Today I’m going to talk about what you can do to sell your home faster, and for more money. One of the first things you need to do is clean up! You want your home to look big and inviting, not small and smelly! What you need to get rid of is:

Any trash- this includes dishes, garbage, papers.
Personal things- box these up first, then get the boxes out of there! personal things make it harder for the buyer to see themselves in the home.
Un-needed furniture- more about this later

One of the best things you can do is paint everything a neutral color. Most people are afraid to use color and react badly to it, if you really need to use color somewhere only do one wall as an accent wall, or keep it to accessories.

Make sure the home smells clean, again people don’t like smelly homes, use  febreze  or another neutralizer to get rid of smells. You can also use candles during the open house, but not ones that smell. You don’t want to trigger bad memories from buyers or turn them off because they don’t like the smell you used.

When it comes to furniture, keep it simple. for a small room only use 2-4 pieces, a table and 2 chairs is good. For a medium room use 5-6 and for a large room use 6-8 no more! and make sure that all collectibles have been boxed up and moved out.

Lighten it up, a light home looks bigger then a dark home, if you have dark wood around the doors and window paint the wall a light color. If you have wood paneling, sand it then paint it a light color or if you have the time, energy and budget remove it and replace with dry wall.

Update small things, one easy way to get more money from a home is to update all of the fixtures. This includes:

Sinks and faucets
Lighting
Handles on cabinets
Door knobs, make sure they all match!

If you have some money to invest before selling, update the kitchen and bathroom if they are over 5-10 years old, stainless steel is a big thing right now, if you can afford to do it, it may help your bottom line.

There are many other things you can do to help your home sell, look around at other homes in the area, if you can look at the inside of home that have recently sold and see what the new owners liked most about the home.

Technorati Tags: Decorateing, open house, sell your home

Yet another article, gotta love these!

1. Buy on Sale. The best times to find furniture bargains are in January and July. If you’re looking for a good deal on outdoor furniture, wait until August–you’ll be sitting pretty the next time summer rolls around.

2. Check the outlets. Many regional and national furniture retailers have outlet centers where discontinued, distressed and returned merchandise is marked down substantially. Make it a habit to visit these outlets regularly—you never know when the right piece is going to be waiting for you.

3. Surf the net. If you see something you like in a store or magazine, check the Web. Enter the manufacturer’s name and the name of the model in a search engine such as Google, or try a comparative pricing site like Price Grabber.

4. Buy from the Source. High Point, North Carolina, is the center for American furniture manufacturing. There are a number of dealers in High Point who sell directly to consumers. You’ll also find ads for some of them in the back of home design magazines. You’ll save time if you have a particular piece of furniture in mind and are prepared to give the name of the manufacturer and model when you call; otherwise, visit the merchant’s Web site, if they have one. And if you live within driving distance of High Point, you can shop directly. Check out Ellen R. Shapiro’s Shopping the North Carolina Furniture Outlets : How to Save 50-80% on Your Next Furniture Purchase for more information.

5. Buy used. Although one often hears tales of priceless antiques and pedigreed period pieces languishing on the sidewalk, a more practical approach is to visit an upscale resale or consignment shop. You can find them in most major cities, and the quality can be excellent. Years ago, I picked up a designer console table for just $400 in one such store, and later saw the same piece in a high-end wholesale showroom for several times that amount.

This is an article I found on how to arrange furniture:

• Draw a floor plan of the room, noting the location of windows, doors, heat registers and electrical outlets. Measure the major pieces of furniture you’re planning to put in the room, then either sketch out a scale drawing of the space on graph paper and begin arranging furniture using templates or—easier and more fun–take advantage of one of the free room planning programs available online.

• Before you start arranging furniture, consider how the room is used and how many people will use it.

• Identify the focal point in the room—a fireplace, view, television, etc.–and orient the furniture accordingly. If you plan to watch television in the room, the ideal distance between the set and the seating is three times the size of the screen. Therefore, if you’re watching a 32-inch screen, place your chair 96 inches away.

• Place the largest pieces of furniture first, such as the sofa in the living room or the bed in the bedroom. In most cases, this piece should face the room’s focal point. Chairs should be no more than 8 feet apart to facilitate conversation.

• Unless your room is especially small, avoid arranging furniture so it’s all pushed against the walls.

• Lighting is important, arrange your furniture so you have good lighting throughout the room

• Symmetrical arrangements work best for formal rooms. Arranging furniture asymmetrically will achieve a more casual look.

• When arranging furniture, think about the flow of traffic through the room—generally the path between doorways. Don’t place any large pieces of furniture in that path if you can avoid it, and allow 30-48 inches of width for major traffic routes, and a minimum of 24 inches of width for minor ones. Try to direct traffic around a seating group, not through the middle of it. If traffic cuts through the middle of the room, consider creating two small seating areas instead of one large one.

• Vary the size of furniture pieces throughout the room, so your eyes move up and down as you scan the space. Balance a large or tall item by placing another piece of similar scale across the room from it. Avoid putting two tall pieces next to each other.

• Combine straight and curved lines for contrast. If the furniture is modern and linear, throw in a round table for contrast. If the furniture is curvy, mix in an angular piece. Similarly, pair solids with voids: combine a leggy chair with a solid side table, and a solid chair with a leggy table.

• Place a table within easy reach of every seat, being sure to combine pieces of similar scale. Coffee tables should be located 14-18 inches from a sofa to provide sufficient leg room.

• In bedrooms, allow at least 24 inches between the side of the bed and a wall, and at least 36 inches between the bed and a swinging door. In a dining room, make sure there’s at least 48 inches between each edge of the table and the nearest wall or piece of furniture. If traffic doesn’t pass behind the chairs on one side of the table, 36 inches should be sufficient on that side.

Technorati Tags: furniture placement, home decor, how to arrange your furniture

I am sorry I didn’t get this post up sooner, I have been haveing computer problems so I haven’t been able to do much.

Okay todays issue is dealing with the winter blahs!

Pick out one room in your home and redo it! Go to the store and pick out bright colored paint or if you don’t like the idea of bright paint try using it in accents. Think spring or the tropics. Bright blue and greens will help calm you and make you think of summer, red will warm you up while giving a great energy to a room. Also invest in plants any kind of plant is a good thing, even if it’s a fake plant. It will still bring life to the room it’s in. Also think wicker and wood, such as bamboo. Bamboo is a great plant because it is a hard wood, but it is also good for the invironment because it grows quickly, but more on bamboo in another post….

So what else can you do?
Brighten up your life, use light to set the mood of the room, brighten up a dull room with lots of accent lighting and if possable let as much nataural sunlight in as possable. Also arrange your furniture so that it takes advantage of the light, turn them so they face the windows.

another tip is to find paintings of the beach or ocean, looking at something that warm and nice brings back memories of the summer and maybe vacations or past homes.