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[M192]Making Your Home More

by J.p.lee, J.p

While your whole home is very important, the two primary areas for sprucing up should be your kitchen and bathroom. The following tips will guide you through the inside of your home in general.

The world of real estate is becoming more sophisticated in its understanding of what sells. In this sense, there is a much better comprehension of how to spruce up our homes for sale.

There is a whole knack to being able to properly “stage” a home these days. Fortunately, it while it is an extremely effective effort, it is not one that takes a large amount of money. It just involves improving your current surroundings.

The key is to look at your home not through your own eyes, but through the eyes of the prospective buyer. Look at your home as though you've never been there or seen it before.

Think of it as romancing your buyer with your house, so you'll want to set the mood.

Clear out excess furniture and accessories from inside your home as much as possible. If a piece of furniture is too big for the room, or is crowding the room, put it in storage, have a garage sale, or give it to a deserving charity.

This also goes for decorations, oversized stuffed animals, and other items that you may have collected over the years. Anything that takes up space, if it's not necessary, you'll want to clear it out.

Nothing is more effective at opening up a house than getting rid of clutter. It will look immeasurably more spacious without all of your extra things in the way.

Pay special attention to keeping hallways and doorways clear. Not only will this make the prospective buyer feel that they are purchasing a larger home, it will be easier to imagine their own things inside of it.

Your home should smell good. When this comes to selling the house, it means that there should be no noticeable odors

Smell makes an enormous impact on people when they enter a home. Furthermore, while smokers and pet owners may not even notice the smells in their home – having become quite accustomed to them – they may be an overwhelming turn-off for potential buyers.

In this case, have a non-smoking, non-pet owning friend come over to perform a sniff test.

While it used to be recommended that you bake bread or steam cinnamon potpourri before a potential buyer is to come through, it's no longer recommended. The same goes for spray air fresheners.

While no buyer will expect that your closets will be perfectly neat or empty, but they are looking for a large amount of storage space for their own things.

To help with this impression, the rule of thumb is to take everything out of your closet, and only put half of it back in. The rest of the stuff will need to find a new home; in the garbage, the clothing donation charity, or packed in your suitcases. The reason for doing this is that partially empty closets look much roomier than they may really be. And remember, it's space and storage that sell.

The same can be done for your kitchen cabinets and other storage areas. An added bonus is that when you're done sifting through your stuff to get half out of the closets, you'll already have gotten rid of a lot of things that you'll no longer have to move.

When people are looking for houses, it's very, very rare that they'll only see one or two houses. Therefore, if you're going to have a number of people view your home as they look at a dozen or so other homes, you need to make sure that yours is the one that stands out in their minds.

Of course, there are good ways to stand out, and there are bad ways. The bad ways must be avoided at all costs. Think about it: if you were to see five houses today, and another five a week from now, all with very similar features, how much would you really remember about each individual home?

The odds are, you'll remember the one that had some special little detail; maybe it's the one with the pink roses on the kitchen table. Not only will this sort of little thing make your home more memorable, but it will also let your house rate higher among the others.

It's like the “hook” that marketers aim for in commercials and other advertising. It's something different and positive that sets your home apart from other houses.

The idea of working from home is rapidly gaining popularity among many people who are finding the daily trudge to and from the office harder and harder to bear. For those who have decided to set up an office in their home as a permanent place of work, whether located in an attic, a bedroom or a garden shed, careful planning is important.

It’s not enough to just place a desk and chair in a room and call it an office. This is where you will spend the majority of the working day; therefore, the provision of comfort should be very high on your list of priorities. The following advice on setting up an office at home contains some fairly obvious suggestions and is not in any order of importance, but surprisingly many people fail to think about them and end up working in very uncomfortable surroundings.

•Take time to plan the office layout so that there is sufficient room to move about, ensure that you do not crowd the floor space with too much furniture or superfluous equipment such as extra chairs that may never be used, or a drinks cabinet for example. Try to stick to this simple rule – if you don’t need it – don’t have it in the office.

•If possible, position your desk close to a source of natural light such as patio doors, windows or under skylights. Daylight is more conducive to a pleasant working environment than harsh artificial light. However, a good desk lamp is an asset when working at night. Standard overhead lighting is not generally sufficient for long spells of reading or close work and may cause some strain on the eyes.

•Try to ensure that you have plenty of file and paper storage facilities. Quite often people do not think of this until their office is set up, after which they find there is no room to put a filing cabinet; most of the paperwork then lands up on the desk or the floor, neither of which is acceptable nor professional.

•Invest in a good-quality office chair. Posture is extremely important when an occupation dictates that the majority of the time is spent sitting down. Whilst buying a proper office chair may appear to be an unnecessary expense, it could cost considerably more in time off work as a result of back trouble.

•Avoid installing kitchen appliances in the office. Quite often people add ‘convenience’ items to their home office such as coffee makers, toasters or even microwaves. They are not convenient; they are space-consuming distractions that sooner or later you will have to remove should you find yourself requiring extra room.

The key to having a user-friendly office is forward planning. Take the time and make the effort as you do when deciding how you want to furnish the other rooms in your home. The tips given are by no means exhaustive but should provide a practical starting point for anyone setting up an office at home for the first time.

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About Author

Both J.p.lee & John Sheridan are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

J.p.lee has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Home Management and Sell Home. J.P. Lee published a resource site for people who want to at http://www.aboutsellingyourhome.com. J.p.lee's top article generates over 480 views. to your Favourites.

John Sheridan has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing, Home Management and Small Business. John Sheridan is a professional proofreader of hard copy items and website copy. He also writes web copy and occasionally accepts small copy-editing assignments. He can be contacted via: www.textcorrect.co.uk. John Sheridan's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.