House Hunters: Blue 11 Edition

Hi friends! I’m here today to show you our new house, but I thought I’d make it a little more fun by turning it into a House Hunters-esque post. So, just like the show, I’ll take you through three houses we toured, and at the end you’ll see which house we ended up getting!

House #1: The Pool House

This was a beautiful, big house in a great neighborhood. The homeowners had put a lot of work into updating it and it showed: they had a beautiful kitchen, modern bathroom with large walk-in shower, and a gorgeous finished basement. Plus there’s the show-stopping pool with the fantastic patio. And unlike a lot of houses with pools, this one actually had room for a dog: there was a separate fenced-in side yard that Finnley could run around in.

• Pros: Move-in ready, great for entertaining (pool/patio and basement), updated kitchen and bathroom
• Cons: Over budget, expensive upkeep for pool, already updated so no way to choose my own finishes

House #2: The Historic House

This house from the 1920’s was absolutely gorgeous! I fell in love with it as soon as we walked it. It had great original (or original-feeling) features like hardwood and tile floors, brass light fixtures, stained glass windows and doors, and even a fountain inside the house! It also had beautiful formal gardens that I could totally picture throwing a Gatsby-themed party in.

• Pros: All the original features listed above, the gardens, just an all around impressive home in great condition
• Cons: Expensive to keep up, the kitchen needed updated, small showers, neighborhood wasn’t quite as safe as others we looked at

House #3: The Basic House

This was a perfectly nice house under our budget. It had lovely features like a finished basement and a great screened in porch, plus it backed up to a pretty wooded area. It was move in ready, but the master bathroom could definitely use an update and I wasn’t crazy about the kitchen. The only thing we’d really need to do right away though would be to build a fence.

• Pros: Low price, pretty backyard, great screened-in porch
• Cons: Overall kind of a boring house

Sooo…which house did we choose??

 

Well, that’s kind of a trick question, because we actually put an offer on all three of these houses!

We started with the Pool House. It was a really nicely updated home, and the pool was an awesome bonus. But it was over budget, so we tried to negotiate to get the price down. Unfortunately, the current owners weren’t able to meet us in the middle so we had to walk away.

Then we found the Historic House and I fell in love. It was priced at the top of our budget, and we only went back and forth a couple times before agreeing on a price. Once we were under contract we moved forward with an inspection. For being about 90 years old it was in really good condition, but it had a few problems that would have been quite expensive to fix (roof maintenance, friable asbestos, radon, and a buried oil tank), and we just didn’t have the cash to do these things right when we moved in. The current owners weren’t able to fix any of these problems, so we had to walk away from this house and move on to plan C.

By the time we got out of our contract on the Historic House we were in a bit of a time crunch. We were already under contract on our old home and we needed to find something quickly or else we’d be living in a hotel all summer. So we toured a few more houses and found the Basic House. It was nice, and it’d work well for us, but it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the other two homes. We made an offer though, and we were able to close on it without any issues.

So this is our home! It took me a little while to get over the disappointment of losing the Historic House, but I think this is a really good home for us. Both the Pool House and the Historic House cost a lot more money upfront, plus they would have taken a lot of money to maintain. Our Basic House is much more manageable, plus we have more room to make it our own. I also really love our neighborhood, and I was little iffy about the neighborhood of the Historic Home.

So in the end, I think things worked out exactly how they were supposed to   I’ll be back next week to show you more photos of our new house and our plans for making it our own.

Ten Tips for Getting Your House Sold Fast

This spring was a really busy time, as I mentioned in Tuesday’s post. We had a lot going on, but one of the biggest things was getting our house ready to sell. We didn’t tackle any major projects, but all the little things added up. It was all worth it though: we sold our house for full asking price (plus closing costs) in four days!

This was our first home, so I’m not an expert in real estate, but I would consider our sale quite successful. We put a lot of work into getting our house ready and I think it showed. Here are my top 10 tips for getting your house ready to list and sold quickly.

1. Consider Home Improvement Projects

About six months before we planned to list our house, we met with a real estate agent to talk about home improvement projects. We had a list of prospective projects that we thought would increase the value of our home and make it show better, but after talking with our agent, we shortened the list. I would highly suggest meeting with your agent several months before you plan to list the house to go over projects. He or she can help you decide what projects are worth your time and money and which are not. For example, we considered refinishing our wood floors, but our agent told us that for our neighborhood and price point our floors were in good condition, and that we might not recoup the cost of getting them refinished. She did encourage us to redo our kitchen backsplash though, since that was an inexpensive update that made a big difference.

2. Do Small Updates

When prospective buyers tour your house, you want them to feel like it’s well taken care of and that they will have very little to do to make it livable. We tackled small projects like painting chipped trim and changing out brass doorknobs and hinges for new polished nickel hardware. These little changes made the house look updated and in good condition without spending a ton of time or money.

3. Deep Clean

This seems obvious, but you want your house to be really, really clean when buyers tour your home. Don’t be afraid to hire a cleaning company to give your house a really good deep cleaning to get it ready to list. If you have carpet, I’d also recommend getting your carpets professionally cleaned, especially if you have pets. This will get out any stains and help eliminate pet odor.

4. Declutter

Decluttering is another obvious rule of selling your house, but it’s important. Having some knick-knacks out is ok, but limit it to just your favorites. I have a lot of decorative objects, so clearing some of it out was hard for me, but it made the house show a lot better. You want people to focus on your home, not your stuff.

A personal pet peeve of mine is too many plants (especially fake plants!). A few pieces of greenery add some life, but too many makes your house seem like a jungle. Nobody wants to buy a jungle.

5. Clean Out Closets

I’m not going to lie, this was a tough one for me. All of our closets were overcrowded and messy, especially our master closet. It was a walk-in, but not very big, so we took a lot of time to clean and organize it to make it look more spacious. Everybody wants big closets, so put some effort into cleaning yours out to make them seem bigger. Only keep the clothes you’re going to be wearing that season, and store or discard everything else. Make sure your shelves look clean and organized too, and don’t leave anything on the floor.

6. Organize Basement/Storage Space

Our house had a big unfinished basement, which was great, but over the years we had let it turn into a giant mess. Nobody wants to walk into a giant mess, even if it’s a basement or storage space. Pack away extra items and stack boxes and tubs in one section of the room so that there’s still plenty of space to walk around. You want every room in your house to feel spacious, including the storage rooms.

7. Clear Out Bulky Furniture

Like I said above, you want every room in your house to feel spacious, so if you have extra furniture consider moving it out to make the room feel a little bigger. This is especially true if any of the furniture blocks the flow of traffic into a space. We moved out the chair in the living room and the chair in our bedroom to create a little more space in both rooms and make them feel more open.

8. Show a Little Personality

Decluttering is important, but you don’t want to clear out absolutely everything that gives your home some personality. I think leaving some pictures on the wall and showcasing a few treasured personal items is perfectly fine, and it can help buyers picture themselves in it. And while neutrals are great, don’t be afraid of showing a little color, especially through accessories that will be moved out with you.

I know someone that completely renovated their home before listing it, and while they did a lovely job, they didn’t stage it at all. They moved out all their furniture during the renovation and only moved in the bare essentials (couch and bed) when they were done. The house had no color and no personality, and it took a long time to sell.

If you’re in a similar situation, it can be advantageous to hire stagers to make your home more appealing to buyers. It’s more money upfront, but it's worth it if it helps your house sell faster.

9. Hide Personal Items

For this one I’m talking about things like medicines, bras, tampons, etc. They’re things everyone has, but nobody wants to see them when they’re touring a home. This probably seems obvious, but I’ve noticed all of these things during our house-hunting search. I bought a cloth basket to put tampons and other personal items in so that they wouldn’t be visible to buyers. Before you list your home, walk through it like a potential buyer and take notice of anything you wouldn’t want a stranger to see, and make a plan to move those things out of sight.

Also keep in mind that everyone likes to peek into cabinets and drawers too, so remember that when you’re organizing everything.

10. Pay Attention to Scent

You want your house to look and smell really clean when buyers tour it, so be sure to take out the trash, remove smelly items from the fridge, and clean the litter box before buyers come through. Also do not cook anything with a strong odor prior to showings! If there are areas of the house that might still smell a little unpleasant (like near a litter box), you could put a clean smelling (not floral or tropical) air freshener in that part of the house, but otherwise I would suggest not using any artificial scents. Even if you typically love scented candles, etc, you don’t want those scents to overpower the house. Plus, some people are really sensitive to smells, and you don’t want too many air fresheners to ruin their perception of your house.

 

So there you have it, my top 10 tips for getting your house sold fast. For those of you who have sold a home before, do you agree with my list? Is there anything you feel like I left out?

Thrifty Find: Faux Bamboo Chairs

Over the past several years that I’ve been reading design blogs I’ve noticed that faux bamboo furniture has been popping up all over the place. I don’t really know where this trend began but I love it! I especially love a good faux bamboo chair at a desk or dining table.

via Better Homes & Gardens

via Southern Living

via Glitter Guide

via ColorDrunk

via Jonathan Adler

I’ve been hunting for inexpensive bamboo pieces for a long time, and with a few exceptions (like my awesome mirror), I haven’t had a lot of luck. Turns out that the Midwest isn’t the hotspot of Chinoiserie furniture, who knew?

But I finally had a spot of luck the other day when I came across a set of four faux bamboo Thomasville chairs on Craigslist for $300. I really only needed one chair, but the seller had another buyer interested in two chairs and would only sell me the other two. I didn’t want to lose this purchase so I went ahead and bought two of them, but I did negotiate the price down from $150 to $115 for two armless chairs. It may not be thrift store prices but I think they’re well worth it, especially because they’re in perfect condition. The previous owner had used a sprayer to repaint them and she recovered the seats in a durable black faux-leather vinyl. Plus it’s much less than you would pay for two new chairs, especially ones this stylish.

I’m using one as my desk chair and the other is hanging out next to the fireplace in the living room, although I may end up moving it someplace else. I tried it in the entryway but I missed the color of the dining chair that’s there now.

What do you think? Have you jumped on the faux bamboo bandwagon yet? Or have you found any other treasures on Craigslist lately?

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday everyone! Here are a few things I’m loving right now.

The Kate Spade Outlet

Two things on the top of my “obsessed with” list are Kate Spade and finding a great bargain, so it’s no surprise that I’m completely in love with the Kate Spade outlet store. I stopped by the new outlet mall in Chesterfield, MO (right outside St. Louis) on my way home from a wedding there a few weeks ago. It happened to be right before my birthday so of course I had to pick up a couple birthday presents for myself! And the store itself is so adorable, I could have spent all day there!

Trader Joe’s Flowers

Fresh flowers are such an easy way to add color and life to a space, and it’s easy to justify buying them when they’re as cheap as they are at Trader Joe’s! In the last two weeks I’ve bought two big bunches of snapdragons for $6 each and an arrangement with the most beautiful roses for only $4! I’ve split them up into various arrangements so I get an even bigger bang for my buck. I also bought a big, gorgeous orchid plant for only $13. I’ve heard they’re tricky to keep alive but so far so good, and if I do happen to kill it I’m not out too much money.

I also picked up a super cute blue striped table runner and some bright yellow napkins from HomeGoods to decorate my table for a summer dinner I hosted for a couple friends. I love how much they liven up the table!

Katherine Vo’s Orange County Home Tour on The Everygirl

I love most of the Home Tours on The Everygirl but I’m especially impressed with Katherine Vo’s house. The color palette is perfect: white, black, gold, and peacock blue with pops of pink thrown in. I love the glamorous feel and the fact that she achieved her look on a budget and with the help of a lot of DIY projects! See the whole house tour here.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

The Brass Menagerie

Last week I blogged about my love/obsession for brass and I showed you how some of my favorite bloggers have decorated with brass. Today it’s time to show you my brass collection and how I’ve incorporated it into my house, starting with my office then going through the living room and finishing with the cute little nook in the kitchen.

Pretty much all of my brass collection was bought at thrift stores, consignment stores, or antique stores, with a few gifts from my mom thrown in. All of the candlesticks were really inexpensive: the skinny ones on top of the hutch are part of a set of seven that cost $9, and the big ones on the mantle were $3 each. Other cheapies include the pitcher on the lamp shelf that I bought for $3 and the brass and mother of pearl duck that cost $4. I think the most expensive item was the elephant which cost $19, but it’s really big and heavy and worth a lot more than $19 IMO.

I have a few more pieces that didn’t make it into the pictures but that’s most of my brass assortment. Anyone else into collecting vintage brass?

My Landscape Makeover

Hello friends! Last week I told you I was working on a big post about my house’s landscaping makeover and today I am delivering on that promise!

Here is the “before” shot of our house. I love our house, inside and out, but the landscaping was not so great.

There were three big problems that we wanted to address:

1. The horrible, overgrown evergreen bushes.
2. The ugly flowerbed area that doesn’t have anything growing in it 90% of the time.
3. The empty area on the side of the house where we pulled out an ugly and overgrown bush.

I also wanted to replace the porch lights for something a little more stylish. The other arrow in the photo points to an existing flowering plant that is gorgeous when it blooms for about 2 weeks out of the year but looks like a giant weed the rest of the time. It had to go! 

We ended up hiring a landscaping company to take care of our makeover. Neither Ben nor I know much about plants and we didn’t the time or equipment to do the work properly. I’m really happy we decided not to DIY; it looks great and it was all taken care of while we were in Palm Beach!

Ready for the “after” photos?

 

Much better! It looks so much cleaner and intentional. The plants are all fairly small now but when they grow they’ll spread out and make more of a statement.

Looks great from the street doesn’t it!

The plants in the back are hydrangeas, they’ll be so pretty when they start flowering! And we did replace the porch lights for these cute bronze ones from Home Depot.

We also added some hanging flower baskets and potted flower arrangements to give more color and interest to the porch. We planted the hanging baskets ourselves and we were planning to do the same for the potted flowers but we saw these arrangements at our local Westlake Ace Hardware store for $35 each. Pretty, affordable, and ready to go? Perfect!

The front of our house feels so much fresher and brighter now, don’t you think?

I still want to add a bench or a couple chairs to the porch so we have a little seating area. I’ll be back tomorrow or Friday with some affordable pieces that I’m considering, I’m hoping you’ll weigh in and help me figure out which one to get!