The Rooms that Inspire Me

ROBERT COUTOURIER

This man is a genius. I remember when I opened Elle Decor to this photo and sat there for a long time staring at it.  First, I stared at the beautiful, bold color choices, and then I sat for another half hour studying the choices he made in fabrics, color combinations, bold gestures and his ability to take periods and styles of furniture and come up with a stunning mix of everything.  I never get tired of looking at this photo and turn to it for inspiration if I feeling a little bored with interior design.


Here are a couple more shots of his New York apartment.

Study him. It will reward you with boldness.

KATIE RIDDER

Next on my list of inspirational rooms is one by Katie Ridder.

Another room with an inspired color choice of mauve, orange and various greens and gold. A nice mix of chic eclectic and middle eastern influences.

Below are a couple of rooms from her own home.

Her color choices always intrigue me because they are unexpected, bold and carefully chosen all at the same time. Her attention to detail (see that second photo of the bedside table) is curated and casual.  

This next photo is from a home she decorated in Arkansas. A fearless choice of colors for the dining room if there ever was one.

This dining room is inside a house that is, otherwise, subdued in terms of color.  This makes a statement and gives the viewer permission to try unusual color combinations that appeal to him.

JEFFREY BILHUBER

And then there's Jeffrey Bilhuber. Color confidence par excellence.  Look at a few of these beauties.

These photos remind me of the importance of letting your furniture float away from the walls where the room is large enough to allow that.  He loves the occasional chairs that can be pulled up to any conversation area but can stand alone too. Bilhuber has such a command of the color spectrum and each room is perfectly balance in color, scale and proportion.

Each of these designers exhibit a complete control and mastery of their craft matched with an absolutely fearless imagination.  Their rooms exude a wonderful joy of life and love of color that help me see what is possible when you just let go and do what you love.  Do these rooms help you let go too?

Out with the "great room", In with the "living triangle"

My last home had a very large "great room" or family room as they're sometimes called, opening directly from the kitchen. It was a large 20 foot by 20 foot space where all the activities of daily family life took place.  We lived there for 18 years, and the truth is, I was never in love with all that openness. While I understand the idea of being connected to what's going on in the great room while you are busy in the kitchen, I always wished for a little more privacy, because sometimes you don't want to be aware of everything going on at all times.  The downside of the great room for me was that there was no sense of enclosure, and as much as I tried to love it, I never could.

 Maybe that was because the builder never thought through the design of the kitchen/great room completely. While the kitchen had the appropriate place for prepping, cooking and eating, the great room often just looked like the "great big messy room". In the past couple of decades, the way to cure that was to build a large "entertainment center" 9 or 10 feet long with drawers and cupboards to stuff your mess. But when TVs went flat-screen and audio components got miniscule in size, those entertainment centers became obsolete as we tried to slim down our lives, eliminate clutter and simplify everything.

Even TV units are becoming "integrated" into room design,  instead of sticking out like sore thumbs that say "Here I am. The TV". Remember these?

Old style integration

In the 90's before the flat- screen TV, you needed a large unit to house the deep TV monitor, so people just built extra-large units to house everything. Now it looks so dated, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, right?

So what's happening to the ubiquitous "great room"?

 Apparently, new home builders are gravitating towards new concepts like "drop zones", "lifestyle spaces" and the "living Triangle".

 The kitchen remains as the hub of the home, but instead of having one big family room attached for daily activities, the thought is to make zones within the kitchen and the great room specifically designed for homework or food prep.  These "lifestyle spaces" help owners break up the larger space into smaller, digestible parts. Architects now talk of "integrated" living where spaces are connected to and radiate from the kitchen into a "living triangle".

 New integration

Traditional Home Office by Other Metro Design-build English Heritage Homes of Texas

Above is a nice example of integration  - childrens' work stations built in near kitchen table for meals, meetings, games, and nice big couch for reading, studying or watching TV.

 "Drop zones" are becoming popular in new building too.   A "drop zone" is simply a well-delineated space at the entrance to a room where keys, bags and electronics can be "dropped"on arrival.  It may be a dedicated entry space with a table with a drawer, lamp, mirror and charging station. But the idea is that the "stuff" we carry around with us has a place to land when we come in.

   

Traditional Kitchen by Decatur Kitchen And Bath Renewal Design-Build   
                                   

Larger "drop zone" with phone, drawer, shelf inside newer intergrated kitchen with TV and seating.

Small, but efficient "drop zone inside door

Traditional Entry by Jasper Cabinets MasterBrand Cabinets, Inc.
Nice drop zone with charging station, baskets, drawers and cubbies.

None of this is a surprise given the modern tendency towards reducing clutter and the wish for simplification of daily life.

So, if you are going to sell your 1990's home with the massive family room, how can you make it more appealing to today's buyers who do not want to walk in and see a large, undefined space?

 Well, without extensive remodeling, you can borrow some of concepts that home stagers and designers have been using all along.

• keep both kitchen and great room spaces tied together using the same wall color
• if possible, keep common finishes in the floor, furniture finishes, moldings and fabric selections
• with the demise of large entertainment centers, contain audio-visual clutter in smaller, sleeker units that don't overwhelm the room visually. 
• keep a "drop zone" at the entrance of every room where the day's "clutter" can be dropped and not brought into the living areas. Even if you don't have alot of space, baskets, a row of hooks and a small mounted shelf with a tray can do the same job.
• carve out a "zones" in the kitchen and great room where specific activities take place: homework nooks for kids with a surface and drawers that can double as the home organizing zone where bills get paid and papers are filed. Use drawers and storage at the same site where the activity takes place to avoid clutter and searching for items.
• entertainment nooks where games (electronic and board) are stored and played.
• The key is to have "a place for everything and everything in its place".

This kind of organizational approach to family living can be done in any size home on any budget.  I have always found that the smaller the space you are dealing with, the more efficient you become and the less "stuff" controls your life.

Baby Boomers - If You Know You Want to Sell Think Sooner, not Later

Last year, my husband and I sold our 3500 square foot home on half an acre in an affluent town in Fairfield County, Connecticut.  I called this our "Perfect Storm" move, because it really came about as several things converged all at once -  new businesses for both my husband and I, last child left for college and the realization that we just didn't want all of "it" anymore.  The "it" in question was all of the financial and mental responsibility that comes with maintaining a house of that size, and the general feeling of "been there, done that".

So, up went the sale sign and within a few weeks, we had a buyer.

I staged our home which took some time and a little money, but the freedom and decent profit from the sale gave both of us breathing room while we begin to think through the next stage of life.

I have to say that I am glad it is behind us, especially when I read reports of the "great senior sell-off" that may be heading our way by the end of the decade. The problem as it is reported by Nelson Metro Research Center is that the Baby Boomers have started to retire, and that is going to change the housing landscape big- time. Between 1990 and 2010, the boomers reached their peak family size and income, and 77% of the new housing starts in that period were driven by this crowd. Now that the boomers are moving on, many of them downsizing, the question becomes, who will be there to buy these larger boomer homes at the prices the sellers are looking for?

Demographics tells us that the Hispanic population is growing rapidly, but the education gap that still exists ...that there will not be enough people with the income to buy these homes. As the baby boomers continue to retire year after year for the next twenty years, 1.5- 2 million homes could be coming on the market every year by the end of the decade.  The problem is, if there are not enough qualified buyers to buy these homes, these houses may become less valuable or even "unsellable" depending on where they are in the country.

The data that Nelson mined from the 2010 Census is revealing on these issues.

• 49% of housing owned by those 55+
• 29% of housing owned by those 65+
• only 29% of housing in America is owned free and clear 
• 50% of that 29% is owned by those who are 65+
• Americans have little equity in their homes in general
• by 2020 (only 6 years away) there will be 35 Million over 65 households, placing 200,000 more homes on the market than there are new households to buy them.
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What does all of this mean for those of you Baby Boomers who are thinking of selling your home in the next few years? A few things come to mind. A lot of baby boomers have seen their homes lose value in the recent housing crisis, and many are postponing retirement because they need to add to their retirement funds.  Even if you're not planning on retirement and/or sale of a home soon, there's no time like the present to prepare for the possibility. Chances are your home will be in competition with many others, and the principles of good home staging will become even more important in those circumstances.

Some tips are:

• do a complete assessment of your home NOW using a checklist that Professional Home Stagers use before listing a home for sale.  I have a list that will serve as a good starting point for you.
• if you do have major repairs or replacements to do, schedule them starting soon and spread them out over time so that you do not incur large expenses all at once.  I found this out when I needed to do substantial repairs on the outside and inside of our home which were costly.
• get advise on what repairs will get you a reasonable return on investment when you go to sell and which are just excessive and unnecessary.
• it is never too early to begin divesting yourself of excess STUFF and CLUTTER.  If you have alot of attic, garage and basement clutter, start sooner rather than later.  THIS IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF A MOVE,  BECAUSE IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO SLOW DOWN THE ENTIRE PROCESS. Don't wait until the month before you list.
• If you have lived in your home for a long time (more than 20 years), you made need help figuring out what today's buyers are looking for in a property, and what things will turn them off. It is a good idea to get opinions from your real estate agent and a professional home stager who can help you decide where you money is best spent on your "sprucing up" of the property.
• give some good, hard thought to the idea of "aging in place", that is, staying in your home until your 80's or 90's. Chances are the market will have collapsed with so many boomers looking to sell homes. The cost of keeping and maintaining a home is a fixed cost you may not want to bear in those later years. You don't want to be "aging in place" involuntarily because you cannot sell your home.

The baby boomer generation will be the largest class of retirees we've ever seen. They'll need to think through their housing options sooner rather than later to get the most out of that retirement.

Is there Such a Thing as TOO MUCH Staging?

I read an article last week in the Wall Street Journal where the writer and home seller, June Fletcher, wondered whether there was such a thing as "too much staging" when your house goes on the market. Although she didn't come to any conclusion in spite of her provocative title, she did thank her home stager for doing a great job. And, its looks like staging might have helped after all, because this week,  she announced that she had an offer on her house.

But, she raised a good question, "Is there such a thing as too much staging"? My answer to that is, maybe, but not likely.

Here's why.

Yes, as June said, HGTV and internet sources have brought us all into each other's kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms, which, like all progress, brings an upside and a downside. Upside is that we can now learn what everyone else is doing to improve their home and borrow those ideas ourselves if we wish.

Both HOUZZ and Pinterest demonstrate this.  People are checking out these sites in droves.

But, the downside is that you run the risk of "everybody's house looking the same", because most amateurs start out by using similar ideas and products. However, when you want to sell your house, this is not a negative. Because the truth is that if you really want to sell your home, you will have to appeal to the maximum number of buyers, which means you need to be up to date in your understanding of what the buyers for your specific home expect to see.

June complained that after staging, her home was devoid of her personality, and while it looked more spacious, it had "lost much of its character". And, this is where most sellers go wrong about the purpose of staging in the first place.  It comes down to this.

When you decide to sell your home, you must detach from it emotionally.  It's not longer your home.  You have to let it become a house instead.  When you detach in this way, you will then be able to put yourself in the buyer's shoes and see the house as a product to be marketed.

And, really, that is the point.  Your goal in selling has to be to get the highest possible dollar for the house in the shortest possible time.  To get this, you will be catering to the wants and needs of those buyers who are best matched with what your house (not home) has to offer. And, these buyers need to form an emotional connection with the house to get them interested in making an offer.  Once the buyer has moved into their new house (your old house), they will once again begin the process of personalizing it for their own lifestyles and needs.

When a buyer says something like, "We knew when we walked in the door that this was the house for us", they have made an emotional connection. And, that connection starts when they can visualize their new home in your house.

This won't happen if your house is so full of your own personality and history that the buyer can't picture herself living there because there is no"space" for that emotional connection to happen.

That's where a good stager can really help- by making the house open and appealing to a large number of people by making"space", literally and figuratively, for that emotional connection to happen.

They do that by removing personal items and keepsakes, storing collections, removing excess clutter and keeping the flow of the house open, so that a prospective buyer can imprint their own feelings, attachment and personality on what used to be your space.

Getting an offer on your house in a week's time is a pretty good indication that however your house was staged, it was probably the right amount. Most stagers would never feel the need to gild the lily by putting in unnecessary elements.  With "just the right amount" of staging, you allow the right buyer to offer you the most money as quickly as possible, to turn your house into their home.

YOU are the 97% - who don't use Interior Designers

One of the things I said when I started this blog was that the beginning of the 20th century saw the birth of interior design with Wharton's The Decoration of Houses, which was really an amateur's (albeit a self-educated one's) decorating treatise, and that, now, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are seeing a rebirth of the amateur decorator who is being educated by those pioneers as well as books, television, websites and blogs.

Excellent book on the rise of American interior design by Adam Lewis

In between, we had the rise of interior design grand ladies like de Wolfe, Draper, Elkins and the like, and formal design schools to educate a new guild of interior designers that only a handful of wealthy people could afford. Over the past century, more people with disposable incomes have hired designers, but the vast majority of us have not.  I saw recent comments in a gathering of high-end designers suggesting that the "1% is happily buying again...and the 2%ers, the credit card money that wanted to look like old money, is over". So, you see, most of us were never really part of that equation.  We kind of stood on the outside with our noses pressed against the window at all the pretty stuff.

 OK. So, the rest of us, the 97%,  are becoming our own decorators, and technology is making it all alot easier in terms of access to goods.

Susanna Salk's 2012 book that received Albert Hadley's blessing

The new century with its new technology for the masses combines entertainment, education and commerce so effectively that you could decorate an entire room without leaving your chair in front of the computer! As a result of 24/7 access to design, modern consumers face the opposite problem - how not to get blinded by so much choice and overwhelmed with possibilities.  When that happens to you, you can get stuck in the process and your room dreams die.

So, with information overload, what is the secret to getting what you want from our vast new design universe? At the risk of sounding overly simplified, my formula is:

A dream, a plan, a budget and some friendly assistance.

That's it. It's not more complicated. And don't let anybody tell you otherwise. I got annoyed when I saw a recent article in a local shelter magazine bewailing the state of the professional interior design (that is those with the ASID credentials), blaming HGTV, the internet and the"phony" non-credentialed decorators for taking their business.

 But really, today's consumer is more educated, more confident about what they like and dislike, and  mostly they want to work with someone who LISTENS to what they want for their home. The old design model (we are the experts and you aren't) is broken and it is never coming back. Heck, it never really applied to most of us.

The Dream:

That is just what it sounds like. How do you want your home to look, to function, to feel when you walk into the room? If you think that you don't know how to describe how you want it to look and feel, you just need to break it down into bite-size steps. Some questions to ask yourself:

• what features and furniture does the room need to accommodate? Is it for pleasure, reading, working, family activities or some combination of these things.
• after I meet the functional requirements of the room, what would it be nice to have in the room? what would take it from merely functional to fabulous?
• what are my inspirational touchstones for the room? am I a nature lover who wants alot of nature's colors and natural materials in a room?  Is there a color scheme I am in love with that I want to play with in this room?

If you're having trouble with verbalizing the dream, take cues from magazine and internet photos from Pinterest and others.  When you have a pile of "likes", take the time to go through the photos and specifically note what it is about the room you like.  Is is color combinations, furniture style, fabric
choices?
Is there a particular "feeling" the room gives you?  Try to narrow in on what is going on in that room that gives it that feeling.  The more you can identify what you like and dislike in photos, the closer you get to understanding your own style and inspirations.


The Plan:

Now, a broad plan is always a good idea because it keeps you on track with your design goals for a particular space. Obviously "floor plans" are needed so that you can be sure your furniture choices will fit into the space.  I think of this as "technical" planning in a room and it must be done.
But, beyond that, I like to think of Albert Hadley's dictum:

Forget the floor plans. Arrange the furniture where it is the most comfortable and will look best.          

   Albert Hadley - The Story of America's Preeminent Interior Designer

The Budget:

One of the things that a lot of people don't like to talk about is BUDGET.  Often, people think they can begin a project and "see where we go with it", without ever considering the budget seriously.
I can tell you that, certainly, with any substantial project, it's imperative to at least sketch out some basic numbers. Otherwise, you will find yourself unable to make purchasing decisions, usually, because you think you might find an item cheaper somewhere else.  You will tend to go round and round, and most likely abandon the project out of frustration. In my experience, with no budget discussion you are really wasting your time if you are starting with an empty room.  If you have an approximate number, that is at least a starting point.

It often helps to sit down with the decorator, and come up with a range of costs for the basic components of the room.  For example: in a bedroom, develop a budget that includes the following
elements:

 bed:  upholstered, wood, iron, etc?  

 carpet:  broadloom, area carpet, wool, silk, natural fibre, etc? 

lighting fixtures: ceiling, side tables 

case goods: dressers, nightstands,

Accessories package: bedding and linens, throws, pillows, drapes

Unless you have unlimited funds, there is no other sensible way to approach the budget portion.


Assistance:
 Remember, sometimes all you need is a little help in pulling your ideas together to get started on a project.  Most decorators will offer services by the hour so that you can get advice if you are stuck.  Many common design dilemmas (poor use of space, dated color palettes, clutter problems), can be solved with just a little outside help.

It's a new century and a lot of us will be learning about interior design from many sources.

If you need a bit of help with your design dilemmas, call us at Fearless Edith. We'll be happy to help.

  

How To Sell Your Home: The Exterior

All stagers and real estate professionals talk about the "curb appeal" of homes. If you want the potential buyer to look inside your home, the exterior must say, "Welcome, please...come in".

The truth is, curb appeal has never been more important, because in 2013, a potential buyer is going to start his search on the internet, long before he drives by the actual property. A full 90% of home buyers today use the Internet to search for home, up from the 90's when online search by buyers was still in the single digits.

Add a drive-by look to that online look at your home, and you see how important it is to keep the exterior in top condition if you want to attract the buyer.

Google and The National Association of Realtors undertook a study in 2012 called "The Digital House Hunt: Consumer and Market Trends in Real Estate", profiling home buyers and sellers use of the internet in conducting real estate searches. Some astounding figures that everyone in the business of  buying or selling a home should be aware of are here;

• online searches on google rose 253% over the past 4 years,
• 90% of house hunters searched online with 52% making it their first step in the process
• those who searched performed an average of 11 searches prior to taking an action
• new home buyers are interested in virtual tours and videos showcasing properties
• buyers searched for homes an average of 3 weeks before contacting an agent and 40% of new home buyers did not contact an agent for 120 after the start of a search

So, if you're selling you home, potential buyers can see your home 24/7 on the web in addition to the physical drive-by of the property.  With all that exposure, it makes sense to leave nothing to chance when it comes to the exterior of your home.

While this list is not exhaustive, these are the top 17 places to put your attention.

1. Start down at the bottom of the driveway. Clean the salt, sand and any other debris from the   driveway and curb. Hook up the hose and clean the entire driveway. If the asphalt needs repair, schedule it soon, because the temperature has to be high enough for repairs to be done.
2. Check your walkways for heaving stones and cracks. Don't overlook these hazards and repair.
3. Pick up all winter debris from lawns and garden beds. Rake and mulch if the ground permits.
4. Walk around the perimeter of your house and check for loose siding, water damage to window  frames and loose roof shingles.
5. Check to see if house requires a power washing, minor paint touch-up or a full repainting.
6. If you have a porch, sweep and clean or blow away debris.

7. Your front door says it all. If it needs a repainting after a brutal winter, pick out the color and wait for the weather to be mild enough to paint.
8. Front door hardware-is it broken, aged or outdated? Do not give it a second thought if any of these things apply.  Choose a modern rubbed bronze or satin silver door handle, lockset and door knocker that coordinates with the paint color.
9. Mailboxes: if yours is in the front door, make certain it is secure and in good condition. If it is a stand-up mailbox at the road, make sure it's standing straight and looks sturdy. If not, replace.
10. Porch lights and property lanterns:  take them apart and clear out debris and clean all glass panes. Check that the bulbs in all the fixtures are working.

13. Do a gutter and drain clean out.
14. After the outside cleaning and painting work is done, clean windows inside and out.

15. Add spring flowers in beds by the curb, sides or walkways where people notice them, and in pots where appropriate on your porch.
16. Your garage door should be assessed for cleaning and painting, and make sure the garage interior gets some attention too.  All your winter shovels, sleds and salt should be organized and the interior swept.
17. If you have a backyard pool and recreation area, arrange your outdoor furniture after it is cleaned, and set up other outdoor equipment like barbeques and umbrella stands. If you are selling before you pool officially opens, take off the pool cover and begin the cleaning as soon as possible.

Get inside the Buyer's Head to Sell Your House

So, you're going to sell your home.  Congratulations! You want a good price with little negotiation, a short time on the market and a speedy closing. Well, in today's uncertain market, you're more likely to get your wish if you stop thinking like a seller and don the hat of the buyer.

Real estate professionals have told us for years that once a house goes on the market, it stops being someone's "home" and quickly becomes a commodity that will sell best if it follows proven marketing principles.  You need the right price, the right market conditions and the right buyer to get to a binding contract.

And, you are up against today's buyers, who have sophisticated tastes as well as the advantage of seeing photographs of your home on the internet before they even drive by the property. To increase your chances of a successful sale in this environment, follow this very important rule:

Remember: You must put yourself in the buyer's shoes, and see with the buyer's eyes.

You might already know that many home stagers start to get you in the buyer's mind by recommending that your home be "depersonalized" or neutralized by removing personal objects including photographs, memorabilia, and items that speak specifically to you and your family's interests.  They know that not everyone touring your home will appreciate your Victorian insect collection, which is when "neutralizing" makes sense.  These suggestions go along with the other standard recommendations of de-cluttering and super cleaning.

But putting yourself in the buyer's shoes takes a little practice. Why? Because we all get used to our surroundings over time, and don't notice things a first-time viewer might. So, if you chose a wild leopard patterned wallpaper for your powder room because you liked the "wow" factor, chances are, while you barely notice it anymore, the new viewer will be overwhelmed. You MUST remove decorative elements that are always largely a matter of personal taste.

Remember: You are selling your house, not your taste.

That's why any homeowner thinking of selling a home will benefit from the view of an objective observer skilled in what today's real estate buyers want. I often find that, as a stager, I can pick up on many subtle things that have either positive or negative impact on a buyer's perception of your property.

So, even if we don't work together on your pre-sale consultation, here's a tip that might help - an exercise I do whenever I begin staging a home. Try it and see if it helps you spot where your rooms might not be living up to a prospective buyer's expectations.

Here is the KEY: Assume the stance of an objective outsider.  Suspend any judgment about your rooms. Your job is to observe.

With that in mind, I want you to imagine this is the first time you are seeing your home.  You will have the chance to wander through the rooms, noting all of the good features and the not so good ones.

Stand outside of each room and close your eyes. Tell yourself that when you open them, you will be looking for the room's true potential. How do you do that?

Allow the spaces speak to you. Are there corners that need to be cleared out, are there nice  architectural elements that have been hidden by furniture or clutter? Are there simple cosmetic changes that could be made for little or no money and effort?  If you could present your home's very best face to the world, ask yourself what simple changes could help reveal your home's true potential?

Here are a couple examples from the my own experience.

When I sold my home this past year, it took only 21 days from listing to accepted offer and I think I know why I got this result.  My method was the tip I just mentioned. In my walk-around, I knew that the sunroom off the kitchen was a MAJOR selling point, but it was not living up to its potential.  It had become a storage area, a sewing room and a sunporch.

So, I took everything out that was not purely "sun porch" in nature, painted and primped until its real earning potential was clear.

Our sunroom with a clear and distinct purpose

Remember:   Rooms with clear identities help sell houses.

 Remember, when selling your home, you are really in the business of showing buyers how your home can fulfill their needs and desires, so take the opportunity to leave that impression in every room.

Here's another example from my own home sale:

We had an 18 year-old kitchen that was in good working condition, but it was ready for an update. (generally, kitchens are ready for an update at 15 years) It may not look so bad here, but the cabinets were beginning to take on a yellowish cast that was not very attractive.

However, the kitchen had the great advantage of looking out onto a fabulous pool and garden area.
Instead of worrying about the outmoded kitchen, I used the outdoor scene to my advantage by luring your eye there as soon as your entered the kitchen.

This photo gives you a view of the kitchen with a peek of the pool outside in the bottom right corner.

By painting the kitchen a natural wicker color that blended with the older cabinetry and using a modern blue patterned panel at the window, I "framed" the outside view so that the kitchen, although still in the foreground, commanded less attention because your eye went straight to the fabulous outdoor area. I wanted to conjure up a vision for a buyer - a "vision" of what it would be like to spend the summer in that "California" style yard.

Now, of course I updated the kitchen faucet to a stainless version and added coordinated hardware to cabinets but I focused more on creating the "vista" that would compel buyers to go outside where their imaginations could be captured.

And guess what? People walked straight to the sliding glass doors in the kitchen to look outside.  It is there that their imaginations put them in the yard on a hot summer day, enjoying the water and gardens. I simply hooked into the buyer's emotional state.  I'm sure it had the added effect of making you forget (temporarily) that the kitchen could use some updating to the fixed features (cabinetry, counters etc).  In that way, the positive cancelled out the negative aspects, so the prospective buyer didn't "tick off" a negative box right away and was willing to keep looking.

Remember: Accentuate the positive and play down the negative

That's important because every time a potential buyer is even slightly put off by something, it increases the chance that their interest in your property will decline.  Remember that today's buyers have very high expectations, even if they seem too high or unreasonable by your standards.

A couple of photos of the view of the yard:

So if you're not using a home stager (and I think you should- it's a relatively small investment with a big upside), here is what you might want to do BEFORE you list.

• Make a map of the interior and exterior of your house, with lots of room to record your impressions.
• Stand at every entry and exit point in the house and imagine seeing each view for the very first time.  (I like to close my eyes and take a deep breath)
• Do not attach emotionally to any thing or feeling you have in or about that room.
• Open your eyes and notice and write down anything obviously in need of improvement.
• Continue to scan the room, noticing the good features (maybe a set of french doors), as well as features you wish weren't there (maybe a broken piece of siding outside those doors).

This is not as difficult as it might sound, because most homeowners have spent at least a few hours daydreaming about how they would like their home to look.

Each time you stand at the threshold of a new room, do the same assessment suggested above and write down everything you have noticed. By the time you have surveyed the entire interior and exterior of the house, you will have compiled a list of the necessary pre-sale improvements that need to be done, what needs to be removed and how to best use what remains.

But, (and I think just as important) you will have adopted the "buyer mindset", which will get you to stop thinking of your house in an emotional way and prepare it to attract a modern buyer with modern expectations.