Painting Tips for Sellers

The following article was recently added to The Housing Guru web site. For those who may be unfamiliar with this site, you'll definitely want to take a moment or two and pay a visit. John Mulkey, with his 40 years in the residential building business, knows what it takes to sell a home in this market. I've been extremely fortunate to have been asked to write two articles for his site. John - as always, it's an honor.

WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING

Painting Tips for Sellers:
Color Me Purple

by Kathy Nielsen

Not if you’re selling your home. Purple is one shade that will be liked by some and detested by others. Leaving a room purple or painting a room purple can actually lead to turning buyers away; hardly the objective when you have your home on the market. Your goal, when selling, is to have a color that appeals to a broad base of prospective buyers. The challenge most homeowners face is selecting the right color.

The following will provide you with a guideline from which to use in painting the interior of your home.

Choosing the Right Color:

There are some important considerations that need to be made when selecting the right color for the home:

1. Flooring – Whether you have hardwood, or carpet, you’ll want to keep in mind that the color for the walls needs to compliment what’s on the floor.
2. Go neutral but not too neutral – Neutral colors work extremely well as we increase our odds of appealing to a broad base of prospective buyers. However, going white (or some variation of white) can make the home appear too cold. The warmer shades of beige, for example, can add instant warmth.
3. Furniture and accessories – The color palette in the furniture and accessories is also an important factor to consider. For example, if the color of your sofa is gray and you have a glass coffee table, then a soft gray color choice would be better than a rich beige color.

How to Add Visual Space:

When selling, it’s important to add as much visual space as possible. One of the greatest opportunities is the use of a single color throughout the home. The advantage to the buyers’ eye is that the space isn’t broken up but rather remains consistent. Another area of opportunity is the use of a dark color for small rooms. The use of a dark color will actually provide more depth to the room and again allow for more visual space.

For further home staging solutions, contact Kathy Nielsen with Georgia Interior Solutions, LLC; Atlanta Georgia’s Premiere Home Staging Provider.

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Georgia Interior Solutions (GIS), LLC is Atlanta Georgia's Premier Home Staging Provider. Owner and Real Estate Staging Expert, Kathy Nielsen has appeared on the pages of Atlanta Magazine, Atlanta Home Improvement; Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You can also see one of her staged homes on HGTV's hit show Sleep On It.

With their extensive home staging portfolio, you'll quickly learn that they have the experience and knowledge on what it takes to make your home and/or listing appeal to the prospective buyers. Contact them today for your free no-obligation appointment: 678 522 8392.

Why Selling Naked Isn't a Good Idea

Well... to begin, you'd have to worry about the following:

Drafts - Those unexpected breezes could pose challenging.

Seat Belts - Who knows where they'd come to rest (an unsettling thought, for sure)

And what about all those potential silly little comparisons. Can't you hear them now? You know; "her stomach is flatter than mine" or "he has more hair on his chest than I do."

The truth of the matter is that we'd never envision selling in the nude; nor should we. The same holds true for our homes. When left vacant, you can expect visitors to quickly pass through as there's nothing else to hold their attention beyond the four walls and the flooring.

Another challenge is that a vacant home also leaves a LOT to the imagination. And while some things may be better left to the imagination, your home, when on the market, isn't one of them. Furniture and accessories create solutions for how the potential buyer can place their items and at the same time, makes the home far more warm and inviting.

Here's an example of a naked room:

Now here's the same room dressed up:

And the flyer for the agent (provided at no charge for all of our staging clients):

To see more examples of the homes we've had the good fortune of dressing up, visit our home staging portfolio.

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Georgia Interior Solutions (GIS), LLC is Atlanta Georgia's Premier Home Staging Provider. Owner and Real Estate Staging Expert, Kathy Nielsen has appeared on the pages of Atlanta Magazine, Atlanta Home Improvement; Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You can also see one of her staged homes on HGTV's hit show Sleep On It.

With their extensive home staging portfolio, you'll quickly learn that they have the experience and knowledge on what it takes to make your home and/or listing appeal to the prospective buyers. Contact them today for your free no-obligation appointment: 678 522 8392.

Vacant Home Staging Before & After Pictures

As previously mentioned, I've started to create flyers for the agents to use in their marketing. I started with this new offering two weeks ago for a home I had staged in Atlanta. I've made it part of my overall service package at no additional charge and thus far, it's been a hit.

Here's the latest flyer for a home I just completed:

Here's a set of before & after picture prior to staging and after staging:

Before Staging - Dining Room. As you can see, the room is a dark maroon red.

After Staging - Dining Room. The room with its' brand new color seems to have come to life.

Living Room - Before Staging: As you can see, the homeowner has beautiful drapes which will come with the home when sold.

My job as a professional home stager is to compliment the room by using the right accessories.

Living Room - After Staging:

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Georgia Interior Solutions (GIS), LLC is Atlanta Georgia's Premier Home Staging Provider. Owner and Real Estate Staging Expert, Kathy Nielsen has appeared on the pages of Atlanta Magazine, Atlanta Home Improvement; Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You can also see one of her staged homes on HGTV's hit show Sleep On It.

With their extensive home staging portfolio, you'll quickly learn that they have the experience and knowledge on what it takes to make your home and/or listing appeal to the prospective buyers. Contact them today for your free no-obligation appointment: 678 522 8392.

How to Add Warmth to a Room - Solutions for Selling Part IV

First and foremost, I hope you enjoy reading these series as much as I enjoy writing them. If the event you've missed the first three, here they are:

• How to Add Appeal
• Keep It Simple
• It's All About The Photos

Now for how to add warmth to a room: To best describe the process, let's begin by looking at the following picture. As you can see, we're beginning with a clean slate.

This room is located off the kitchen and therefore would likely be an important room to the prospective buyers.

As you can see, the room is void of any color. In addition, the room appears to be rather small.

NOTE: This picture is of unit 2. The staged property is actually unit 4. The rooms are identical in shape and size.

One of the easiest solutions to add warmth to a room is to apply a rich color to the walls.

In the case of this room, I selected (with reason) a warm brown color. By using a darker color in a small room, you actually create more depth which helps to visually expand the space.

Now for the third step:

1) Select furniture pieces. Your objective is two-fold: a) have the pieces compliment your choice of wall color and b) use the right quantity of pieces. For example, in the case of this room, I used one end table so as not to overwhelm the space.

2) Choose your accessories and choose wisely. The goal is to have the items compliment the room and the furniture. In this example, I used a variety of browns, yellows and white.

Here's a different angle:

Now the easiest solution is to call in a professional home stager and let them work their magic!

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Georgia Interior Solutions (GIS), LLC is Atlanta Georgia's Premier Home Staging Provider. Owner and Real Estate Staging Expert, Kathy Nielsen has appeared on the pages of Atlanta Magazine, Atlanta Home Improvement; Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You can also see one of her staged homes on HGTV's hit show Sleep On It.

With their extensive home staging portfolio, you'll quickly learn that they have the experience and knowledge on what it takes to make your home and/or listing appeal to the prospective buyers. Contact them today for your free no-obligation appointment: 678 522 8392.

Solutions for Selling Part III - It's all about the photos!

If you've read it once, you've likely read it a thousand times; prospective buyers are using the Internet to begin their search for their next home. That statement alone speaks volumes to the importance of your photos. Prospective buyers, in the comfort of their home, will spend time reviewing home after home in order to create a list. If you're a seller, your objective is to make that list.

Knowing how important the photos are to the seller and to the agent, I make it a priority to take the best pictures I can for each of my staging projects and provide the photos to the agent and to the seller at no additional charge. Yes, it took an investment in a great camera and yes, it takes an investment of my time. However, to me personally, it's worth every dime and every minute.

In summary, beyond pricing the home correctly; using a strong agent to market the home; and ensuring the home looks incredible (thru staging, of course), having great photos is one of those must-have items.

Here's a recent home I staged in Atlanta Georgia:

Kitchen eat-in before staging:

Eat-in Kitchen After Staging:

Here are some close-ups that I did just for fun:

I'm calling this photo "the fern." Clever. Eh?

Apples (which has become part of my home staging signature):

I'm calling this one Mugs!

And here's a little something I created using Picnik. I'm going to forward this to the agent as I think it would make for an excellent photo to have on a flyer.

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Georgia Interior Solutions (GIS), LLC is Atlanta Georgia's Premier Home Staging Provider. Owner and Real Estate Staging Expert, Kathy Nielsen has appeared on the pages of Atlanta Magazine, Atlanta Home Improvement; Atlanta Business Chronicle and the Atlanta Journal Constitution. You can also see one of her staged homes on HGTV's hit show Sleep On It.

With their extensive home staging portfolio, you'll quickly learn that they have the experience and knowledge on what it takes to make your home and/or listing appeal to the prospective buyers. Contact them today for your free no-obligation appointment: 678 522 8392