Many homeowners don’t know where to start when it comes to getting their house ready. That is why they call me to help them. I helped one homeowner who started the process and then called me to get the final details in place.
Initially, the homeowner knew her kitchen needed some help. When I came in, the kitchen cabinets were already painted white and they were planning on updating the counter tops from yellow formica to large black tiles. Even though counter top tiles are making a comeback, I would not ever recommend using tile for a counter top. There is too much grout to have to clean (in my opinion). I actually recommended leaving the counter tops as is because they complemented the white cabinets nicely. The floors were redone and the appliances looked brand new. If the homeowner had to, they could always provide an allowance towards new counter tops to the buyer.
Eat in Kitchen
The Eat-In Kitchen was a nice size but you could not tell with all the clutter and extra furniture in there. During the consultation, I helped the homeowner remove the bookcase and stage the table. This way, she could see how much bigger the space was to show off to buyers.
Living Room
The Living Room was a large room but again it had too much stuff in it. I recommended removing any traces of their pets to include doggy beds that were in the living room. We also rearranged the furniture a bit and actually added some bookcases that were found in the dining room. While most times I recommend removing furniture, in this case, we added some to help with the symmetry of the room. Bookcases are also a better fit in the living room than in the dining room. So the bookcases were moved and also thinned out so it wasn’t jam packed with books. A firescreen, rug and artwork were rented to help complete the look and we reused the homeowners pillows from other rooms in the living room.
Dining Room
Since the kitchen cabinets were being repainted, the items inside had to go somewhere for now and they ended up in the dining room. As stated earlier, the bookcases were not in the right location in the house and we moved 2 of them to the living room. The others were emptied and removed by the homeowner as part of their homework. The table and chairs were left as well as the sideboard but we added different artwork and plants to complete the room. Now you can see how important it was to remove the clutter and make this room look as spacious as it should.
Master Bedroom
The master bedroom didn’t have a lot of work but we did need to update it a bit and make it more appealing. The homeowner bought some new bedding that she would then take with her to her new home. We also cleared the clutter from the nightstands and room and added a painting over the bed. We found matching lamps from other bedrooms and put them on the nightstand. Bedrooms tend to collect a lot of extra stuff and you either need to throw it out, donate it or put it away. You might as well get started on that since you are moving out, right? And you don’t want to pack up anything that you don’t need anymore and just takes up extra space.
