If I bought the house, I’d appreciate having that design as a guide to thinking about further landscaping.
Yes, the landscape designer recommended putting the full colored landscape design on an easel for display while selling the house - not a bad idea since I paid for the full design!
I think it’s a good idea to leave more customization to the future owners. People like to make their own mark on a house, and landscaping is fun for some people. But, oh, I wish you were able to squeeze the glass frames on the deck. I suspect it would yield more than the cost of doing it.
Eh… if I’m a buyer spending a million+ dollars on the house, I’m wondering why the flipper was too cheap or too greedy to implement the plan themselves instead of leaving the cost and aggravation to me, and now maybe I’m wondering what else they might have cheaped out on to increase their profit.
Let’s extend this to other areas of the house. Would you be impressed if you walked into a house and there was a picture of a beautiful kitchen, rather than an actual kitchen? Or a lovely drawing of a master bath instead of the real thing? I wouldn’t be.
I disagree, @notrichenough. I’ve looked at houses where there were plans for a swimming pool which was not yet built. It helps the buyer to see what’s possible. If the rest of the house looks lovely, I wouldn’t assume they “cheaped out.”
Nre, there is also a different school of thought. The outdoor spaces and indoor spaces are different: remodel of the kitchen usually means a major headache and needs to be done ASAP to minimize disruption to the everyday life, while outdoor projects can be done at a leisurely pace and customized as one goes… Additionally, the quality of indoor project craftsmanship is easy to check… The quality of the plantings can depend on many parameters not easily visible on the surface! For example, a tree planted during a wrong season for transplantation or with too much damage to the roots might look healthy for a few weeks and then die…
I prefer to do my own customization of outdoor spaces. I would not want to pay $20k for an updated landscape only to have it redone soon after I move in, but I would be grateful to the seller to providing me with an idea of what can possibly the yard look like.
I can see both points of view. It can be helpful to point out how a house can be expanded, or that there is room for a pool or a tennis court. I’m not so sure about landscaping…
Coralbrook, what do you think you would have to do to this house to push it up to the $1.2 million range?
I’d probably have to move it to a different location in the neighborhood 
This street (even though it has million dollar views) just does not command high prices because most of the homes are still in original dinky 900sf 2 bd / 1 ba condition. Although the few that have been remodeled with a lot of sq ft expansion are commanding high prices.
We are waiting to see what the September sold comparables look like. August is traditionally a slow month so we haven’t seen too many sales.
Coralbrook, knowledgeable buyers can tell quality when they see it, especially what goes inside the house. Discerning buyers will take a close look.
One option to make the balcony railing more interesting might be to paint it a metallic gray or silver color. That might be enough to make it pop. You are repainting the railing anyway.
When DH and I bought our first house the previous owners left all the appliance books AND the landscape plan that the first owners had paid for. We were able to see what was done and what wasn’t done at that time. It wouldn’t have made us buy the house but it was nice to have after we did. I would just give the plan to buyers.
I agree that we were happy to get whatever we could regarding our house after we purchased it. We walked around the house with the original owner and he ID’d all the vegetation by name, and I tried to record it all. I would like whatever landscape plan that was purchased pertaining to a place I bought–what else would you do with it? In the future, the owners can adopt, modify or ignore it, as desired.
Sure, after they buy it, give them the plan. I just don’t think you want part of the marketing message to be “the place still needs more work, here’s the plan for it”.
When you have the closing…leave the new owners a nice potted plant, a bottle of wine, before/after pics of the house, all warranties, and the landscape plan…right on that gorgeous island.
I did the same thing, including the date they were purchased and any warranties that might be in effect.
The prior owners made it clear that they were taking all the removable appliances, which they did (almond and avacado-colored fridge and washer/dryer). They did leave us the booklets for the cooktop, microwave, oven, and grey box (to have water heater on and off on a timer). Believe the warranty had already run on the appliances, but it was nice to have the booklets.
I always lay everything out on the counter when a buyer (who is in contract) comes for Home Inspection. I lay out every single brand new user manual and warranty card… all the way down to the new thermostat mounted on the wall. It’s probably overwhelming. Sometimes when I buy a scratch and dent appliance it does not come with the User Manual so I go online and print it out and staple it together for the buyer.
I leave the Dishwasher installation manual also because I open it and highlight where it allows installation without air gap - been through that issue quite a lot.
PROGRESS UPDATE
Another week has gone by and it really doesn’t look like we got too much completed.
Staircase stringers are cut and installed. We have never built stairs before so it involved a lot of math calculations and double checking everything we were doing against the building plan requirements. Then the landing was built and that was another feat of engineering, a lot of wood pieces and structure metal fastener stuff.
Today we will finally be cutting out the floor above because we have to carefully determine how to flush the drywall between the two stories in the stairwell. Unfortuately the walls don’t exactly match and we are going to have to shim out some drywall. Have to measure all that carefully before we can cut the plywood that gets applied to the risers and the treads. It’s a chicken and egg thing… not allowed to apply drywall to the walls in the stairwell until we pass framing inspection. But, we don’t really know how wide to cut tread plywood until we can shim out the drywall down the sides of the stairs. I really don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to carefully cut drywall around each step.
Installed the Anderson door but we cannot finish installing the door completely because the delivery was missing a lot of screws. Had to submit a damage request to Home Depot regarding the Anderson panel that had the vinyl gouge, and a list of the missing screws. Screws are being mailed, but still on hold waiting for decision on panel. My understanding is that Home Depot has to eat the cost of a new panel because they didn’t catch the shipping damage when it arrived at their store.
Have all of our brown coat/base coat for very large stucco patches complete. Have to wait a couple of days for it to completely dry before we can put on the final texture coat. Cannot install two windows until the texture is finished.
Meanwhile, I have drywallers coming through to give bids and estimates on the large drywall job. That is going to be a critical path item because it takes a long time to tape, mud, sand, mud and texture everything. Also trying to find someone to build the terraced planters in front yard so I can get moving on curb appeal.
Some photos loaded of staircase and stucco patching (not very exciting!)
It’s going to be a very very nice house! The family room is a fantastic addition to this home.
Thanks for adding the front view landscape plan.
I have received three bids from drywall contractors. $5,500, $2,950 and $3,200. That guy that wants $5,500 is smoking dope !
Desperately trying to get framing and sewage pump ready for a Friday rough building inspection. It’s called the triple threat… framing, shear walls, windows, doors plus plumbing plus electrical. I don’t know if we are going to make it because it has taken 4 full days to work on the staircase and we still don’t have the plywood down on the treads and risers. Cannot measure those until we get some drywall shimmed up on one side of the staircase. The wall upstairs is 1 1/2" out from wall downstairs (after we cut the floor out). So, we have to shim out with strips of plywood screwed into the wall and then put on 1/2" drywall to get it all flush going down that wall in the staircase. Technically, we are not supposed to be putting up drywall yet, but it’s on a wall that already has stucco from original exterior wall - so it’s covered up already. You can see the framing of that wall from inside the crawlspace.
All hands on deck and 10 hr days needed this week. I am calling everyone I know to see if we can get another carpenter over here so my carpenter can move on to finishing the sewage sump pump plumbing.