Now that we are looking to buy a house, something that really surprises me is how many people do not clean their home before they put it on the market. I have stepped over laundry in the middle of the room, been unable to see what color the countertops were through the clutter and been knocked over by the smell of kitchen garbage.
I understand that keeping a clean house is hard since we are all so busy that it is easy to let this slide and I have certainly been guilty of this but addressing this issue is really vital to selling your home.
2. Clean, clean and then clean your house again.
You really cannot expect a buyer to see pass the mess. It is not just about removing clutter and picking things up. Get out the scrub brushes and make the place shine. This matters because buyers tend to assume that a clean home is also a well maintained home.
Work to remove any unusual smells from pets or cooking. Put away the fish sauce and garlic for awhile. Take out the garbage every night.
Wipe out the window sills and wipe down the shoe moldings. Even though you are not selling your furniture, dust frequently and polish any glass table tops and mirrors.
Get the carpets cleaned unless they are very new. You need them to look their best and since many people assume that you have done your best to shine the place up, those spots on the carpet are assumed to be permanent. Even if all the spots do not come out, having the rugs cleaned will reduce or eliminate pet odors and will raise the nap of the carpet making it look less worn. Once you have them clean, vacuum every day if possible to keep them that way.
Pay particular attention to the bathrooms and the kitchen. These really must be spotless since most people look at these rooms very carefully. If the toilet or sink is so hopeless stained that it cannot be cleaned, you should seriously consider replacing or refinishing them. Make sure there is no mold in the edges of the sink or in the tile on backsplash. Replace any missing grout or caulking.
A lot of work? You bet but it is worth every bit of effort and will cost you very little. A side benefit is that you will develop better house keeping habits that will reduce your stress in long run and help you stay organized when you move to your new home.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Selling your house - Part 1
I do not believe that selling my home makes me an expert but since I have received a lot of questions about what we did to sell our home so quickly for our asking price, the next few posts will list what worked for us.
1. The single most important thing we did was use an interior designer to select paint colors for our home.
This is something that we learned a long time ago. Interior designers know how to pull the elements of your rooms together with color. They know the current trends in color selection. They can use color to minimize some features and highlight others. They will save you money over the long term because you will not have to redo something that does not look like you expected it to or that really does not need to be redone. Lots and lots of money.
In our case, we had a brick wall inside our house that I worried about since it seemed dark and a little out of place. Friends suggested that we cover it or tear it out. My brilliant interior designer was able to solve this problem by selecting floors and colors that complimented the brick. That wall quickly became the best feature in our home and it was a far, far better solution than any we could have come up on our own. It looked wonderful and now it was a feature that set our home off from all the others in our neighborhood.
You are probably thinking I could do that myself. I will just get a book and pick out a pre-set color scheme. This is why that plan does not work.
Let’s say that you want to paint your house tan. There are hundreds of shades of tan. Have you considered the undertones in your flooring, how the light is going to affect the color? Have you remembered to consider other features in the room such as countertops, cabinets? Can you hold all these subtle shade variations in you head when you are looking at colors and visualize how this is going to look as a whole? Do you have a good idea of what the color will look like on a wall rather than on that little sample sheet? Do you know if tan is still a popular color or are you about to select your favorite color from ten years ago?
Interior designers spent four years or more in college learning how to do this. They are professionals at what they do. How likely is it really that you can duplicate their work for your specific home by watching HGTV for a few weeks? Find an interior designer you can work with rather than an interior decorator (these are not the same). It will not cost anywhere near as much as you imagine it will.
When we painted our house, there was not single color that we liked with one brush stroke out of the can but since only a fool would pay for advice that they do not try out, we continued painting. In every case, the color was wonderful once the room was finished. Each room flowed into the next one and they all complement each other. I might have been able to select a single color but there is no way I could have gotten it right for the whole house.
By the way, after the exterior of the house was painted, people have stopped and asked me what color it is. Since the color compliments the brick and roof of the house it looks very rich and it made a huge difference in the curb appeal of the house.
What color is it?
Tan
A very specific shade of tan selected for our home by someone who knew what they were doing.
1. The single most important thing we did was use an interior designer to select paint colors for our home.
This is something that we learned a long time ago. Interior designers know how to pull the elements of your rooms together with color. They know the current trends in color selection. They can use color to minimize some features and highlight others. They will save you money over the long term because you will not have to redo something that does not look like you expected it to or that really does not need to be redone. Lots and lots of money.
In our case, we had a brick wall inside our house that I worried about since it seemed dark and a little out of place. Friends suggested that we cover it or tear it out. My brilliant interior designer was able to solve this problem by selecting floors and colors that complimented the brick. That wall quickly became the best feature in our home and it was a far, far better solution than any we could have come up on our own. It looked wonderful and now it was a feature that set our home off from all the others in our neighborhood.
You are probably thinking I could do that myself. I will just get a book and pick out a pre-set color scheme. This is why that plan does not work.
Let’s say that you want to paint your house tan. There are hundreds of shades of tan. Have you considered the undertones in your flooring, how the light is going to affect the color? Have you remembered to consider other features in the room such as countertops, cabinets? Can you hold all these subtle shade variations in you head when you are looking at colors and visualize how this is going to look as a whole? Do you have a good idea of what the color will look like on a wall rather than on that little sample sheet? Do you know if tan is still a popular color or are you about to select your favorite color from ten years ago?
Interior designers spent four years or more in college learning how to do this. They are professionals at what they do. How likely is it really that you can duplicate their work for your specific home by watching HGTV for a few weeks? Find an interior designer you can work with rather than an interior decorator (these are not the same). It will not cost anywhere near as much as you imagine it will.
When we painted our house, there was not single color that we liked with one brush stroke out of the can but since only a fool would pay for advice that they do not try out, we continued painting. In every case, the color was wonderful once the room was finished. Each room flowed into the next one and they all complement each other. I might have been able to select a single color but there is no way I could have gotten it right for the whole house.
By the way, after the exterior of the house was painted, people have stopped and asked me what color it is. Since the color compliments the brick and roof of the house it looks very rich and it made a huge difference in the curb appeal of the house.
What color is it?
Tan
A very specific shade of tan selected for our home by someone who knew what they were doing.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Sold!
Ok, minor panic. As you may already know I am to relocate to the coast campus for fall so my husband and I spent every spare moment last spring getting our home ready to sell. It has been on the market for three weeks and yesterday we received multiple offers, two of which were for our asking price. We accepted one but we now have to be out of our home before July 15.
We began looking for a home on the coast yesterday. We did not expect our home to sell so quickly.
Wow!
I also need to move my office the first week of July.
Time to see how good my time management skills really are.
We began looking for a home on the coast yesterday. We did not expect our home to sell so quickly.
Wow!
I also need to move my office the first week of July.
Time to see how good my time management skills really are.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Rituals, St. Joseph & Stress
We have had a lot of people view our house this week so maybe the real estate market is looking up. We hope so.
Several people have mentioned the urban legend about St. Joseph helping to sell houses so I found the following link interesting.
http://www.snopes.com/luck/stjoseph.asp
St. Joseph is the patron saint of homes and carpenters so I can understand how this legend got started. I really don’t understand why the statue needs to buried in the yard. That part of the legend baffles me and I cannot think of how that practice would have developed. I would have expected the statue to be placed in garden or in a niche in a bookcase.
The Catholic Church is not very happy about this trend and hopes that prayer rather than a superstition will be the choice of desperate homeowners. I find it interesting that when people are desperate for a solution they turn to a ritual for comfort even when that ritual does not seem to make much sense. This is a prime example of how important rituals are even in an age that tends to sweep them aside as ancient relics.
Rituals are important because they invest common acts with special significance. This is comforting because it allows us to pause and recognize an important moment in our lives and to reflect on its meaning. A known psychological benefit of ritual is that it helps people transition to new phases of their lives. This can be something as major as the loss of a loved one (Using Ritual with Children and Adolescents by Kenneth J. Doka) or as simple as ordering your day (Positive Rituals and Quality of Life by Michael W. Smull). Rituals help reduce stress by providing a sense of control of our lives. This is one reason that young children like their bedtime rituals to remain the same; it is comforting to have something in your day that is constant.
It is a loss that as we grow older we tend to discard the simple habits that could bring a sense of consistency to our lives. Rituals provide a great deal of benefit for the small amount of time that they require.
So if planting a St. Joseph statue helps you deal with the stress of selling your home, go ahead and get out the shovel. I prefer the more traditional ritual of daily prayers but that may not float your boat. However you decide to incorporate it, investing the moments of your life with meaning is a good practice and one that deserves to be carried forward into the twenty-first century.
Several people have mentioned the urban legend about St. Joseph helping to sell houses so I found the following link interesting.
http://www.snopes.com/luck/stjoseph.asp
St. Joseph is the patron saint of homes and carpenters so I can understand how this legend got started. I really don’t understand why the statue needs to buried in the yard. That part of the legend baffles me and I cannot think of how that practice would have developed. I would have expected the statue to be placed in garden or in a niche in a bookcase.
The Catholic Church is not very happy about this trend and hopes that prayer rather than a superstition will be the choice of desperate homeowners. I find it interesting that when people are desperate for a solution they turn to a ritual for comfort even when that ritual does not seem to make much sense. This is a prime example of how important rituals are even in an age that tends to sweep them aside as ancient relics.
Rituals are important because they invest common acts with special significance. This is comforting because it allows us to pause and recognize an important moment in our lives and to reflect on its meaning. A known psychological benefit of ritual is that it helps people transition to new phases of their lives. This can be something as major as the loss of a loved one (Using Ritual with Children and Adolescents by Kenneth J. Doka) or as simple as ordering your day (Positive Rituals and Quality of Life by Michael W. Smull). Rituals help reduce stress by providing a sense of control of our lives. This is one reason that young children like their bedtime rituals to remain the same; it is comforting to have something in your day that is constant.
It is a loss that as we grow older we tend to discard the simple habits that could bring a sense of consistency to our lives. Rituals provide a great deal of benefit for the small amount of time that they require.
So if planting a St. Joseph statue helps you deal with the stress of selling your home, go ahead and get out the shovel. I prefer the more traditional ritual of daily prayers but that may not float your boat. However you decide to incorporate it, investing the moments of your life with meaning is a good practice and one that deserves to be carried forward into the twenty-first century.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Finished!
Our home is finally finished and so I have placed a slide show of it here to showcase our hard work. Katrina is really finally over and now it is time to move on. I hope someone loves it and it becomes as nice a home for them as it was for us.
It is ironic that you never really fix up a place until you are interested in moving on. Next time I hope to break this pattern but I better not make any rash promises.
If you are interested in a nice home in Hattiesburg, MS, check out BrendaLambert.com for all the details.
It is ironic that you never really fix up a place until you are interested in moving on. Next time I hope to break this pattern but I better not make any rash promises.
If you are interested in a nice home in Hattiesburg, MS, check out BrendaLambert.com for all the details.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Home Improvements
We have been spending every spare moment for months working on our house. I did not know that it was possible to be sore in every muscle in your body at once. I am walking with the grace of C3PO and I lost feeling in my finger tips weeks ago. Everything has been painted, repaired replaced, polished and organized. My kitchen is a masterpiece of organization; everything is grouped by function. It took days and now it is too good to use. I just want to admire the neat little rows of glasses, the Tupperware that now has lids, the appliances that have all their attachments lined up awaiting orders and the flowerbeds that do not yet need to be weeded or replanted.
We still have a few items left, painting is forever since there is always one more place to "touch up". I still need to organize my files but right now I plan to spend time watching other people fix up their homes on HGTV. Home repair is much more enjoyable when it is a spectator sport.
We still have a few items left, painting is forever since there is always one more place to "touch up". I still need to organize my files but right now I plan to spend time watching other people fix up their homes on HGTV. Home repair is much more enjoyable when it is a spectator sport.
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