number of potential buyers. If you’re not moving and you’re just spring cleaning, use this opportunity to group your family photos and feature them where families gather, in the family room area.
6. Highlight key selling features of your house. If you have a beautiful view of the backyard, remove heavy window treatments. If you have a newly restored hardwood floor, roll up the scatter rugs to unveil it. If you have a great fireplace, make sure it’s not hiding behind the sofa.
7. In the kitchen, store all unused appliances and remove artwork and magnets from the refrigerator. Generally a nice coffee maker is fine to leave on the counter during house showings, but again space sells. This time it’s horizontal space on the counter. So toaster ovens, knife racks, dish drainers, and cutting boards go down below.
8. Clean, Clean again, and then Clean one more time. Since kitchens and bathrooms can sell houses, make sure you spend extra time cleaning them and ridding them of all odors and their sources. Squeaky clean and fresh-smelling are the goals. Buyers may overlook the dated Formica in the guest bath, but they will definitely remember the litter box tucked behind the door.
9. Maximize light and create a comfy feel. Open all window shades and turn on the lights for a house showing. Arrange furniture in conversation groupings away from the walls. Make sure Person A sitting on the sofa does not have to shout across the room to talk with Person B in the chair by the fireplace. You’ll be amazed at how a room can be transformed by simply moving a piece of furniture a few feet forward or to the right.
10. Accessorize. Hang fresh white towels and a new shower curtain in the bathroom, place one large accessory on the coffee table (more effective than lots of little items), and fill a large bowl with fresh fruit for the dining table.
After reaching number 10 on this list of tips, you can kick back and enjoy your clean and organized house. If you’re selling, you are now ready to throw open the doors to potential buyers. If you’re staying, congratulations. You have a fresh start!
House and Trim Colors that Make a Statement
October 14, 2010 § 3 Comments
Every now and then I see an accent color that whacks me over the head, and this bold expression of lemon yellow really does it to me this time! Usually a color that does not translate well onto siding or other large surfaces because it’s just too intense, this clear saturated primary color on a shutter paired with black wrought iron hardware on a subdued and sophisticated dark, gray-blue siding is a knock-out! What a statement!
What makes this combination work is the sharp contrast between the gray tone in the siding color and the bright clear shutter. If the siding were another warm clear color, the combination would scream like a caution light. But the calm understated siding lets the yellow attract all the attention. There’s no competition between the colors, just sheer harmony.
Another key to this combination is the “bridge” color that pulls the look together: white. The white trim makes the colors pop — as they say — and it’s critical whenever you use bright colors, either inside or out. White also gives your eye a chance to rest from the intensity of the palette.
But just like other bold statements, be prepared to attract a lot of buzz. And keep the lawn mowed.
Paint Color and Home Staging
September 7, 2010 § Leave a comment
Decorating a house and selling it are two different things. Although the original rich yellow paint color created a warm and cozy kitchen feeling, warm and cozy in real estate jargon translates into small. And when it comes to kitchens, it seems, the bigger the better.
To show this kitchen to better advantage, we chose a calmer paint color that created less contrast with the ceiling color. That little trick raised the ceiling in the room and created a more open feeling — translated: bigger. Other than removing a piece of art from the wall and replacing a couple of light bulbs, no additional changes were made to the room.
So although you may feel that the kitchen lost its personality when the paint was neutralized (and neutral doesn’t mean beige — more on that in another post), creating a neutral palette allowed the actual selling features of the room to come forward: shiny hardwood floors, solid wood cabinets, large decorative window, center island with cooktop, updated lighting. You get the picture…
Going from Home to Sold: Working with a Stager
August 10, 2010 § Leave a comment
I know they have to design, stage, and sell in one hour. But on some of those design shows, the home stager comes sweeping through, insulting the homeowners in every room, as if those poor people should know instinctively that the wall color they chose for the kitchen is the only reason their house won’t sell. A good home stager in real life, of course, will tread delicately through the minefield of personal decorating taste and homeowner attachments and end at a win-win.
If you need to sell your home and your realtor recommends a staging consultation, here’s what to expect.
The stager will arrive and begin looking at your home from the curb. Don’t be alarmed or feel invaded. They are there to help you sell. Try to envision this fairly unwelcomed guest as someone who is on your team.
If you haven’t listed your home yet, the stager will walk through your property and evaluate what changes need to be made to sell the home. It’s nothing personal. The stager is seeing your home from the perspective of the buyers in our current market.
The stager will know how to identify all the selling features that your property has to offer and how best to highlight them to buyers.
The stager may give you tips to enhance your landscape or point out areas that need touch-ups.
The biggest nerve that the stager will hit (delicately we hope) is what is personal to the homeowners and needs to be removed from the home if it is to sell quickly and for top dollar: family photos, children’s art and toys, figurine collections, delicate houseplants, years worth of memorabilia, most of the books, and yes, the homeowners’ personal design style. I quipped with one homeowner the other day that we were turning their well-lived-in home into more of a Ramada Inn (with all due respect to Ramada, of course).
The point is, if you’re selling your home, you will want to appeal to as many buyers in today’s market as possible. That means that lots of things that made your house your home need to be packed up so that the potential buyers can see themselves living there.
At the end of the consultation, the stager will leave you with a rather lengthy to-do list. You can plow through it yourselves or call them back to help you. Your realtor will have access to other service providers as well, like cleaners and organizers. Chances are very good that if you accomplish everything on that list, the home you are trying to sell today will become the house that… SOLD!
Sew a Simple Window Topper
August 9, 2010 § Leave a comment
I do own a sewing machine (a hand-me-down), but I would not call myself much of a seamstress. I sew when I feel inspired or I find a fabric I cannot live without. These window toppers were so easy that I had to share. If you cannot sew a straight line, pick stripes for your fabric. Infinitely easier than everything else.
Cut rectangles of fabric and lining, allowing enough extra for your seams and your rod pocket at the top. Then with right sides together, sew along the edges of your rectangle leaving a little space at the end to turn the fabric right side out. Press the box, turn over one edge and hand-stitch a rod pocket. You’re almost done.
Once you’ve hung your new valances, then you can add a little style by cinching up the fabric in a couple of places (maybe along either edge and in the middle if your valances are wide enough). Use a needle and thread to tack in place. Voila!! Little custom valances in an afternoon!
Banish Old Brass with Paint
August 5, 2010 § 6 Comments
Brass will be back at some point, but there are lots of alternative metals on the market these days that make shiny, brassy… well… brass seem really dated and ordinary. I see these brass candelabra chandeliers everywhere. I even had one in my own home until I decided I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I suppose I could have replaced it at relatively low cost, but then I would have to take it down, etc, etc. I decided that the quickest fix was to paint it. So I got my tallest ladder, moved the table out of the way, and primed the brass. All of it. Then I gave it a coat of matte black acrylic paint. (I was liking it better already.) I then drew on the inner artist somewhere in me to apply several different colors: dark brown, burnt umber, lighter brown, in kind of a faux finish of sorts to make the finished product look more like oil-rubbed bronze (my version).
I even painted the little candlesticks a creamy yellow, found leather-like chandelier shades at my local home improvement store, and used a scrap of fabric for a chain cover. There. All set — I love it. Time to put the ladder away.
If you have old lighting in your home, you can either replace it or paint it! Just remember when working with lighting of any kind, turn off the power first!
Your Home & Color Coach 