5 ways to liven up your home before you sell

5 ways to liven up your home before you sell

We are slowly but surely recovering from a long stint of slow home sales, however it is still considered a buyer’s market out there. Many of the buyers will not be looking to invest in a “fixer-upper” as they may not have the funds to take care of what is needed, so before you put your home on the market apply these 5 steps to ensure that you have a place “live” enough to attract the attention of your potential buyers.

Give your Kitchen a Face-Lift

The kitchen may very well be best place to start. You don’t have to over-do it. Replacing the cabinet fronts in your kitchen will be a lot less costly than replacing them all together. And replacing counter tops can give your kitchen that “edge” that will grab buyer’s attention the moment they walk in. But keep it simple, you don’t have to spend excessive money on your kitchen remodeling.

Carpets

Nothing says welcome home than a clean carpet! If your carpet needs a little pick me up you may want to rent a carpet cleaner or pay for a professional to deep condition your carpets. If your carpets are badly worn and have stains that just won’t come out then you might want to consider replacing it. 

Curb Appeal

A lot of us don’t go in our homes through our front doors anymore, but our potential buyers do so creating a “homey” feel would be best when looking to sell your home. Again, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars creating a brand new landscaping look. At least make sure that the grass is cut and looks nice (preferable green). If you have flower beds make sure that they are neat and up kept, add some mulch and remove weeds if necessary. 

 

Bathroom Makeover

Potential buyers can get turned off by your bathroom. Take a good look at it and see what can be done to make it more presentable. Although bathroom remodeling can become a bit expensive, there are some simple improvement steps that you can make that should not put you out too much. If you tub looks old, you can consider re-glazing it. This makes it look “new” again without actually replacing it and is affordable.

Painting

Adding a fresh layer of paint to your walls will make your rooms stand out. The effect that freshly painted walls have on homes is amazing; it can brighten up the room and virtually make it look new again, which is exactly what we want our buyers to see and think when we enter!

I hope that these tips prove to be a winner for you. We all want our houses to be just as good as our neighbors, but remember not to over-do it. Your renovations could increase the price value of your home, but a lot of the time the most expensive house on the block is often the hardest to sell, however the house that looks like it has been neglected is even worse! Good luck and happy remodeling!!

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6 cures for the small-kitchen blues

Expand your kitchen without breaking the bank using these simple solutions from Money Magazine Money Magazine By Josh Garskof, Money Magazine contributing writer October 26 2007: 7:44 AM EDT
(Money Magazine) -- Sure, you order takeout three nights a week, and preparing a burger tests the limits of your culinary know-how. But that doesn't mean you don't need and deserve a spacious kitchen. After all, the kitchen has evolved from a room where food is prepared to the hub of a house, where you do everything from eating casual meals to paying the bills and helping Junior with his algebra homework.

Plus, as long as you stick within the norms of the neighborhood, a kitchen expansion is one of the best ways to increase your property value, says Omaha appraiser John Bredemeyer, a spokesman for the Appraisal Institute. "A lot of people buy the kitchen and take the house that comes along with it," he says. "So going from a cooking kitchen to an entertaining kitchen is likely to pay for itself when you sell your house someday."

Without walls: When the dining room and kitchen are part of the same open space, the room feels larger.

Best of all, you don't necessarily have to shell out the $50,000 to $100,000 cost of a kitchen addition. Here are some money-saving tricks for enlarging the kitchen - or at least making it seem bigger: Reconfigure the eating area

Having a place to eat in the kitchen is essential, but even a 3�-foot-wide round table takes up a 10-foot-by-10-foot floor space to comfortably accommodate walking around it, says Denver architect Doug Walter. So consider these space-conserving alternatives:

* Lose the table You could replace it with a diner-style booth ($2,000 to $5,000), which needs just six feet by eight feet of floor space and can be set directly against the wall or in an alcove. Or let a new countertop double as a breakfast bar by overhanging it 15 inches off a peninsula or an island. Opt for backless stools, and they can be tucked almost entirely under the counter.
* Use the dining room If you rarely eat a meal in the dining room, consider knocking down the wall separating it from the kitchen to form an attached, everyday eating area. That costs about $1,500 (if you have to move a structural wall, it will cost another $4,500). You'll lose cabinets, but if you put a peninsula in the wall's place, you'll retain some storage space.

Maximize the space

Sometimes kitchen congestion can be resolved by updating an old-fashioned floor plan that's chopping up ample square footage with too many walls and other obstructions.

* Annex other spaces Walk-in pantries, mudrooms and laundry rooms that abut the kitchen are often worth sacrificing for an expanded kitchen, says Charlotte, N.C. contractor John Harmon. Construction costs can be as little as $2,000, depending on the situation. And thanks to stackable laundry machines that can be tucked away in a closet and cabinets that can store as much as an entire closet in a fraction of the space, they won't be missed.
* Move the sliders Replacing sliding-glass patio doors with a single swing-out door ($3,000 to $4,000) or relocating your backdoor out of prime kitchen territory ($5,000 to $7,000) can free up vital wall space for new cabinets and a countertop without adding any floor space.

Add on economically

If the only solution is more physical space, you may be able to do the job for less than the $400-a-square-foot (or higher) cost of a full-scale kitchen addition and remodel.

* Add adjacent living space If what you really need is an eating area or a space next to your existing kitchen, build a family room, den or great room alongside it. The open floor plan will make the kitchen seem bigger, and the person cooking (or microwaving, as the case may be) will feel like part of the household activity. And because the new space won't require all the labor and materials involved in reconstructing a kitchen, the project will cost about $200 a square foot.
* Hang a bump-out If your plans for the kitchen require just a little more room, you may be able to hang the space off the side of the house by suspending the additional square footage from the existing structure, much like a bay window. As long as the bump-out doesn't extend more than three feet beyond the main exterior wall, it should easily cost $2,000 less than if the contractor had to excavate the yard and pour a new foundation, says Walter.

Whatever technique you use to expand your kitchen, once it has an open, spacious feel, it's sure to become an even more popular hangout. Heck, it might even inspire you to break out a cookbook.