|
Cleanliness is your homes best advertisement
Sutherland Shire Southern Cleaning Services Home Stylists
'Home stylists' say cleanliness is your home's best advertisement
Clean is the No. 1 adjective for a house that is dressed to sell.
Realtors and home stylists, or stagers, say people putting their houses on the market must slap personal tastes aside, suck in the waistline of the place that is home to their prized stuff and, most important, clean it.
Clean edges
No piles in the corner or around the perimeter.
Are there piles of papers, junk stashed in a corner?
Are the baseboards rough, chipped?
Are they dirty?
If you are going to sell, you want your house to be clean.
We asked several real estate and home staging professionals to give us a guide to getting your interiors in shape to sell your home.
While their tips are geared toward selling, they're also great if you're just planning a big party this summer and need some inspiration. So, here's a summer's worth of advice:
• In addition to having windows washed - something everyone agreed on - kitchen and bath areas need to be spotless.
Everyday towels should not be over the shower rod, personal things put away. I usually ask sellers to have all the grout completely white, bleach it out or regrout or caulk. Wipe out the sink, leave it shiny, glass perfectly clean, no mildew, toilet should be very clean and the lid should be down.A small thing, but it makes a difference.
It has lot to do with cleaning and de-personalizing.
The kitchen is the most important thing that needs to be clean. The kitchen needs to sparkle.
The visible surfaces need to be clear. Old appliances that are countertop appliances need to go away.
Put a fun picture in the kitchen that you normally wouldn't put in a kitchen Another suggestion: for a clean, stylish look, add a bowl of bright oranges instead of a mixed bowl of fruit.
• Repaint interior trim. Trim painting is something most homeowners can do. If they take the time to spend a couple of days touching up their own trim, it makes a huge difference
• New carpet and paint - in neutral colors - help clean a house.
• Get rid of clutter.
Take everything off your fridge, take things off counters, make everything look more spacious than it actually is, not to make the house look like it's not lived in, but that it's lived in and has lots of space.
For tabletops, there is the rule of three things on its surface, or a lamp and two things.
De-personalize the house so people won't spend more time looking at your pictures and diplomas than at the house.
Get rid of pets.Pets are a real nightmare and a nightmare for sellers as well. You walk in the house and five dogs stroll by. Or five cats rush out the door and then you see a sign, "Don't let the cats out." Your pets and pet odor need to be hidden.
• Closets. The bottom needs to be free of everything, Move everything up. And color-coordinate. Think about going to a boutique, all the white blouses are together, that's what you would do to your home.
• Pods are big now. People rent a pod, put it on-site and move unnecessary furniture out of the house and store it in the pod. Most of the time, people realize they didn't need that furniture in the first place.
Other tips:
•Asking someone to accept your wallpaper is like asking me to wear your favorite blouse.Let's not gamble it, let's get rid of the wallpaper.
• A boob tube debate: Men want to know where the TV is going to go. A lot of stagers want to take the TV out.
• Rooms should be decorated to fit the use of the room.
The dining room should be a dining room, not an office, not a playroom.All those things throw people off. They want to see the room into the things they can relate to. A couple with offices in the home and one bedroom, people walk away thinking it's a one-bedroom home instead of a three-bedroom home.
• Before you show your home, take away anything you want to keep, like drapes or a prized chandelier.
• Lighting is important, and people differ on the concept. Ballard likes lamps rather than overhead fixtures, and they should be on at all times because a well-lit home is welcoming.
• If there is a fireplace, put in birch logs with interesting bark and go ahead and have the chimney cleaned by a professional sweep. Whatever you do, don't have ashes and old logs or dried, dead flowers in the firebox.
• When appropriate, point out happy upgrades with diagrams or other written material, but not too many. The idea is for the prospective buyer to want to move right in, right away.
Call Southern Cleaning Services today for more information on home styling
on 0405 665 800
or
Contact us
|
|
|
|
