The Best 2 Ways to Make Your Home's Interior Irresistible to Prospective Buyers

An attractive entryway. (Creepy head statue optional.)

SELL THAT HOUSE: It's What's Inside That Counts

Two weeks ago, we looked at 3 Ways to Give Your Home Killer Curb Appeal and promised that we would follow up soon with a guide for how to spice up the inside of your home for selling as well. Here it is.

As with the exterior of your house, the first impression that any prospective buyers will have when they enter your home is always the most important thing to consider when trying to sell. So here are The Best 2 Ways to Make Your Home Interior Irresistible.    

The Grand Entrance

When a prospective buyer walks into your home, what is the first thing they will notice? Will it be scuff marks on the floors and baseboards and nicks and stains on the walls? Or will it be a pristine entryway that shows everyone just how well you take care of your home.

This is one of the easiest, but most effective things you can do to up the resale value of your home. Those nicks, scratches and holes in the walls? A little putty and patience will make quick work of those. This helpful guide can help you with smaller repairs, and this nifty trick is great for larger holes.  

Once the repairs have been done, a couple quick coats of a neutral colour like a light beige or off-white will give the room a certain newness that will speak volumes to anyone thinking about buying your home. (More on paint colours in the next section.) 

If the thought of repairing drywall and spending two days painting gives you the willies, it may be worth looking at hiring a professional to do the work. You can often find some reliable contractors to provide estimates on sites such as Craigslist.org and Kijiji.

Or, if you are located here in the Ottawa area, drop me a line here and I'll be happy to put you in touch with some reliable local painting companies -- I owned a painting company here myself for four years and know the industry well.

As for the floors, most stains on ceramic and hardwood or laminate can be removed with a little soap and elbow grease. (Be careful not to use abrasive cleaners on hardwood, however, as they may damage the veneer.) For really weathered hardwood, hiring a contractor to sandblast them can be a great option to renew the look. 

If you're working with old linoleum, you might consider putting down ceramic tile or laminate, as the cost can be quite affordable considering the improvement that such a makeover will make.  

Neutralize, Neutralize, Neutralize

While painting the entryway may be one of the most important things to do, there are probably some other walls in the house that could use the touch of a brush and roller, too.

Ask any realtor or home renovations expert and they will tell you that applying a fresh coat of paint to the interior of your home is one of the best bang-for-your-buck ways to increase its appeal to potential buyers. 

Your main concern here, if the header above didn't give it away, should be to keep a consistent, neutral tone to the colours on the walls. 

I know, I know, you thought that eggplant and khaki green motif in the living room was positively to die for, but, well, taste is a funny thing, isn't it? 

It's best to stick with colours that have some life, but don't detract attention from the home itself and the furniture. For this reason, I usually recommend going with a warm beige like the one in the picture at the top of this post, rather than a muted off-white, but both are preferable to vibrant primary colours and the like.

By the way, this goes for kids' rooms too. You know Little Joey's childhood refuge, with a jungle motif plastered on all four walls? Well some prospective buyers may have wanted that room for an office. Or to house a child who has outgrown that particular safari obsession. 

As much as it hurts, it's best to cover any elaborate motifs and kid-friendly colours with neutrals as well. 

(Hint: If you're covering a mural or bright vibrant colour, use a solid white primer before painting. You'll thank me later. By the way, aside from the use of tinted primers as bases when painting rich colours, the former is the only time you need to do a full prime indoors. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.)

While we're on the topics, I'd like to warn you against some common shortcuts people will take, or ask their painting contractors to take when doing a "freshen-up" paint job on a to-be-sold home. 

• Doing, or asking a contractor to do only one coat. On anything. A proper paint job always requires two coats and it will only look streaky if you skimp. Yes, this includes painting white over white walls, because your old walls are no longer white but actually yellowed.
• Painting the baseboards and trim the same colour as the walls. The amount you'll save on paint and labour doing this is not worth it for how stupid it will look when finished. Trim is meant to frame the room, and can only do so when it is white or off-white (or in some cases varnished natural wood) that contrasts with the wall colour.
• Worse still, painting doors the same colour as the walls. Again, this will not save you enough money to justify the tackiness of the end product. Also, as an aside, intelligent people will still be able to find the door, so even the camouflage argument does not hold up here.

If you are planning to do the job yourself, this guide can be helpful to get you started. If you see the value in paying someone else to do the work, see my notes above for help in finding a reliable contractor.

Next Stop: SOLD!

Once you've applied a nice neutral colour to all the walls, and really taken the time to make the entryway pop, you'll be well on your way to wowing potential buyers right off the bat, and putting them in the right mood to see your home in the positive light it deserves. 

If you have the time and the budget, other places worth sprucing up are the kitchen, the master bedroom and the master bathroom. Sometimes the smallest improvements can make a big difference in these hyper-important areas of the home. 

So, what do you think, have any tips and tricks to add? Have you had any experiences, good or bad, in making these types of changes? Did they help sell your home? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!