Whether you are a homeowner getting ready to sell or an investor flipping a home, the tips below can help sell a home.
Lighting and Fans
Updating lighting is one of the best ways to refresh a home, whereas worn lighting makes a house feel dated and tired. Below are my top tips for updating the lighting in a home for resale.
Update ALL the decorative lighting throughout the house. A house with a sad assortment of random lights can be hard to look past. A home filled with contemporary and coordinated lighting dramatically affects a home.
Update recessed lighting with new lighting trim kits and add recessed lights as needed. This will brighten the home tremendously, and a bright space looks great in photos and in person.
Replace old or worn outlets. Dingy or painted-over outlets and switches are eye sores and are cheap to replace, so replace them!
Spend money on a statement chandelier, but go more straightforward on the kitchen pendants, so they don't compete.
If ceilings are a standard 8' or lower, then a hugger fan is a must. Nothing is worse than a giant fan that looks like it's swallowing the ceiling or coming for your head.
Pro Tip: Use a design program such as google slides to create a free design board and put all your lighting and fans on the board to ensure they work together.
Paint
A fresh coat of paint is essential to updating a home! Below are tips for painting a house.
Choose a bright and light overall color! Paint all the rooms the same color, including the ceiling and the walls. I prefer white for the interior of a home.
My go-to whites are:
- Sherwin Williams SW 7005 Pure White & SW Snow Bound 7004
- Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace OC-65
Pro Tip: Paints have their light reflective value or LRV listed. The higher the number, the more the light will reflect off the paint. Interior paints should have a higher LRV, but exterior whites should be slightly lower, so you aren't blinded by the paint.
Pro Tip: Use a flat sheen for the walls and ceilings. Flat paint reflects less light and makes minor wall imperfections less noticeable.
Layouts
A tweak to a home's layout can significantly improve how the home flows and is a chance to add views to the outside and bring in more light. Below are my tips for updating a home's layout.
Draw out changes to the floor plan. This may sound obvious, but don't wing it on site, come up with a plan ahead of time on paper to ensure you see how the changes will affect the adjacent areas. Unintended outcomes can be expensive or problematic.
Find ways to add storage to a house. Many homes, especially older ones, don't have enough closet space. If remodeling the kitchen, add a pantry. Add an entrance closet if none exists.
This hallway was much wider than a standard hallway and was a perfect opportunity to add storage. I designed three separate closets with French doors for both visual appeal and to make accessing the closets easier.
Pro Tip: Make closet doors a design feature. The above image is from a flip I help design. This is the primary bedroom that had a long wall of closets. I designed the doors like a feature wall instead of a monotonous row of closet doors. In the real estate photos, it became a beautiful design element and a great backdrop.
Pro Tip: Many apps like Canvas will automatically measure a room to speed up the drawing process and ensure you get all the necessary measurements the first time. Along with using the measuring app, I suggest taking key room measurements so you can double-check the dimensions.
Window and Door Trim, Baseboards & Moldings
Replace the trim and molding throughout a home. New trim has a dramatic effect and gives a home a fresh, clean feel.
Pro Tip: If it's a historic home that is entirely different, salvaging the original molding or matching it is greatly appreciated and keeps the home's character that many buyers love.
Kitchens and Baths
Many buyers want a turnkey home. Buyers might overlook a secondary space needing some updates or being generic. Below are simple ways to elevate kitchens and primary baths.
Add a semi-custom range hood to the kitchen. These range hoods aren't very expensive, especially from stores such as Hoodsly.com, and add a high-end luxury design element to a kitchen.
Photo Credit: Image is from Hoodsly.com designer, unknown
Take the cabinets to the ceiling. This gives a home a custom look and takes the kitchen way beyond builder-grade. You can achieve this look by adding trim at the top of the cabinets that connect to the ceiling. In kitchens with tall ceilings, you will need to stack two cabinets. A short cabinet on top of a taller one is a great look.
Update the cabinet hardware. T Bar pulls, although classic, fade into the background, and there are plenty of simple and beautiful options from places like myknobs.com or build.com.
Make sure there is a bathtub in what is potentially a kid's bathroom! Many parents will likely consider this a must.
Spend more money on the tile in the kitchen and the primary bathroom. The secondary bathrooms and laundry room can have more economical tile, such as white subway tile. The kitchen and the primary bathroom should have more distinct tile from the rest of the home.
Staging
When you are all done prettying up the house, STAGE IT! Unless the house is an architectural masterpiece, the house will need the warmth and richness of well-styled furnishings. A staged home is also exciting to walk through and shows potential buyers how amazing the house can look.
Photo Credit: Staging by Investor Interiors and interior design by SAS Interior Design
Pro Tip: Take lots of photos of the home inside and out. You will see much more from the camera's perspective than the naked eye. This is also what potential buyers will first see when you list the house online.
Pro Tip: Many neighborhoods have similar layouts throughout. Tour homes for sale in the area and look up recently sold homes and see what updates were made.
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