Inexpensive ways to "stage" a house for sale? - Page 2

[ReadingMama]

The Sunroom (aka dining room/homeschool room/game room)

Regarding homeschool materials, I have a bunch, but use very few. In my attempt to branch out to teaching math in an out of the box way, I bought Family Math, Penrose the Mathematical Cat, The I Hate Mathematics Book, etc... But my son really does hate math and we don't use these books. (I still don't have the math thing figured out......) So I can probably pack up alot of it. We just need the books for our co-op classes and regular books.

I started collecting materials for projects at my (packrat) husband's request. And he's only done a couple projects with our son. So that stuff can be put up too. What about the board games? My husband built long shelves to house that stuff. It's made out of plywood or pressboard and it's not painted. Dh said it'd look weird to paint it. What do you think?

The realtor was at our house for 4 hours tonight! She's awesome, but I felt sorry for her that she didn't get to be at home eating dinner with her kids. My living room is a light green and we have a yellow accent wall in the hallway. Our trim is bright white. The realtor said the wall colors look good to her, but online I'm reading to choose neutral colors. What's your opinion?

[LaughingHyena]

As well as the de-cluttering make sure that there are no little DIY jobs that need doing. In our case that was making sure the door hinges were oiled and didn't squeak, and fixing the garden gate so it opened and closed easily.

Personally so long as the paintwork was clean we left it, feeling that the new people would want to repaint anyway. We did have pretty neutral colours to start with though.

We replaced some of our fluorescent light bulbs with normal ones. The fluorescents take a while to warm up and people did not look at the rooms for that long, making them feel darker.

As well as thinking about the first thing the buyers will see when they arrive, think about the last thing they see when they leave.

I defiantly second going round with a camera and taking your own pictures. It made it much easier to see our house through the buyers eyes when we looked at the pictures not the house. We also were able to advise which we thought were the best angles to to take pictures from as we spent a lot longer experimenting that she would have had time for.

[HeatherAtHome]

Paint colours: as long as they're light, bright and airy, I think it's fine. If colours are dark, lighting is bad, or it all clashes etc, it doesn't make as nice of an impression.

Smell: IME if you have pets, your house probably smells like it. Scrub everything, clean carpets, curtains, furniture, whatever would hold on to a smell (same if there's a smoker, but that would also require washing walls/painting.) I agree with PP who nixed the candles etc, but open windows for fresh air, make sure things are clean, add some natural scents (hint of EO's, baking cookings etc)

We bought our house last year (took a walk down memory lane on another thread ). When we visited, one bedroom was completely filled with boxes and bags to the point we couldn't get in. One was half 'office', half boxes. The large walk in closet was filled and only one room upstairs truly looked like a bedroom. Downstairs, the kitchen/dining room was set up as kitchen/dining/sitting room and looked really crowded. The living room had a bed at one end and sitting room at the other. In other words, NONE of the rooms looked like what they were 'supposed to'. (She had a renter who lived in the living room, hence the bed there and owner's sitting room in kitchen).

I'm all into home decorating and making a house a home and was able to see past all that. Some people can't. But I'll tell you one thing. We went with this house because we saw it had potential and were able to forgive it's faults because it was so inexpensive. There's no way I would walk in that house, set up like it was and be willing to pay what the going rate for houses around here. The crazy thing is, once her clutter was gone, we painted walls and trim, painted kitchen cabinets and some nasty old woodwork it looked so much bigger, brighter and was such a quick/cheap fix!

[JudiAU]

Remove half your possessions and every . single. piece. of. clutter. And make sure it is clean.

[BookGoddess]

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

I started collecting materials for projects at my (packrat) husband's request. And he's only done a couple projects with our son. So that stuff can be put up too. What about the board games? My husband built long shelves to house that stuff. It's made out of plywood or pressboard and it's not painted. Dh said it'd look weird to paint it. What do you think?

I would put away all the board games in a bin in the garage.

I would paint the long shelf your DH made if the rest of the shelves in your home are painted. Does the long shelf match the other shelving in the home? You want things to look like they go together. You don't want them to clash.

Originally Posted by ReadingMama

My living room is a light green and we have a yellow accent wall in the hallway. Our trim is bright white. The realtor said the wall colors look good to her, but online I'm reading to choose neutral colors. What's your opinion?

I think those colors sound fine. People like light airy rooms with natural light. Color coordinate so that your furnishings and decorations match the color scheme in the room.

[ReadingMama]

Originally Posted by BookGoddess

I would put away all the board games in a bin in the garage.

I would paint the long shelf your DH made if the rest of the shelves in your home are painted. Does the long shelf match the other shelving in the home? You want things to look like they go together. You don't want them to clash.



I think those colors sound fine. People like light airy rooms with natural light. Color coordinate so that your furnishings and decorations match the color scheme in the room.

I think you're right about the board games. Bummer! If the games are in the garage, we might as well move the long shelves out there too. Then we can put storage stuff on them. The rest of the shelves aren't painted. They are wood, as is our entertainment center. The entertainment center is pretty scuffed up. And on a deep part of it I have my big scrapbooks. I assume those need to be stored too. It'll make a big gap in the entertainment center and the little holes for pegs will show. (It's one of those put together ones from Walmart with adjustable shelves.) We're getting a new entertainment center for the new house. I don't know that we can afford a new one right now. We're planning to use some of the proceeds from selling our house to upgrade a few things.

What's the trick to using mirrors?

[zebra15]

The entertainment center needs to go. Sorry...

[griffin2004]

Originally Posted by HeatherAtHome

Smell: IME if you have pets, your house probably smells like it.

That was my experience. I have a small, shorthaired dog. When I moved out of my last house, I completely emptied it, had the carpets cleaned (90% of the house had hardwood floors, tile, or vinyl), had the house professionally cleaned, AND painted the entire interior. The agents on the agents tour commented they could tell a dog lived there. I was really surprised.