The moment you decide to sell your home, there will be a number of decisions you will need to make. Who is going to be your realtor? What repairs need to be made to your home? Do you need to hire an interior designer to help your home look its best? How you answer these questions will determine how quickly you are able to sell your home.
I highly recommend hiring an interior designer, because giving your home a fresh look can be the difference between selling your home at the price you want or having to accept less. However, you don’t want to wait until the house as been put on the market to call the designer. You want to call them immediately, and make sure you take their advice in stride. When you have lived in a home for so long, it can be difficult to hear improvement suggestions. Despite that, remember this: the moment you decided to sell your home, it went from being personal to being about the business of selling your home.
When it comes to the individual rooms in your home, the designer is going to suggest things like moving pieces of furniture, rearranging bookcases and various other tweaks. They are also going to focus quite a bit of their attention on de-cluttering. All of us, myself included, collect a lot of “stuff” over the years, and you don’t want your clutter to be front and center when potential buyers are coming over.
Finally, an interior designer can help you update the look of your home. It can be difficult to stay up with the latest trends and fashions, but that is the job of a designer. This keeps you from having to worry about being on the absolute cutting edge.
When selling your home, it is important to remember that you don’t have to do everything yourself. In fact, I would recommend that you don’t. All of us have our own individual talents, and it is a good idea to leverage each others talents to the mutual benefit of everyone.
We all see the beautiful kitchens on the television shows and in trade magazines but sometimes beautiful and practical don’t always work hand in hand. That’s why it’s very important to know what the limitations you may encounter down the road and try to minimize the impact in your design and choice of appliances.
One thing you must think about these days is the aging population and the challenges they may go through. You can overcome most of these by just making sure you have enough space for someone in a wheelchair or walking devise to easily get through. This allows an older person to consider purchasing your home over another potential home.
Buying appliances that have controls toward the front is another small but handy thing for people who are aging and want to stay in their homes as well as making sure there are solid and smooth surfaces to walk on. Flooring that can peel or bubble can be dangerous for those who shuffle across the floor.
Putting in some extra thought and even getting an interior designer who works with the elderly population might help you get some great pointers before you start that renovation.
There is nothing wrong with picking the colors of your choosing to live in your home. In fact, when it comes to things that are inexpensive to do, paint is one of the cheapest ways to change the décor in a room and we all want to put our signature on a room or two where we live. However, when you get ready to sell a home, one of the things you can do is go back to those rooms that may be a little crazy and paint them with a neutral color. That teen that has his entire room painted black may be the reason your house is not selling!
It is hard at times to step back and look at your home critically to assess what it is that may keep people from making that all important offer. If you don’t have a clue, it may be time to call in a Professional Stager or Interior Designer that can give you some direction. This also holds true with the yard as well and you might just need an hour of consult time to get the information you need to get your home up to snuff and get it sold. Don’t be afraid to ask for help; that’s what I am here for.
If you have recently bought your home and feel you need a little bit of help with giving it your special touch, it may be time to hire a professional interior designer. Unlike what you see on television, interior designers can help you with the simple things such as colors and accessories to the more complex projects like completely renovating a home from top to bottom.
Many don’t even consider asking a designer for fear of cost. However, many interior designers have package deals as well as internet deals that can help you with your do-it-yourself projects to keep costs in line. At the same time, don’t underestimate what a designer can do for you especially when it comes to moving walls, lighting and those hard to do kitchen and bathroom renovations or additions. I have seen the difference in the do it yourself work as opposed to the designer inspired space using the same amount of money and the designer space wins hands down. It is always a good idea to check with an interior design firm first and then make your decision.
On the last post we discussed that there are several things you need to know when it comes to renovations; have a plan and get a good contractor to carry out that plan.
Hopefully, you now know the difference between an interior designer and an interior decorator. Now we are going to talk about finding a good reliable contractor. One of the best resources you have but never think of is your local realtor. We end up having to find handymen and good contractors all the time to fix up homes for sellers that need some touchups in order to get homes ready to sell as well as repairs that are found on a home inspection. Some of these contractors can be general contractors but most are specialty contractors like HVAC, plumbing or electrical.
Because most realtors work in large offices we can either find someone that can help you or know someone who can. With that said, you are ultimately responsible for deciding who to choose for your renovation project. In order to make that decision better, I always recommend you get referrals that can be verified. This is a very important step and I find those who take it almost always have a good experience.
There are several things you need to know when it comes to renovations; have a plan and get a good contractor to carry out that plan.
When establishing a plan you might think you need to go find an architect but you can do a lot of planning with the help of an interior designer. Some people think interior designers are interior decorators and that is far from the truth. While interior decorators simply stay within the realm of color, furniture, pillows, coverings and accessories, interior designers are capable of far more things. They use some high powered software to help render space planning and this means they can move walls and electrical plans and just about anything else that you may want to see what it looks like to move. On top of that they know things like plumbing and fixtures and makes and models of appliances, what’s “green” and what’s not and an assortment of other things that most decorators are not qualified to get into. And they can also deal with colors, furniture, coverings and accessories. My next post will talk about contractors.
I recently sold a fix-r-upper to a friend who decided to hire an interior designer to help him realize the best for the new house. Most of the time people don’t get help with the vision; just the work that needs to be done. After seeing what this young designer did for my client, I will not hesitate to recommend getting this type of help. Neither I nor my customer had the vision that was accomplished.
They moved several walls and turned a very small kitchen into a wonderful place to eat and entertain. The colors that were picked were a pleasant surprise and there was no way I would have put those together to get the look that they got. I have decided that hiring someone to get a vision for a home you will be living in for what could be years is a very good investment. Do your homework and get someone who is qualified and licensed. I believe you will be glad you brought someone to the table who can help you capture and create your vision.
