3 Things To Do Before Selling Your Home

“Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses” was the first thing my real estate agent told me when we were house hunting and thinking about selling our home. Truth be told, the last two

rooms in the house I wanted to touch. Only because it was intimidating and I knew the amount of effort involved. I had been hoping that we could just get away with a fresh coat of paint and call it a day.

Nevertheless some home renovations are necessary and help to increase property value. As such, we ended up doing quite a bit of renos while being on a very tight budget. I’m not gonna get into all the renos we did but rather focus on what I think are the 3 most important things to do before selling your home. Budget friendly of course. So if you’re just looking for some reno ideas or want to know what basic upgrades are the best to increase property value before selling then keep on reading.

Renovate your kitchen.

While there was nothing wrong with our existing kitchen per se, it was in need of some upgrades. And newer white cabinets. These are some photos of what the kitchen looked like before:

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So we definitely wanted to focus on a few updates that would make the kitchen a little bit more modern and high end without spending a fortune.

UPGRADE OUTDATED APPLIANCES
No brainer here. Everybody wants the latest in energy efficient kitchen appliances. And that is stainless steel and black atm. Although this most likely will be the most costly expense it is worth the investment. To keep these costs minimal I would suggest watching for sales or buying all of the appliances in a packaged bundle. 

REPLACE THE COUNTERTOP
Unless you already own a granite or quartz countertop in which case you’re good. Laminate is the most cost effective but quartz or granite is a great way to increase a kitchen’s value. Typically granite tends to be perceived as more high end than quartz but both are very good options. We had decided on quartz (for budgetary reasons) but ended up finding a granite countertop at Lowes that was actually less expensive than quartz. So be sure to shop around for different quotes.

To keep with the minimal/industrial chic look we were going for we added a recessed sink and ended up replacing our old faucet with a newer pull down style. 

UPDATE KITCHEN CABINETS
Kitchen cabinets pretty much make the kitchen so you want to make sure they look good. Getting new custom cabinets can get pricey so another option is to paint them. Or just swap out the doors, colour permitting. We replaced our dated off-white doors with a newer shaker style door in white.

We ended up ordering our doors from Lowes as well because they just so happened to be having a sale on kitchen cabinets when we were there looking at countertops. Keep in mind that custom cabinets take about 6-8 weeks to be made. When the doors were ready we picked them up from Lowes and Shane installed them. Replacing doors and hardware is a great way to give the kitchen a facelift while keeping costs down.

FLOORING
Another great way to update a kitchen is to replace any damaged or dated flooring. We had a retro themed linoleum tile that I updated with a more modern marble design. The peel and stick tiles were easy to use and it took only a few hours to do the kitchen. The only tricky parts were cutting the tile to fit around door frames but it’s nothing you can’t get past with a little bit of patience and a few trial cuts.

And of course, a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen.

Bathroom upgrade.

Bathrooms are real important too. Simple things like replacing fixtures, shower curtains and painting can make a big difference. For our bathroom we kept things simple and only did a few things. Here’s a before shot:

NEW FLOOR & PAINT
We replaced the linoleum floor with new vinyl flooring we picked up at Home Depot that Shane installed himself. And I painted the entire bathroom with Behr paint – never underestimate the power of a fresh coat of paint. 

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UPDATE THE VANITY
I gave the existing vanity doors a fresh coat of white paint and replaced the dated plastic knobs with stainless steel ones. For the medicine cabinet I ordered a new white door and replaced the old plastic knobs with stainless steel ones.

OTHER MINOR UPDATES
Replace any dated faucets with newer ones and even simple things like replacing towel racks and other fixtures can make a big difference. Add some fresh towels and a new shower curtain to finish the look. On a side note another great way to update the bathroom is by redoing the caulking and grout. Just make sure you get a waterproof caulk for the shower and tub area. 

And finally…staging! 

One really important thing to consider when listing your home to sell is to define the spaces in your home. And staging is great for that – especially if you’ve already moved out. It’s probably the most fun part too. 

With an open concept space it can sometimes be difficult for a potential buyer to differentiate the different areas of space. You want to define all the rooms and make it real easy for the potential buyer to visualize how they themselves could use the space for its intended purpose.

For instance in our living space we had to clearly define which part was the dining room. We did that by installing a light fixture directly over a newly placed dining room table which we located on the opposite side of the open concept kitchen. 

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For the bedroom we mostly updated the lighting fixtures, de-cluttered and staged. When purchasing staging items I was mindful of picking decor pieces that I could use at the new home. I picked almost everything up for staging from Ikea, including all of the new light fixtures we installed throughout the house. You don’t need to go overboard with staging, the intended purpose is to show potential buyers how they could use the space and envision themselves living there. No need to deck it all out. Just so long as you define all the rooms and leave them presentable and tidy that should do. And fresh cut flowers are always a great idea too!

Hope y’all found some useful tips useful, have a great weekend!