Ready, Set….SELL!

Spring is here and that means the housing market is warming up and getting ready for busy season! If you are thinking of putting your home on the market this season, consider these top tips for readying your home:

Clean, clean, clean! I’ll say it again, clean! We cannot emphasize enough the importance of a pristine home when putting your house up for sale. That means windows, bathroom drawers, appliances, porch webs and debris, and every other nook and cranny you can think of. We even encourage sellers to dust their basement appliances like water heaters and softeners, as well as furnaces.

Depersonalize and neutralize your space. Pre-pack all family photos, anything with your name on it, calendars, and other items that are very meaningful to you. Imagine you are creating a blank slate for a buyer to tour your home and be able to imagine their life there. I often tell clients, “no signs of life in your house! People know you are living here but they don’t want to know you’re living here.” That means taking laundry hampers and garbage cans with you when you leave or out to the garage, tucking away toilet brushes and plungers, removing any dish towels, rags, soap and accessories — even the cute, just-for-decoration, dish towels!

Repair is essential to preparing your home for market. The goal is for buyers to feel like your home is truly move-in-ready and that they can’t find a single project they must do. Improvements that make a difference, but sometimes get overlooked, can include:

  • professionally cleaned carpets
  • freshly painted front door (no chips or signs of ware)
  • closet doors that open easily and quietly, and shut correctly
  • walls and closet interiors free of scuff marks
  • demineralized faucets and shower heads
  • conditioned wood, especially in areas of high use or next to water sources such as railings and bathroom and kitchen cabinets
  • working lightbulbs with matching hues in all fixtures
  • patched and painted walls as needed

Refresh your home before taking photos or offering open houses. Add crisp, new white bath towels and hand towels to bathrooms. Pick up a few house plants from Trader Joe’s (or fake one’s from Ikea!) to add some life to your space. Toss lemons and limes in a wooden or ceramic serving bowl and set it on your dinner table, they’ll last for weeks! Pick out a fresh, colorful bouquet for picture day and display it on your kitchen island. Perhaps you want new bedding for your next home, buy it early and make your primary bedroom look extravagant for showings. Updating or adding hardware throughout the home can make oak cabinets look new again, and replace yellow-gold fixtures with black or oil rubbed metals. Small, less expensive changes such as updating light fixtures or replacing outlet covers, can make all the difference in the end!

It’s reasonable that preparing to sell your home feels overwhelming. You’ve built a whole life in your home and it can be a lot of work, both physically and emotionally, to prepare to let it go. I find it can be helpful to imagine you are setting up your home to bless the next family to live there. What can you do to make your home the best it can be for them? Or imagine you are a buyer for your home. What would you want to see or not see? What would feel like projects if you were just moving into the property? Put yourself in the buyers’ shoes and you’ll know just what you need to do. Of course, if all else fails, just clean, clean, clean!

 

Guest Blogger: Katya Larsen, Stager, A Home Revival

Meaningful Design

This is the final post in our series on how to find inspiration for design. We are drawing inspiration from a design trend we are seeing more of in 2023 — designing with meaningful objects. There has been a slight shift away from minimalism towards a more balanced effort to include elements in our homes that bring us joy and meaning in everyday life.

When I think of meaningful objects, I think of pieces you may not typically include in a modern day redesign. Here are a few examples:

  • Milk glass from your grandmother
  • Doilies from your mother’s first trip to Europe
  • Your family’s wooden rocking chair
  • Artwork children have gifted you
  • A stamp and art collection from your father
  • A handmade quilt
  • Antique dishes from your great-grandmother
  • Military memorabilia from your father’s funeral service
  • Still life oil paintings from your great-uncle
  • Décor from your mother’s time abroad
  • Cross stitch you made with your aunt and cousins as a child

The question is, how can we incorporate these items in a way that doesn’t look disjointed or awkward with the rest of our home design? Let’s see!

Create a coordinated art wall to display children’s art.

display kids artwork

Organised Pretty Home

Use simple, clean magnetic strips to hang rotating art in your kitchen or a children’s bedroom.

Alt image 2 for Magnetic Art Gallery

Pottery Barn Kids

Display a stamp collection in a sleek, modern frame, to pair with office or living room décor.

How to Display Stamp Collections - Church Hill Classics

Church Hill Classics

Use a vintage still life as inspiration for a shabby chic bedroom, office or powder room. Pair it with rich, bold accent colors surrounded by light wood and creamy neutral walls.

Oil on Board Painting of Still Life with Flowers in Urn For Sale

Chairish

Incorporate milk glass in both functional and beautiful ways! Use it as vessel to hold personal items in the bathroom.

Use the milk glass to add greenery to your home, both as planters and vases.

Décor Book

What beloved items that you hold near and dear do you have tucked away in a closet or in the basement that you can bring into your home to make it a space filled with love, warmth and memories each and every day? Where will you break away from trends to create a space that is truly your own, a space that tells your story?

Guest Blogger: Katya Larsen, Stager, A Home Revival

 

DI”Y” Design

In our last post, we started a series on how to find inspiration for design. If you’re anything like me, there is one place I can always turn to, without fail, if I need design inspiration — Target! Walk into a Target store this week and you’ll see their new spring décor series with designs from Threshold Designed with Studio McGee, Hearth & Hand with Magnolia, Opalhouse with Jungalow and more. With the turn of a season (I know, wishful thinking, we’re definitely not to spring yet in Minnesota!), I am always antsy for a bit of a home refresh, and when I went to the store this week, I fell in love with this pillow and thought it was the perfect inspiration.

Floral Block Print Square Throw Pillow with Tassel Zipper Mauve - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 8 slides

Target

Maybe you see this pillow and think, ” So cute! I could never integrate pink in my home.” Or perhaps, “Great, I found a super cute pillow, and it is the opposite of everything neutral in my home, so now what?”. One of the many things I love about Target’s home goods is they set consumers up for success with accessible do it “yourself” design ideas. They provide an abundance of pieces that play happily together, so all you have to do is choose your favorites and bring them home!

With the help of Threshold Designed with Studio McGee, let’s design a spring, bedroom refresh. Look at the pillow and you’ll see a beautiful color palette for our room: shades of mauve, sage and tan.

Target has a wonderful eucalyptus plant, in multiple sizes, we can add to a dresser or night stand. This will highlight the sage in our pillow.

Medium Eucalyptus in Pot - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 5 slides

Target

Another piece I adore that accentuates the sage is this beautiful ceramic vase. Pair it with the eucalyptus or set in on a pair of hardcover books on your night stand. It’s also perfect fodder for a built-in bookshelf!

Round Ceramic Vase Green - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 2 of 7 slides

Target

Our last splash of green comes from this fabulous, velvet ottoman. Tuck this piece at the foot of your bed or under a large window.

Vernon Ottoman - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 2 of 10 slides

Target

To begin to pull our mauve and sage palette together, let’s add this incredible landscape study to the mix. If you look closely, you’ll notice it even has shades of mauve you also find in our pillow. This print remind us of the final color for our design — tan!

24" x 18" Landscape Study Framed Wall Canvas Antique Gold - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 10 slides

Target 

Surround bolder color choices with neutral items and it they quickly become more digestible; they bring small splashes of personality versus causing a room to feel bright and overwhelming. Choose a variety of neutrals, and with various textures. Not everything has to match perfectly, it’s okay, and even preferred, to integrate different shades of tan!

Heavyweight Linen Blend Collection - Casaluna™

Target

Made by Casaluna, grab linens from their Heavyweight Linen Blend Collection. I appreciate their ready-made variety of textured blankets.

Toss a few throw pillows into the mix. Grab what you like, as long as it’s nuetral!

Linen Square Throw Pillow - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 6 slides

Target

Oversized Oblong Boucle Woven Stripe Decorative Throw Pillow Khaki - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 12 slides

Target

Set a pair of white, ceramic, matching lamps on matching nightstands. Threshold’s Lomita Rattan accent tables would be a perfect addition.

Ceramic Assembled Table Lamp White - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 22 slides

Target

Lomita Rattan Accent Table Natural - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 2 of 11 slides

Target

To round out our bedroom design, we can add a few additional pieces of neutral décor. Toss this funky circle object on your dresser or bookshelf as a bookend.

Circle Object - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 1 of 10 slides

Target

Integrate one of Threshold’s many calming candles.

 Clear Glass Cypress & Juniper Candle White - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 2 of 6 slides

Target

Hang this beautifully curved mirror both for function and to help your new space seem even larger.

23" x 36" Metal Curved Top Mirror Gold - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 2 of 5 slides

Target

Voila! We have ourselves a revitalized room to welcome the spring season! It’s okay to feel like you don’t quite have an eye for design, or if you look at the items curated in the post and think, “I never could have pulled this together!”. The beauty of stores like Target, Pottery Barn, West Elm and others is they’ve done a lot of the design work for us. Experts have already professionally selected and organized the items that correspond well. Next time you see something colorful and bright that you absolutely must have, go for it! surround with some similarly colored pieces, wrap it in an abundance of neutrals, and consider your DI”Y” design a success!

Guest Blogger: Katya Larsen, Stager, A Home Revival