Things to Remember

USE DESIGN CENTS: Painting is the cheapest way to redesign a room. A new color can change the tone of a room and you can easily do it yourself. Also, accessorizing with plants, hanging new artwork or including an area rug can refresh a room in under five minutes.

ACCENT WITH COLOR: When choosing paint color, select the least dominant color in a single piece of artwork, a duvet cover or a rug to use as your wall color. It allows the artwork or other items to be the focal point of the room.

USING A TOUCH OF COLOR: When painting over a dark wall, be sure to tint your primer with a color a few shades lighter than your new topcoat color. This will help ensure a perfect finish and ultimately help you save money because you’ll need less topcoat to take your walls from one color to the next. Lee recommends a general purpose, water-based primer, such as a premium paint, for best results.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK: Darker colors actually make your room look larger. A dark, flat paint brings depth to an otherwise smaller room and light colors make a room feel more airy — not larger.

PAINTING TRICKS: Turn a small space into a larger one by using different shades of the same color. For example, paint opposite walls a shade lighter or darker than the adjacent walls to give the room a sense of depth.

FURNITURE PLACEMENT: Placing furniture away from the walls actually makes the room feel larger. Consider angling chairs and moving couches away from the walls to create a cozy conversation area for family or guests.

GROUP IT: 3, 5 and 7’s: When accessorizing a room, remember to follow the 3, 5 and 7’s rule — create groups of three, five or seven items. Display objects of varying heights (picture frames, candles, etc.) in a pyramid shape. It helps highlight the objects in a room.

THE EDIBLE WALLS: Paint kitchens the color of food to entice your guests to get in the mood to eat. Consider reds and Tuscan tones, eggplant, or caramel.

Points to Remember Check-List

•  Remove those knickknacks!
•  Remove those family pictures.
•  Remove enough items from your closet so you can hang a garment without touching the garment next to it — this could be difficult. (Extra and out–of–season clothes go to your newly rented storage unit.)
•  Remove old area rugs and replace them with accentuating ones.
•  Remove throw blankets unless they add character to a room, and your favorite old blanket is not the character you want to show.
•  Remove throw old, word, or dirty pillows and/or replace with “designer” pillows.
•  If your houseplants are anemic, remove them. Replace with high-quality silk plants or healthy houseplants in attractive containers (no plastic!).
•  Take a hard look at your carpets. Are they stained or worn? Replacing carpets is often an excellent investment because it gives your home that “new” look that everyone wants. (Buyers have notoriously poor imaginations, so replacing existing carpet with neutral carpet is usually a much better idea than offering a “carpet allowance.”).
•  Leave all the lights on (No burned-out light bulbs!).
• Keep wastebaskets empty.
• If possible, send pets to stay with family or friends. As much as we love our pets, they can be a major negative distraction to potential buyers.
• Leave your home before any potential buyers arrive for their walk–through.