The last couple of weeks have been the most exciting in our house as we put our current home up for sale and had it sold within a week! During the process of prepping the place I thought it would be a great opportunity to snap some pics to share a tour of our home with everyone.
Tweet ThisThe preparation to get our house ready for sale took months! And at the beginning of the process we had a stager come in and give us some pointers. I know! I just rolled my eyes too, but in all honesty the suggestions she made were fantastic and we found ourselves continuously saying, “why didn’t we do this sooner?” I was really hesitant when our agent said he’d be bringing in a home stager, I’d heard some negative feedback from other people about all the crazy things some stagers made them do, but since our agent was paying for the consult we gave it a go. Our stager was nothing but kind and genuine. She was very complimentary about the things she really liked in our house, like our gallery walls, and made simple and subtle suggestions to create a spacious and welcoming environment. We did have to put some money into getting the house ready, but all-in-all it was money well spent because we had an offer after one day and a conditional sale by two days.
Our house is not big by any means, 1700 square feet including the basement, but this tour is going to be a two-parter so I can break down all the aspects of work that went into this. Today, we’re looking at the main floor and the basement. Although our entrance isn’t particularly wide, we do have vaulted ceilings in the front hall which really makes the space feel large.
Our main living area includes the kitchen, living room and dining room. All rooms are very spacious with lots of free floor space. One of the recommendations the stager made included removing our love seat, which sat under the window, and adding the shelf on the long wall to balance out the way. By removing the love seat, the fireplace became the focal point of the room and it really is a lovely thing to display. We also added floor length drapes and replaced our expensive curtain rod with one from Ikea, as we didn’t want to leave it behind. Little side note about the drapery, it cost me double to hem them then what they cost!!!!!!!! The final little touch was adding a lamp to the top of the piano. Not really sure why, but it does look good.
The dining room was pretty easy to stage. Normally, we have a plastic table cloth on the table, because you know . . . . kids, but a little table runner and some wicker bally thingies, again from Ikea, really dressed it up. And yes, that is the table I refinished on full display. So the game changer in this room was the mirror. When we put this mirror up we were stunned at how great the room looked and it was such a simple change. Previously we had a picture hanging in the same place.
If you’ve ever sold a house you know the kitchen can make or break some peoples love for a house, so the goal for this room was to make it as bright and spacious as possible. We swapped out the old hanging ball light for a flush dome light and again this was one of those things we’d wished we done sooner, the room completely brightened up with this change. We pulled the table out and put it in storage, which wasn’t a big deal because our kitchen table was mostly a dumping ground. Everything came off the counters expect for our coffee maker (like I’m gonna put that away) and my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and yes I do use it that frequently that it warrants staying out. Have you ever mashed your potatoes in there? It’s like a cloud of potatoes, you should try it. Anyway, back on point, after a good scrubbing of absolutely everything, the kitchen was good to go.
Finally, we’ve come to the basement/rec room. Our house is open concept so even though our rec room is in the basement we have no walls or doorways separating the two floors so it still feels like part of the main living area. The basement was one of the first rooms I repainted. I actually wrote a post about the process a while back. We moved out the La-Z-boy rocker and some of the toys but kept the big stuff like the ginormous dollhouse and kitchen and tucked them away into the corner. I swapped all the family pics with generic stock photos and we switched out the lights from bright white to soft white, at the suggestion of the stager who felt the colour was a little cold, she should’ve seen the old colour!
Here’s a recap of all our work done on the main floor and basement, that really impacted the look of the house:
- Swapped all personal pics with stock photos (there were a lot for us)
- Repainted all the trim and patched/painted all nail pops
- Removed kitchen table
- Cleared off kitchen counter and above the cabinets
- Changed the kitchen light to a flush mount dome light
- Added a mirror over the dining room table
- Added a table runner and decorations to the table top
- Removed love seat in living room
- Added a bookshelf to balance the wall
- Added floor length sheers
- Added lamp on top of the piano
- Removed rocking chair and majority of toys from the basement
So the moral of the story? Don’t be so closed off from someone else’s advice. In our case it really paid off and we didn’t have to disrupt our lives with sitting on the market for weeks or months. Have you guys made any changes in your homes or are you preparing to sell? What changes are you making?
As always come say “HI” and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Stay tuned for the second part of our home tour coming soon.
