We put our house on the market recently. This was our first home, which we've lived in for almost a decade, so we expected to invest a lot of time cleaning, organizing and making some minor repairs that we'd been putting off. Here's what we didn't see coming:
White and bold wall colors are no-nos
We worked with a real estate
agent - a person who specializes in making homes more sellable. Walking through
our house with him was humbling and a bit exasperating. In the past 4 years, we
had re-painted every single room in the house about 2 times and even applied a
decorative finish in the kitchen. We'd repaired any problems with the walls and
filled all visible nicks, cracks and holes to make the walls look smooth. The
problem; the colors. The white in the family room (too bland), the green in the
dining area and the ocean blue in the kitchen (too bold), and one bright red
wall in our older son's bedroom (too bright) were all the wrong choices to
entice buyers. We ended up having to paint nearly every room in the house a neutral
color.
What 'cut the clutter' really means
We knew the real-estate mantra
that having the house tidy and organized, with only the minimum amount of
furniture in each room, makes the space appear larger and more enticing. So we
knew we'd have to clear out plenty of clutter. We didn't expect to have to take
out almost everything and I mean everything. We had to remove sofas, bookshelves,
chairs, dressers, cabinets, electronics, a desk, kitchenware and one-third of
the clothes in our closets. This wasn’t easy to do, after all, we still reside
here till it’s sold.
It's not your home anymore
We've
lived in this home for close to a decade, so the walls are covered in plenty of
family pictures. Our real estate agent wasn't impressed. He told us that almost
every picture had to go. To show the house, the walls had to be almost bare,
with the exception of a strategically placed mirror or two and a couple of
small scenic pictures in nice frames. This removes personality, allowing
potential buyers to see the house as theirs, not yours.
Some cleaning projects will be
frustratingly stubborn
For so long, hands had been running
up and down our handrails and had caused the brown-stained wood to turn dark
and ugly; the wood grains were nearly black. We had cleaned the railings
periodically with a wood cleaner, but it didn't remove or prevent what looked
like black stains running the length of the rails. Finally, we used a liquid
dishwasher detergent mixed with water to cut through the grease. Then we used a
lemon-based furniture cleaner and a lot of vigorous scrubbing to get the wood
clean. There are going to be projects that won't come clean with just a sponge,
soap and water, especially if you've lived in a home for many years.
Fix those nagging problems — but don't expect them to be easy
The pop-up sink stopper in the
bathroom sink hadn't worked in a while. It was a problem we could live with —
the water still drained just fine — but I wanted to fix it before listing the
house; even small, neglected problems (such as that creaking wardrobe door, that
toilet that doesn’t flush properly, etc.) could put off buyers.
The house won't stay clean
With the house freshly
painted, thoroughly cleaned and filled with just a minimal amount of furniture
in the rooms, our mission of making the home look large and inviting was
accomplished. It actually looks better now than when we bought it. But
maintaining that clean and organized look is a challenge that we have to answer
every day because of constant inspections.
Despite a new family-wide
policy of not wearing shoes indoors and not touching the walls, the house won't
stay clean. The carpet constantly needs vacuuming, schoolbooks and backpacks
appear throughout the house and the paint on the walls get dinged and need to be touched up.
Some of this is unavoidable: You can't live in a house without kicking up a
little dirt. It's what we'll be dealing with until the house sells.
Brett Martin
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