Home Staging Tips #4 Color

Colors. Colors evoke emotions. It's true. Blue can be calming, if it's the right color blue in the right room with the right accessories, flooring and window treatments, etc. Blue can also be nauseating, just as pink, turquoise, orange and yellow can.

Red. Red doesn't sell a house. Period. If you have a red room, paint it a nice neutral tone before you put it on the market.

Yellow...studies have shown that homes with one yellow room sell faster than any other home color. I personally have found that to be positively true. Not blaring, blinding, traffic signal yellow--buttery yellow, happy yellow.

Make sure the colors are updated. If you haven't painted in 5 years, you probably need to.

Wallpaper. No. No. No.

Borders. Ditto.

Wallies. O heavens no.

Stencilling. Not since the 90's.

And let me just add this:

Themes. As in the 80's country white geese, blue and mauve; Italian-villa with grapevine-wallpaper so that it looks like the Olive Garden; or Mexican Fiesta with sombreros and rugs hanging on the walls; Victorian, big-cabbage-roses, lacey lace lace everywhere {shudder}--um, those are DATED. Take them down if you're trying to sell your house. Oh, and dead animals or "trophies"--lay them to rest in a box to be moved to your new home. They can be offensive to prospective home buyers.

Bathrooms need to have a "spa-like" feeling; starting with the colors you use. I had to help a client whose master bath suite was teal. Teal carpet. Teal tiles on the tub, sink and counters.

My advice, replace it with up-to-date neutral tones. The carpet was hideous. I think it was circa 1993-ish. ugh.

Kitchens...the lighter the better...you don't have to go with bright white, unless you have accent tiles on the backsplash and other accessories that add color.

I actually had a white on white home...white cabinets, white italian tiles, white wood work, white walls...but the backsplash had italian blue and yellow tile patterns, I had custom blue and yellow window treatments, as well as a dining table that had matching tiles of blue and yellow in it.

So it worked.

The house sold in 13 days...it would've sold on the 1st day on the 1st showing, but the buyer had a contingency that I didn't want to wait for...but still, 13 days was good in an 11-month market.

So use color wisely. Remember, your home on the market is a Product that you are trying to sell as quickly as possible for the most amount of money. Neutral colors with thoughtful accessories can make the difference.

People need to be able to envision their belongings and their taste in your "Product"...they can't do that if there are 412 roosters sitting everywhere, or your Precious Moments collections, or any other massive collection you fancy. Pack your collections up for your next home.

Keep it tasteful, folks. Clean and Tasteful sells. Have a good HONEST friend give you HONEST critiques as you go about staging. Go to a Model Home and look around for ideas on what's updated and interesting about the home then go home and adapt your house to that. Afterall, it is your competition.

Any questions? Ask Away!