Moving the post back to page 1 for new sellers

We became sellers as of this morning, when we came to a verbal agreement on a house in Brooklyn. Pending inspection of the new place, our current 2BR/2bath NYC co-op will be on the market for a first open house (through an agent) on June 17 - three weeks, ack!

Between now and then, besides entertaining two houseguests from June 9th-15th, our punch list is:

Living room:
- bring up coffee table from basement storage room
- box away some books so the shelves aren't overflowing
- recycle massive piles of magazines

Dining room:
- put two dining-room chairs into storage so table doesn't look too crammed

Kitchen:
- massive cleanout of cupboards, tossing old unused kitchen stuff and getting all the clutter on the counters moved into the cabinets.
- get handyman in to change hinges on doors that don't close neatly
- tidy underneath sink
- get plumber in to fix water-flow problem in main sink

Front hall:
- clean out walk-in storage closet and front-hall closet
- swap entryway rug with small bedroom rug, which is thinner and won't jam against the coat-closet door when it is opened

Little bedroom:
- clean closet of husband's junk
- box and store extra books

Small bathroom:
- have super put down new waterproof epoxy grout stuff at base of shower, as old stuff is grungy and brown
- try to lighten stain on shower floor
- change shower curtain

Big bathroom:
- nothing

Master bedroom:
- clean closets
- move stack of boxes which has served as bedside table to basement storage

Entire apartment:
- vacuum, dust, clean
- keep Handi-wipes on hand for last-minute touchups to bathroom mirrors and bath/kitchen faucets for spur-of-the-moment showings

Let the fun begin!

Zeebee, just use grout colorant on the bathroom floor, don't bother with complete regrouting. It's a LOT easier and faster (and cheaper!) project.

Gosh, I wish our list had been as short as yours! :-) Good luck!

johnmarie, any more info on grout colorant? Does it work on old tile floors? I foolishly picked small mosaic tiles on mesh backing years ago. Thats a lot of grout. Its a pain to wash...pain in the knees, back & butt. Thanks, Sandy

breenthumb, it's basically made for covering up scungy old grout, although some people are using it on new grout to keep it from getting grubby looking. It's discussed very frequently in the Bathrooms forum, so if you go by there and put "colorant" in the search box at the bottom of the topic page, you'll find lots of info. If you have white grout you've got it made because pretty much every hardware store or home center has white grout colorant (they might call it something like "grout touch-up"), if you have a color it might get trickier. You can order an Aquamix brand sample sheet here, it gets to you in less than a week.

I have 1" mosaic tiles m'self, a mixture of squares and hexagons, mostly almond, with almond grout. Love the look but I agree that it's rather a PITA to keep clean (I will grant that if I had been able to find a sheet vinyl in a vintage-hex-tile pattern, I would gladly have used that!). About six weeks after it was installed I had to have the plumber in to work on the radiator. He showed up in brand new jeans and sat down on the floor, coloring about six square feet of that stinkin' grout baby blue, which I did not discover until days later. Spent many hours trying to get that indigo dye off (we're talking right up to a paste of "Cascade with bleach" dishwasher detergent applied with a Scumbuster electric scrubber). I haven't yet found a colorant to match the grout, but it's on the to-do list. Right now there's a rug on top of the stain. ;-) (BTW, it was epoxy grout, too. It's nowhere near as stain-resistant as touted and a big waste of money IMHO.)

Those must have been some heavy duty denims. Can't recall ever seeing anyone leave a mark like that.

2 cleaners I use that are heavy duty, Greased Lightening & Krud Kutter. They take just about everything off, I used them on my parents tiled bathroom where the floor hadn't been "cleaned" in years. If the cascade didn't work, I doubt Clorox Cleanup would either.

Do you have a bleach pen?

I have a "system" for getting a house ready for sale, and actually "enjoy" the challenge, as sick as that sounds! I am very anal about the house. I LOVE to decorate and have been told every time that the way I had the house tastefully decorated is what sold it, but I think it's much more than that but people don't realize it. It takes a good 3-4 mos to get a house ready to sell. It needs to be as close to "perfect" as possible and make the buyer think that living in that house will make life easy and happy.

We may have been separated at birth. I too am actually enjoying the process! Just last night I told my (horrified) family that I was really enjoying this challenge. They looked at me like I had just sprouted another head. (Though having to leave for showings is kind of a pain with all my kids and dogs.....)

I did everything on your list, and you're right on. It needs to look as close to a model home as possible, and have no visible scratches on woodwork, etc. We cleaned/painted/stained every surface of every room. Literally.

We then "staged" every room; rearranged furniture to best show off the space, and then eliminated any evidence that someone actually lives there.

The thing that surprised me is that my kids' rooms are painted in these CRAZY murals. I fully expected people to request/demand we repaint, but to my shock, everyone has loved them, and has commented how it's so nice to see some personality in a house. That one surprised me.

johnmarie, thanks for that info. Yes, mine is white grout on blue & white curvy tiles. Seemed like a good idea at the time. One of the steps in cleaning has been bleach, left to sit, scrub with brush or hard scrubbie then wipe up. I do sections at a time so I can reach while not sitting in the wet bleach. I'll check it out in bathroom forum and see if colorant might help, or just make it even harder to clean.

My husbands new shirt must have been made of that same denim. I presoaked it in a bucket to get some of the dye out and it was so strong I actually could smell the dye and it stained my bucket! Took many soak & rinses.

Roselvr, we use Greased Lightning in our powerwasher and probably already have some in garage. I'll give it a try. Thanks, Sandy

I am painting some of my rooms. I wanted to replace two rooms that currently have old rugs with wood floors until my septic failed Title V. The potential new owners will now have new rugs in those rooms and a new septic system. In this buyers market I hope a new septic is more incentive for a buyer than an old borderline one. I am currently waiting for a perc test. My nicely manicured backyard should be a mess by the time the system is installed. Is Massachusetts the only state with Title V? To make matters worse our town does not have it's own Board of Health. We are part of a group of 12 or more towns that share in this group. This makes for long approval times for this type of process. The best I can hope for is a few months before this process is complete. The banks in our area will not lend money until the Title V is approved. This will give me plenty of time to have my home ready for sale. My new home should be finished within the next month.

I have had dye transfers with so many clothing items that I no longer wear anything without washing it at least once first. Way too many times I've taken a new pair of jeans off to find that my legs and butt looked horribly bruised from the dye rubbing off on my skin! I also thoroughly embarrassed myself in a rather Yupscale furniture store once by sitting down to rest a bit in a very expensive and extremely comfortable tan leather Ekornes chair... my new red sweater left marks on the leather that did not come off with their leather cleaner! (Also destroyed my bra and made a mess of the inside of my jacket, but that's a minor detail.) Thank heavens the owner said "that's what our insurance is for!" and didn't make me cough up the nearly two grand for the chair.

Buying a bleach pen would probably be a waste considering our cleaning lady resorted to trying straight bleach on the stained grout. I had to leave the house for the rest of the day since the smell of bleach = insta-migraine. The plumber apologized but that was it (and unfortunately it's SO hard to find a reliable plumber who actually returns phone calls and isn't a complete Neanderthal that I daren't fire him lest I not be able to find another). I bought Krud Kutter to get up the sticky crud from removing the vinyl floor in the upstairs bath and everywhere that any spatter/overspray touched paint the surface bubbled and pocked, and the paint peeled off! That is some scary stuff! Touching up semigloss paint really sucks, BTW.

Buying a bleach pen would probably be a waste considering our cleaning lady resorted to trying straight bleach on the stained grout.

I was thinking the bleach pen because it's a thicker consistency, it will stay on it instead of soaking through like bleach will. I would then take a firm toothbrush to it.

Add power washing the house to my list. I wasn't going to do it but did. Haven't had photos taken yet, so considering this like a facial to "doll her up" for pics this week

I am happy to see this post, as we started about three weeks ago working on our house to sell it whenever we get all this work done. Just reading some of these posts makes me more exhausted - not that I'm not already exhausted from painting all day!

What we are working on now is a large front porch, large back porch, a deck off the master b/rm, and another small porch off the den. All of the railings/banisters are white so it's really time consuming. We had to "de-algaeize and de-mildew" first and sand off any peeling paint. Hubby is about ready to learn what "staging" is, but this will be the fun part, as then you know you can move on to the next project!

We will be finished with this big project on Monday, then we have to fill in a large hole after taking down an above ground pool, and hopefully get some grass planted. This is going to be a full day's job.

Things we plan to do inside:

1. Replace the master bath light.
2. Repaint the master bedroom.
3. Touch up the paint in the den.
4. Repaint fireplace mantel/trim in the den.
5. Paint brick in the den on fireplace.
6. New vinyl linoleum in kitchen/breakfast room/small hallway and laundry "closet". May get an estimate on tiling these areas.
7. New sink and faucet in the kitchen.
8. New hardware in the kitchen (already have, just not installed yet.)
9. Repaint kitchen from a royal blue to a neutral color (using Ralph Lauren "Raffia"). Have this in the den & love it.
10. Hang valances in the breakfast room. Paint breakfast room.
11. Hang long drapes in the great room.
12. Take down wallpaper in dining room, paint "Raffia" same as kitchen.
13. Get roof leak repaired - top priority on this one!
14. Repair damaged window sill in master bath. Got estimate today of $200, so will go with this guy. The window has to be taken completely out.
15. Replace chandelier in dining room to more modern fixture.
16. Replace ugly cheap brass fixture in foyer.
17. Paint water damaged ceiling - after repair is done. Son is doing this for us...free!
18. Repair garage door.
19. Two new garage door openers.
20. Buy new umbrella for the deck table (not that we have ever sat out there, but you know, staging!)

I think that's enough for right now, but there's a lot more I haven't mentioned, esp. landscaping, clean out gutters, plant flowers, decorate front porch, etc, etc. Oh, and I left out clean out the attic and the basement.

On top of all the painting, almost the entire interior of the house, course 4 kids growing up left their marks..ok..all their marks. We went up into the attic and nearly died. The bathroom fans and kitchen fan was not vented outside the attic, but merely into the attic and there was mold growing on the underside of the roof, and the rafters. So we called in three companies and each one had a different 'system' from ice-blasting which entailed removing all the current insulation with the mold spores, to scrubbing with fungicide and encapsulating the stuff with more stuff and it's mind boggling. So we are choosing the company this week thats going to take care of it and giving us a warranty and EPA certification that the house is mold free.

We got lucky on our windows, Republic has a lifetime guarantee and they are replacing about 8 windows with the seals broken for free. The warrantee transfers to new owners too. The broken one from the baseball of son #1..we are paying for that one.

It's not fun selling a house, but we are looking forward to our new home and know that those owners are dealing with mold in the attic and windows too!

Moving this back up for new posters

On top of all the bigger tasks i've completed, I sanded/re-stained/varnished the outside front door(live in a condo), re-sprayed the security door, added new weather stripping, including the metal piece at the bottom of the door(?), changed 3 toilet seats, toilet paper holders/towel bars, painted the 2-car garage floor, had the old globe-style fixture above the sink re-moved and a pot light installed, and had the noisy fan in the PR re-placed. These were all completed last week.

This week i'll touch up painting on the faux tile design I did on the patio, replace a dead plant, add a couple of ferns to shady areas(leave in pots), add two hanging pots, add a taller plant in the corner on the patio, and remove the old porch lights and add new shiny ones. I'm thinking of buying a couple of wicker chairs for the patio,too.

Whewwwwwww, i'm exhausted after reading all of that! ;o)

patty_cakes

Patty,

The condo association allowed you to do all that to the front door? I thought that the outside stuff was the domain of the association.

And, I never thought about painting the floor of the garage? How difficult was it, and what color did you paint it? But, wouldn't any dripping oil from a car destroy the paint then?

what i can't understand is the # of sellers who invest $$$ and sweat equity to get their homes "ready" to list...Why isn't pride of ownership maintained during the time you actually live in the house??? So many people say after all this "work" that perhaps they shouldn't sell, as the house is SO nice now...ENJOY your home,take pride in it, don't wait until just prior to selling to spend $$$ to make it "show worthy" JMHO

what i can't understand is the # of sellers who invest $$$ and sweat equity to get their homes "ready" to list...Why isn't pride of ownership maintained during the time you actually live in the house???

I've lived here since 2000, since I've been here, I became disabled but still managed to do things like paint and landscape. Since there was a lot of paneling, I couldn't do that myself. We ended up doing a room almost every year with new sheet rock and had 1 left when we thought to sell. By this time the house could use paint again, plus things we hadn't done like flooring. Was it worth it, sure. The house is finally the way I envisioned it, too bad we need a bigger house.

During the time I was here, I was down twice for back surgery and my dad was sick (cancer) with me being his main care giver for medical, so that set me back almost 3 years.

We've been working on the house every year I've been here. One year we had the crazy idea to move the front walkway & change the back patio, so that took a summer...

what i can't understand is the # of sellers who invest $$$ and sweat equity to get their homes "ready" to list...Why isn't pride of ownership maintained during the time you actually live in the house???"

As I said upthread, we had planned to stay here for 10-15 years and had put together a "5 year plan" for the house a little over a year after we moved in. It would have been nice if we had cash coming out our ears so we could have done everything all at once, but when we finished one project we had to save up for the next. 2005-06 was the master suite, 2007-08 was to be the kitchen, utility/powder room and the downstairs moldings, 2009 was to be the upstairs bath and adjoining office and upstairs moldings, 2010 was to be exterior siding. There was no point in doing anything with the kitchen (for example) because we were going to tear it out, but nothing had been done with the kitchen since it was built and it had not been treated with great care so it looked rather ratty. (Even though our house was built in 1994, we think the builder bought all the cheap stuff left over from the 1980s that no one else wanted, because it just screamed "1980s" before we spiffed it up. And the worst of the 1980s at that!) Life intruded on our neat little plans, so we hadn't gotten a lot of stuff that needed to be done to update the house and make it look nice. Had we left things looking the way they were the house would have skewed toward the "fixer-upper" end of the spectrum which meant a lower price. It's one thing if your house is old enough to be "quaint" and "charming", very much another if it just looks worn and blah.

We just recently sold our house. It was only 4 years old and we kept it nice, so not a lot of time went in to getting it ready to sell.

We decided for sure that we were putting on the market that week on a Monday. Monday I stayed home from work and boxed up almost all the books on the bookshelves, extra items from the kitchen, toys, our bedding, etc. and moved them all to the garage. I also moved two of the dining room chairs, cabinets from the FR, ottoman, extra office chair, pac man console table, etc. all to the garage. I asked the agent if we should rent a storage space and she said garage was fine. I donated half my clothes to Goodwill. Moved small kitchen appliances and dishdrainer off the counters. DH took off another day and planted flowers, touched up paint, fixed ceiling fan, cleaned out the garage bonus room etc. I also replaced all the CFL light bulbs with standard light bulbs and replaced some of our under cabinet light bulbs that had burned out.

We had carpet cleaners come Wed, window cleaners and house cleaners come on Thursday. Thursday the agent came over with a gazillion plants and pictures, as well as new bed lines and towels and arranged it all.

Friday we went to market and had the open house Sat/Sun. Our market is still relatively fast and we had the place sold on Wednesday with multiple offers.

One thing that surprised me is that we have a mural in my sons's room and I thought we would need to repaint it. Both agents we interviewed said to definitely keep it as a selling point. The couple that bought the house are expecting and plan to keep the mural, so I guess it did help!

I thought of one more surprising thing - our agent had us leave some personal photos up in the upstairs landing. We had two wedding pictures and one baby picture and she said we could leave those.

It's true that we could have done things like touch up paint, window cleaning, etc while we were living here, but life get's in the way. I'll try and remember to have those done more often in the new house because it was nice to have the place shining!

Sure makes things a lot easier when you don't have to update a house~wish I could have been so lucky. Because of it's age, I thought my '84 condo needed some slight improvements, but nothing major like a $30K kitchen reno~that's crazy!

I think clean is the name of the game! Upgrading is nice, but a clean and well taken care of home shows love, and IMO, makes others 'fall in love'. ;o)

patty_cakes

Our house will go on the market this weekend. I was a realtor for five years so I know how buyers go through a house and "deduct". Our biggest jobs were cleaning out the garage and attic. I keep my home clutter free but the teenagers' rooms needed to be neutralized. I washed all my windows, touched up paint and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. I think buyers are impressed by a well-maintained home. It gives the impression that the owner has taken good care of the home in general- not just what is visible to the buyer's eye. Also, the exterior is as flawless as we can make it. We also picked an agent who specializes in our area and priced it slightly below her recommendation. Hope it works.

In prep for showing the house, I cut the lawn and painted the bathroom. That's it. House sold in NJ in 5 weeks, about 15k less than asking, which was fine because the house we bought came down 78k. Buyer of our house came up with a list of 26 items to fix. They were looking for deducts, but I own a construction company so it very easy to tackle everything with my men. I even had to jack my house and repair some foundation blocks (took 3 days start to finish). Other work-type items were removing suspected non-friable asbestos (free, DIY, with permit), repairing drywall in the garage, installing a whole house water filter, repairing the front step, digging up a bed to make sure the planter had a drainage system, removing a fan from a wall in the basement, replacing the attic fan, insulating some pipes, fixing a sink drain linkage, installing an overflow line on the HW heater, replacing a dryern vent duct, replacing a radon fan, running a bathroom vent duct outside through a soffit. I had to call some vendors in the sweep the chimneys, test and and service the HVAC, test the well pump and water. I had to hire an engineer to inspect the foundation (hence the foundation work), and a framer had to come in and do a report on the attic. I also had to get copies of all permits since 1973, and pull three permits for items that were done over the years without permits. Long list, and my realtor thought I was crazy for saying I'd take care of it all, but it ended up being rather inexpensive and easy. My closing is Tuesday.

We just sold our south Florida home in two weeks! Yea! When we bought this fixer-upper two years we went full-steam ahead to put in lots of great landscaping, new roof, and house paint inside and out. Little by little we started to realize that we were fast becoming the most fixed-up house for blocks, and that few of our other neighbors were maintaining their homes as well. That was our first clue that our neighborhood wasn't getting better, and many clues were to follow, so we decided that while the market was down it might be a good time for us to sell, break even, and get into a better neighborhood while we could afford it. We rented a storage unit for just over $100 dollars a month and put anything that prevented one from seeing end-to-end in a room in it. We also un-bulked kitchen cabinets and clothes closets to make them look roomy (don't forget how nice it is to see to the very back bottom of a closet-- they look huge this way!). That's it. And it sold with no fix-it punch list. We even made money even on top of realtor fees and the money we already put into the house!

I think the most important thing to know is the market for your area. Clean and bright is the way to go. Do the top of the line improvements only if you live in a top of the line neighborhood otherwise you'll price yourself out of making a profit!

Jane

After the master remodel, we've lived with our paint choices for a while and hated it. The Malted Milk color we picked looks much different on the chip then wall, on the wall it's too peachy.

I decided to go to Penneys to see what bed sets they had and ordered 3, keeping one. We went to Benjamine Moore 3 days this week, forgetting the carpet sample the 1st, the 2nd the color expert wasn't there. We went back yesterday and bought paint - pretty expensive compared to buying Behr from Depot.

We're in the process of painting all of the smoky slate molding / windows a lighter color and hope to put 1 coat on the walls today. I may have the new scarfs up for the agents open Tuesday but won't have the privacy curtains ready as I have to sew.

If anyone wants to see the pics, link is below. Hubby used the BM program to "paint" the walls to see what it would look like. The painting over the bed is going as it matched our old set.

Here is a link that might be useful: master

My advice would be to paint inside and out if necessary, have the bathrooms sparkling, either new or clean carpeting, a mowed and trimmed yard, clutter removed inside and out and a spic 'n span kitchen. Think CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN! Also remember that men love a clean garage.

If you do the above, bet your home will sell fast. Ours sold in two weeks. The house is 40 years old, but we did all of the above and updated it with inexpensive hardware, faucets and fixtures.

Potted plants on the front porch and patio also help. An American flag hanging outside is a wonderful addition, as well.

Does every BM have a 'color expert'?

kat123,
What a great room! Great color choices!

Jane

Thank you, the actual colors will be
Trim - mocha cream
main wall color - baja dunes
accent wall behind bed - driftwood

This was what the color expert deemed "elegant" he also gave us two other choice 1 conservative - 1 warm. I'll get actual pics once we're done which should be today..

I posted on the decorating forum but didn't get any feedback.

Does every BM have a 'color expert'?

Not sure. We only went to one store although there's a few we could have gone to. One was a hardware store, doubt they'd have anything more then a paint mixer.

Also what we found is that the BM store locater is too up to date, and not always correct. We set out for one store but couldn't find it. After calling the 800 number, I found they hadn't moved into that location yet.

Perhaps this will help those looking for an agent.

Agent Questions

Name ______________________________ Office Name _________________________

1) How much is your commission? _____________

2) Is it negotiable if you bring a buyer?

3) How much do you give to the selling agent if you do not bring a buyer in?

4) What if I bring in a buyer?

5) Where do you rank on the MLS?

6) Where do you rank on the Re/Max team?

7) Do you work with the military?

8) Are you or your office listed at base housing?

9) How long have you been in the business?

10) Are you full time, part time, do you work another job?

11) How many houses a year do you sell_____ How many do you list______

12) Do you have your own web site, in addition to the agent link on the office web site?

13) How much of your business comes from the web site? _________________%

14) Do you pay for enhanced listings with multiple pictures on Realtor.com?

15) What kind of advertising do you do and where?

16) Do you advertise price drops in the paper (Sunday only)

17) Do you advertise open houses in the paper (Friday Sunday)?

18) Do you use an info box?

19)Do you have an assistant? YES _____NO

20) If an assistant: who is the one you would be dealing with for questions,and such? Explain assistants role

21) If I need to speak with the listing agent for something, how is that handled?

22) When an offer comes in, who does the negotiating, the agent or the assistant?

23) What are the days on market for a house selling in my price range?

24) Do you take your own photos?

Roselvr, great list/guidelines! The only questions I didn't ask were MLS rating(duh!), but will sign papers tonight and find out, the military/base housing questions, and whether or not he uses an assistant. He's *personally* called me several times, never anyone calling saying they were his assistant, if that means anything.

Thanks again, roselvr. ;o)

You're welcome Patty.

The military question is geared towards people like me living close to a base. After being on the market for almost 3 months with 3 showings (1 was today) I wondered if my agent was missing something; so I posted at another board I go to that has a lot of military. They gave me some wonderful tips - which if anyone wants to see the details I can post that also.

#15 - this can include what real estate books as well as different newspapers. I'm fairly close to Philadelphia and with a lot of people working in NY, we're seeing people move down here. I'd never thought to advertise in some of the North Jersey papers until a few weeks ago.

Craigslist was suggested to me by my military friends. Some agents post there, others don't. I was told that they like to check there, so I'm making sure that I post an ad every few days to different sections.

Moving this up for those getting their homes ready..

I just read through this thread...housing market has slowed considerably since summertime, when most of these were posted...how are people adjusting the ratio of what they spend to get the house ready, with the (now typically) lower house prices being seen?

too good to not bump back up

I am moving within a couple weeks now and will put my house up for sale at that point. What I'm doing is having my house cleaned from top to bottom, carpets cleaned and the ductwork cleaned and deodorized. I have one room to paint and that's all I'm doing/spending. I'm offering my house at a good fair value market price but I'm not going to overkill. Most people will clean everything out themselves anyway, 'just to make sure'. But I want to do the job I've always done in keeping my place neat to help them out. Just my way.

Teresa

Bringing back up~~~

I would like to put my house up this year but am afraid to sink much money into it. There were 4 foreclosed houses on my block and they brought the values way down. I would like to have my hardwood floors redone (carpeted in 1999 before I bought the house). But I don't have the money if I will not get it out of the sale. Right now the house across the street is priced at what I owe after 9 years! It was foreclosed on in October. I have repainted all the rooms in the past 2 years, put in an 8 foot patio door to replace 1950s LR windows to back yard, replaced the large bedroom window, built a kitchen island and did a lot of landscaping myself. Things that would help the sale but I am reluctant to do: 2 other new windows, new kitchen countertop around sink area (original formica), remove all dark rose carpeting and redo oak hardwood floors(house built in 1953, small 930 sq. ft. ranch). I have replaced kitchen faucet, wall sconces, and will paint bathroom vanity a dark espresso. When do you do the work and when do you offer reduction in price for upgrades? Reason for move is to be closer to family-- not an immediate need so could wait a while but would prefer not to...
Thanks!

So far, we have painted every room in the house except for the kitchen. That will come when we rip out all the cabinets and tear up the flooring. My son is building new cabinets for us, and we will lay the floor ourselves. We have done a complete remodel of the master bath, and plan to do the same to the other bath. All carpeting has been removed and we have resurfaced with vinyl plank flooring that looks like hardwood. We have a couple of rooms left to do on that. All interior doors have been replaced and we plan a new entry door and a new garage door. We're also replacing all the interior trim. We have done some landscaping, plan to do more, and will be painting the exterior this Spring. Sounds almost like new construction, but this place was built in 1980, and everything in it was original...including the carpeting! All work we have done so far has been completely necessary, and we haven't done anything just because it would "look better". Everything was shot after raising 5 kids in this place. With the down turn in the housing market, we've decided to stay a while longer than originally planned, but will finish our projects with resale foremost in mind.

We recently sold a home and pulled up all the carpeting revealing hardwood floors that needed to be re-done. I used a floor "reviving" type product that made a HUGE difference. You just apply it to the clean floor. It's a messy job pulling up old carpet and removing all the staples and nails, but I think in most cases (unless the floors are really badly stained) it's well worth it.

mostone, would you mind describing that product. I saw an ad for this and wondered if it was a gel-stain or paint. We also pulled up old carpet and the floors need refinishing but I hate the thought with all the mess.

Planning to sell and the floors need sanding. I would be interested hearing what is involved with this product.

Jane

There is a Minwax product called floor reviver.

http://www.idealtruevalue.com/servlet/the-139970/Detail

We used it on floors to just "perk them up." It was easy and it made a huge difference.

I'm sorry - I didn't describe it. Basically you clean the floors and squirt this stuff on the floor and mop it on like a floor finish. It's a liquid. It's very slippery while wet! It doesn't last like a coat of poly and it doesn't make the floors look as nice as they would refinished, but it is well worth doing.

My problem is that I have no idea how bad the floors might be under the carpet. The house was a rental for many years until the people I bought it from (they carpeted). I asked them when I bought the house what the floors were like and they just said dirty. Well, that could mean anything from dirty to awful and stained. I can't find myself in a bind with no carpet and bad floors. But...if it means no sale otherwise, I guess I would get some estimates or tear some carpet up and see what it looks like. Any hints on how to do that with minimal damage?
Terry

Terryincs, you can pull back the carpet and look. I think the floors would have to very very bad not to be worse then dark rose carpet.

I'll tell you what happened to me just recently. I want to put my house up in April. I have oak floors throughout but the bedrooms have been carpeted for the 35 yrs we have lived here. The Realtor said to pull up the carpet in the bedrooms and hallway as buyers want wood floors.

We pulled up and the floors were stained in a number of places including black marks from the carpet tacks. I've had dogs over the years and apparently a few had accidents I wasn't aware of.

I had a floor refinisher come and he said most stains would sand out, except for the black dog stains. He has to replace the boards. He said he can't sand out the black nail marks but they are along the base board and won't be noticeable. I need 5 boards replaced and he said he wouldn't charge, but it means we now have to stain and poly which adds to the cost.

My livingroom/dining room is large and I had a oriental rug under my coffee table. When I pulled it up there was a dinner-size black stain under that rug. I can't afford to do that whole area. I'm going to try to disguise the stain somehow.

I regret pulling up the carpet.

Jane

Don't pull up good carpet unless you are prepared to refinish the floors or replace with new carpet.

I hired a stager, in addition to painting most of the interior in a cream I chose with the realtor. I live in a neighborhood much sought after by artists, musicians and other creative types, but it's not very expensive, so we also get people just looking for modestly priced houses. That makes it kind of hard to know how to prepare, other than clear and decluttered. The artistic types are like me: they like quirky and don't want to pay for someone having neutralized when they are just going to paint the whole thing turquoise. But others have to be able to see a blank canvas.

Take down ceiling fans (I live in the south, we mostly have to have them for livability) unless ceilings are very high; they make rooms look smaller. Yes, the new occupants will go out and get their own and what a waste but that's not my problem.

Take all the books out of the built-in bookcases in the living room and replace with "tasteful" decorative articles. God forbid anyone should be offended by reading matter.

Neutral tablecloths and bed coverings.. Curtains in bedrooms, even if there are blinds. Curtains soften bedroom windows. Outlet covers should match wall as should the outlets (beige in this case), but switchplate covers and switches should be white.

Bathroom: white shower curtain and bath mats and towels (as soon as I move out I will put in white towels, not before - I would never be able to keep them spotless). Nothing on the bathroom counter; no one wants to see someone else's personal belongings in the bathroom. Probably need to take almost everthing off kitchen counter.

Paint old china cabinet white. It is now an off-white which doesn't stand out enough against the walls. She wants the dining area to be more distinct, and even though there is a table in it, she wants the china cabinet to stand out more.

Paint the storage room, which was just press board, to make it seem more like a usable room. Lot of single women buy houses here, so make her think of it as her craft room. Put a work table next to the washer and dryer. I have a lot of textiles, so I can fold them VERY NEATLY on shelves, with some nice baskets of thread and ribbon.

The entry way is as large as a room, and it has brick about 3 feet up - old brick. The mortar isn't in great shape. Stager said paint white, realtor said no, leave it as most people who come here really like natural material.

Of course, I will put fresh mulch down in the front yard and wash the exterior of the house. The windows need special attention. I am going to paint the trim. The house is painted green, and I thought cream or beige. However, the stager has suggested a brown with green undertones and the realtor liked it so I am going to buy a test quart. This is a pretty unusual community.

Our agent sent in a stager and we worked for a couple of months to do as she said, even when it seemed rather preposterous. We had the master br painted beige (tray ceiling, above our skill level) and painted another br ourselves. Switched furniture around a lot and got rid of some. Borrowed a crib to stage the br across from the master as a nursery (although one of my friends said, "If they can't figure out they could put the baby right across from them they shouldn't be having kids!"). Packed about 50% of the house, including things we use daily. Took down anything that could give any indication that someone lived here. Did nothing outside except prune roses back. Were on market for 10 days and have accepted an offer very close to ask. Was it worth it? Who knows what could have happened if we didn't do as much as we did, but I'm delighted not to have to worry about it any more!