Dressing up your ‘on sale’ house

Those Goosebumps are quite memorable when you finally make the decision to move in to a bigger house and decide to find a buyer for your existing one. Finding a potential buyer is not an easy task. The inherent prerequisite here is, to dress up your house as carefully as a bride to be, so that the potential buyer is proud of buying it, and, most importantly at your desired price!

Some tips..

All you need is some time of yours to be spared and some efforts to be made and you will notice the difference quite instantly. And no, you don’t need to empty your pockets to sell it at an earlier date or at your quoted price. Your goal should be on the lines of the adage – he came, he saw he conquered!  Only, here the ‘he’ is the buyer and he doesn’t conquer, but ‘buys’! And who would not want to marry a clean beautiful and attractive bride?  Make your house nothing less than that.

·         Clean up the mess

Bringing a visitor to a rather dirty house is as good as showing him the door back! No one likes the idea of buying a house which is replete with dirt and titbits lying in every nook and corner of the house. You need to make sure that your house is spic and span, and it will only serve as a start to build an interest in your client to really go ahead and have a look further into the house, which is still a long way to reach the buying stage.

·         Some touching up

Not that you should paint all your walls anew, but it is definitely worth the effort to camouflage any marks and stains on your walls. Cushions play an important role in this business of camouflaging. You can cover up any of those dirty seats on your furniture with cushions that appear so bright that the flaws underneath are made invisible. You can also cover up some crevices in your wardrobes or the bedrooms with bright and shiny pillows and cushions. A bad and cluttered balcony could be made to look palatable with the use of silky soft cushions with matching colors. Your cracked up bed can be made to look like the most attractive piece of furniture in the house, that increases your credibility in the eyes of the buyer with regards to your efficiency in maintaining your house.

·         Organize things

Make your house look spacious. Clear all the unwanted things that apparently reduce the visible dimensions of your house. Stack all unwanted things one above the other and cover it with a decorative piece of cloth topped with a cute little cushion like a cherry on a cake. Ultimately, your client is paying you for a space, so show him as much space as you can, and all neat and tidy.

·         Do not confuse

You may be writing on your dining table, but when the client is visiting your house, show him the table as a dining and not as a writing table! A bedroom, albeit used by you as a multipurpose room, should be shown to him as a bedroom only. Equipped with an impeccable bed, a clean bedsheet, matching cushions and everything else that defines a bedroom, portray your room the way it is meant to be.

Wish you luck in your endeavor to sell your abode!

Top 5 trends to follow as you design your home

There have been inventions and re-inventions in the way you can design your house, which I have seen since my growing years. A friend’s ‘redone’ house would have not lost its charm yet, when another friend’s house would set your heart on fire, desiring your own to be like that. Interior designers have to be constantly abreast with the latest developments in this sector, failing which  he stands the risk of being labelled as too conventional.

Lets then try and gather the top 5 trends, which can be handy while you plan the design for your home:

#1 Knitted fabric in your furniture

When we talk of knitting, we often restrict our thoughts to mommies and grand mommies holding that big yarn of wool, settled in a chair and spending endless hours knitting sweaters for their families. Snap out of it! Yarns of wool could also go into something more inventive and decorative like creating your furniture. Imagine those cute little cushions on tables and chairs made in soft pink or blue wool that would give newer definition to interior designing. Not only that, you can also make carpets or storage baskets from this yarn and add colour to your floor.

#2 Stripes

If striped shirts have been something you’ve always loved, why not employ them to your walls as well? Stripes can incorporate a wide variety of colour combos, ones that give a vibrant look – like a rainbow colour or a red and black combo to match your modular furniture, or those thick and thin stripes of blue-green-yellow that radiate the walls of your house. All this while keeping in mind, that the classiness and the chic factor is not compromised! Striped cushions on plain furniture would make an elegant sight for every eye that looks at your domicile!

#3 Go-green

When the whole world is raising hands in support of Green Revolution, why not we begin in our very own abode? How fantastic would it be to enjoy your morning cup of coffee while your eyes feast upon lush green mini-meadows inside your own dwelling! If you are lucky enough to have a rooftop at your house, you can turn it into a garden and let your imagination soar to convert it into an attractive green piece of solace in your house. Or one of your walls could be converted to a completely green one, which will help you enjoy clean air at home and, as a bonus, words of appreciation from your visitors! You can also use a whole green floor in your bedroom, supported by matching soft mattresses and cushions that accelerate the ‘natural’ feeling in you.

#4 Writing on the walls

As a child, I remember being reprimanded for always scribbling on the walls! Though they used to be incorrigible childish scribbles, it is something that is back in vogue now, and people would not mind paying a sum to have their walls scribbled upon! Treat for the toddlers, eh? Bringing in more sophistication to the scribbles, we can have our walls flooded with meaningful messages, adages, witty one-liners or anything that you think will not go unnoticed by the visitor. 

# 5 it’s time for Africa!

If going on an African Safari has been your dream, here’s some good news. You can turn your abode into a small African continent by incorporating animal skins, trendy browns, delicate wooden carvings, pillows and bedding’s in the African style, African sculptures and give a new theme to your newly designed home.