Tom PalmerHow to Spruce up Your Interior
You’ll want the interior of your home to look its very best when prospective buyers look it over. You should not, however, overspend and try to make your home as good as new. Your goals are to pre-empt negative impressions before they appear and to remove clutter. Below are some specific areas to pay attention to:
Countertops:
Your countertops should be clean and uncluttered. Remember: the more things that are visible on
your kitchen and bath countertops, the smaller they appear. Remove as many excess items as
possible and these surfaces will look more appealing.
Kitchen Cabinets:
Remove things you don’t use every day from your kitchen cabinets and put store them in boxes
while showing your home. Your cabinets will look bigger and more inviting. Juice makers, fondu
pots, expensive China, etc. – if you can live without immediate access to these items for a little
while, we recommend you get them out of the way.
Closets:
Most people’s closets have lots of clothes that they don’t wear very often. If you put extraneous
clothes and other items in boxes and store them, your closets will look more inviting and bigger.
Furniture:
Do you have too much furniture in certain rooms in your house? Would any of the rooms seem
bigger if you removed some items? Ask yourselves these questions and you’ll likely want to put
some furniture in storage.
Carpet and Flooring:
Unless your floors look really bad, they often won’t need a lot of work. If tiles are missing they
should be replaced. If carpet is torn, it may need to be replaced as well. However, if your carpet is
simply a little dirty, then a thorough carpet cleaning can go a long way. Hardwood floors do not
need to scratch-free. So unless they look bad, they may not need to be re-finished.
Ceilings and Walls:
Nicks in drywall and trim are inevitable, but can usually be repaired at a very low cost. If you
don’t feel like tackling this yourself, a paint contractor should be able to help. If you do want to
fix such problems yourself, check your local home improvement store for drywall and caulk
touch-up kits to quickly restore your walls and interior trim.
Ideally you’ll have extra matching paint available in case you need to do any paint touch-up around the house. If not, you may be able to obtain a match from a local paint store. If you feel your interior needs to be re-painted, choose neutral colors such as beige or khaki. Remember: no matter how much you like a particular color, your prospective buyers may have different tastes. They may also have different colored furnishings than you, and you want your interior colors to go well with whatever rugs, drapes and furniture your buyers might want to put in the home.
Fixtures and Appliances:
All of your sink and shower fixtures should be shiny and spot-free. The same goes for your
appliances. And your refrigerator should not be inundated with magnets or sticky pads. It should
look as clean and new as possible.
