Pittsburgh Nesties
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Home staging advice
I know a lot of you have sold houses recently. Any tips? I hope to get mine on the market ASAP.
Re: Home staging advice
When we sold our home, our realtor was very helpful in walking through the house & giving advice about what to do. There were some things that we had considered going that she told us not to bother with, that it would be money and effort on our part that wouldn't make that much of a difference...then there were other things we never would have thought of doing that she suggested.
One thing we ended up doing that was a cheap & easy thing was replacing 2 light fixtures in our hallways...we had dated, brassy ones there, and we were able to pick up a 2 pack of these kind of lights from home depot for $14 (for both lights!) It looked much better:
We also had small closets in that house, so we ended up putting everything that wasn't in season in totes so that the closets didn't looked crammed to maximum capacity. We cleared off the counter tops in the kitchen, leaving only the microwave, coffee maker & canister set. I put some fresh flowers out for when the photographer came, to brighten up the dining room, living room and bedrooms.
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
We rented a storage pod and packed up some of our excess furniture that crowded rooms. We about filled it, I think it was a 16 ft Go Mini storage unit. anyway, once all of the excess was out, we were able to keep things tidy. Uncluttered counters, and other flat surfaces. Also, I think making sure the photos the realtor takes are really showcasing the space helps in the listing. I had asked mine to replace a few with ones I had taken that I thought were at a better angle. make sure closets are not over filled. they should appear that there is still room in them for more stuff, which helps them to seem bigger.
That is funny. I had a lot of color in our house, but I wouldn't have repainted to sell. Unless things got desperate. hahaha. we did refinish our front door though, because it was looking really worn.
Same here. We had repainted our door when we moved in, but left the ugly screen door on. Our realtor suggested taking the door off altogether & I couldn't believe the difference it made, we wished we had done it years ago!
We didn't do any repainting of rooms, though we did touch up some of the white trim that was chipped. We had a red living room and I was afraid that the realtor would suggest we paint it, but she said not to bother.
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
I don't know if you have any pets but...We hid all the dog stuff the best we could. Alot of people are funny about houses with pets. Our dog is very good inside the house. No accidents or anything but I didn't want people to see the dog bed as soon as they walked into the house.
I also put a pot of apples and cinnamon on the stove for a couple hours before showings. (Well, I only did this for the first couple of months. It got old after awhile). It smells more natural than air fresheners.
We have a really nice clay bowl that I put in the middle of the kitchen table and I put those moss balls in it. Our kitchen was kind of bland in color. So the moss balls added a nice pop of color.
I cleaned the carpets too.
We had a townhouse. We replaced the carpet with the cheapest carpet from Lowe's, rented a storage unit to put all of our clutter, and basically kept the place spic and span! I made sure the outside was weed-free and added a new outdoor light fixture. We sold in 9 days.
Something I learned from looking at other people's houses: the fake air fresheners made me sick to my stomach. The apples and cinnamon on the stove is a great idea. Once I smelled the plug-in fresheners, I was turned off and felt like they were masking something.
I think making everything clutter-free and just... home-y... will make a great difference.
I think the others covered the bases. We didn't repaint, just did touch ups. We had already done things like switch out the dated light fixtures shortly after we moved in. We got new carpet in the enclosed porch b/c our hot tub stained it and we re-painted the floors in the garage and laundry b/c they were chipped. We didn't put anything in storage, but we made sure things were organized and clean. Including drawers and closets. Keeping the counters clear was challenging, especially in a house with a small kitchen, but it does make a big difference. The laundry room was a challenge too -- I basically drove around with baskets of clothes in my trunk the whole time we were on the market (thankfully only 9 days)!
My realtor advised us to always leave lights on in the house if there was a showing scheduled. I guess it makes it appear more inhabited, and it's more awkward when their realtor has to go through the house turning on the lights. She also told us not to pack all of our pictures away b/c pictures make it feel more homey. We put away most, but kept out a family pic in our bedroom and one of each of the kids in the gameroom.