If two different realtors told me that my honey oak cabinets were so dated that they would delay a sale or would cause a buyer to reduce their offer, I’d paint them.
I personally am not a fan of honey cabinets, to put it mildly (and I was once the proud resident of a home that had them back in the day). If I were building from scratch, I might not do a white kitchen, but I’d prefer that to honey oak (which is different to me than honey maple-I love maple and would be happy to restain them).
It’s all about the market. If you’ve consulted knowledgeable realtors who know your local market, you should probably take their advice.It’s said over and over here that real estate is just something you can’t make broad statements about. It’s so specific to the region.
“If two different realtors told me that my honey oak cabinets were so dated that they would delay a sale or would cause a buyer to reduce their offer, I’d paint them.”
I would not blindly trust realtors. We had 2 different realtors tell us that we needed to paint the kitchen. I refused to do this. I highly doubt the buyers did it either. However, if the owners themselves feel that the cabinets look dull and warn… they should go with an update.
Curious, @thumper1 - did you change out your not shiny hinges? I have the same thing. I changed out the knobs (because I can do that by myself) but I haven’t touch the hinges. They seem to blend away. I know I probably should but then I have to get dh to take down the doors as I don’t think I can hold them.
I always walk across the street and judge curb appeal and/or paint samples. Much better than standing right at the house. Buyers are driving by getting their first impression.
Also, come in your front door and stand there. You need to have some kind of Wow factor at the front door, whether it’s a view through the house to a view or back yard, gorgeous flooring, a beautiful light fixture, staircase railing, or art or something. If you can, this one area should be staged well.
@Onward we haven’t done anything…yet. But I’m inclined to change the knobs first…and go from there. My hinges really don’t stick out because my doors are stained a light brown color. If the doors were white, I think the hinges would be more noticeable.
And regarding my lights…I don’t have brass chandeliers. I have a school house type light with a brass fitting over my breakfast room table, and the foyer light is a large white thing with a brass trim ring. Honestly…i don’t even notice the brass on that light.
In my case, the breakfast room light and foyer light are very expensive fixtures, and if I repolace them, it would be with brushed nickel…but I’d go with very inexpensive. In other words, the quality wouldn’t be as good.
I have access to a lot of well-recommended contractors, so that’s not a problem. But I’m still flummoxed about the basement. It’s not a plumber issue–the moisture is coming from outside. Someone suggested a “foundation guy”. Sounds right, but what the heck is a “foundation guy”?
I have a question about wallpaper. I’m apparently the last person in the country who loves pattern, and we have (not subtle) wallpaper in the dining room and kitchen. Do we rip it off and paint neutral colors? It’s so beautiful, I’ll cry!
Our real estate market stinks. People are fleeing our state due to high taxes, and the new tax law restriction on property tax deductions is really depressing prices. We have a desirable home in a desirable neighborhood, but we keep hearing that houses are sitting and sitting. Our house is probably now worth 2/3 of what it was worth at the high point before the recession, and not much more than we paid for it 20 years ago. So this whole process is a grim one. If we were anticipating a great sales price, we’d have a lot more oomph for the prep work.
Hinges?? In my widest imaginings I can’t conceive of replacing hinges. I’m sure I never even noticed hinges when we were house hunting. Any broker who thought hinges were critical would be gently escorted off my property!
As you have some kind of moisture barrier/foundation issue, hinges and wallpaper are mere distractions. Until you work out how this fix goes down, the other stuff can wait and an agent is pointless. Why are you selling?
@MommaJ - google basement waterproofing and foundation waterproofing. We have a company here in our town that specializes in this. They sealed our crawl space 15 years ago, and it has been bone dry since.
I would remove the wallpaper. Paint the rooms. This wallpaper removal would be a deal breaker for me…having removed wall paper and repairing walls in every room in our first house. Just remove and paint…and save buyers wondering if the wallpaper will come off easily or damage the walls.
I agree with Thumpert1, wallpaper can make a house seem very old and dated. I would also remove any and all dark stains and 70’s/80’s style items ( dark cabinets, dated tile etc). While people can do what they like once they buy the house, many have little time or money to go through a house and make it their own when they move in. Keeping things simple and fresh will appeal to the most buyers. I was very surprised but a realtor told us that even at the high end people do not want to deal with contractors or even painters. They have to be able to live in the house until they can redo it to their liking.
Also, some realtors include the stager in their fee. In our area that is very common. Our area is a very hot market so that might be one way they get listings. Stagers can look at the house as a homebuyer would not as the person who lives there does. That can be critical. A few things I would have changed were non issues and a few things I didn’t see were issues.
We’ve met with 3 realtors about selling/prepping our 31 yo house. One thought we needed to replace almost all our flooring, paint the entire house (including the 2 BRs DH & I painted 2.5 years ago), consider granite for the kitchen (we have alot of counter space). All I kept seeing were $$$$. The other 2 realtors are of the belief that we should do some affordable cosmetic changes, paint where necessary, replace some flooring, and price the house to take into account what a buyer may not like. We’re likely to choose one of those 2 realtors. We’re in a desirable neighborhood according to the realtors, but in a state with a housing market that hasn’t recovered from the recession. The comps we’ve seen are going for slightly below to slightly above list price.
@shellfell we are in the same boat as you. Our state just hasn’t rebounded fully…yet.
Realtors have suggested a major brightening, but not a major redo. They feel our house will sell because of it’s location…and because we have lake rights!
On removing the wallpaper…tastes in wallpaper differ, but if you have really good, really expensive designer wallpaper, you might want to leave it. It really depends. Most people don’t have paper of that quality. It also depends whether your house is historic and the paper suits the period. Most people don’t have that, either.
The large center hall and the study in our house are papered with William Morris wallpaper from Sanderson in England. No way in hell would I remove it. People who would be inclined to like our house would also be inclined to like the wallpaper, especially the willow bough in the study. If not, they can replace it.
There are, of course, papers that are much more expensive than mine!
It is true that I had to pay to have every stitch of wallpaper removed when we bought the house–it was in every room-- but it was all horrendous, really cheap, totally inappropriate and hideous 1970s vinyl. There were rolls and rolls of extra in the basement, to give you an idea of how cheap it was. The former owners moved to a modern house, which was definitely the preferred aesthetic of the wife, anyway. doG knows why they bought this place…
People who prefer old houses are a different breed, most of the time. It is definitely a smaller market. B-)
I have bought and renovated many homes and always replace all the brass gold hardware with brushed nickel or something similar. You do not have to remove the doors to replace the hinges.
Just replace one of the three hinges at a time while the door is still attached and you will have no trouble and no need to lift up the heavy doors to hold in place.
The wallpaper needs to come down. Doesn’t matter how beautiful you think it is or how expensive it might have been to install it. Your goal is to make your house appealing to the widest range of potential buyers. And the % of home buyers who like wallpaper is much smaller than the total # of buyers who will be looking at your place.
Another reason why the wallpaper needs to come down is because of the basement issue. Since the basement thing is potentially a big deal, you need to have as many other things up to snuff in the house as possible. So cosmetic stuff like taking wallpaper off & repainting that room will save you $$ when it comes to sell the house.
And don’t just paint over the wallpaper. You need to fully remove it from the wall and then paint.
IMO, cosmetic fixes can wait. Have you contacted any foundation repair or waterproofing companies? I would call a few. Some will charge for a consult, some will not. The fixes they recommend can be hugely different.
Please explain how you replace the door hinges without removing the door? The hinges are also screwed to the door itself. I guess you could replace on hinge at a time on the doors…and not need to remove them…is that what you mean?
We have a LOT of doors in this house with three hinges each…yikes.
