Make an Entrance: Warm Up Your Entryway This Winter

Winter. It’s a time of crisp air, gently falling snow, and piles of coats, slushy boots and soggy mittens in your front hall. This season, make your entryway organized and inviting. Here’s how:

Make first impressions count. Give your door a fresh coat of glossy paint, and put down a new doormat. Hang a nice winter wreath or plant an evergreen in a sturdy urn.

Store your stuff out of sight. If you don’t have enough closet space, add storage by hiding a garment rack behind a curtain, using an armoire, installing a coat tree or hall stand, or by trying one of these storage ideas:
- A bench with built-in storage holds your stuff and offers a convenient spot to sit down and put your boots on.
- A small bookshelf with labeled baskets is good for storing small items.
- A chest of drawers can make your front hall look more like a furnished room, and it gives you a surface for photos, a lamp or incoming mail.

Stay in season. Move non-winter items to a different part of your home. Leave some extra space and extra hangers for your guests’ coats.

Tame your shoes. Set a limit to how many pairs each person can keep by the door, and install a shoe rack to keep footwear organized. Avoid putting boots on a mat that doesn’t drain ? they won’t dry properly and the leather will get damaged. A perforated tray with a mat underneath will let your footwear drip-dry.

Hook it. Heavy-duty hooks keep backpacks, scarves, purses and coats off the floor. Hang them at a height where kids can reach them to make it easy for them to put away their things.

Make a place for your misplaceables. How much time do you spend hunting for keys, sunglasses, cell phones and dog leashes? Dedicate a basket or bowl to these important items by the front door, and you’ll never have to search under the couch cushions again.

Design idea 1: Install a hook and small shelf for each person, and stencil their name on the wall beside it.

Design idea 2: Hang an ornate frame and fill the blank space in the middle with small, pretty key hooks.

Floor décor. Offer a warm welcome with a soft, washable rug that doesn’t show dirt easily. Put a mat outside, too; wiping your feet before you go in will mean less muck and less cleaning.

Don’t forget to decorate. Paint your entryway a striking colour, hang a graceful mirror, incorporate family photos or a favourite piece of art, add a table lamp and an accessory or two. Make it welcoming and beautiful. After all, it’s the first place people see when they come into your home.

Source: Royal LePage

Should your house be staged before you sell?

To Stage or Not to Stage – that is the question!
by Sveta Melchuk

Staging a Home for sale will cost you money. Is it worth spending time and effort on it? After all, once the decision to sell has been made, you just want to get it over with as fast as possible, right?

First, did you determine the «right» price for your house? It should be based on certain objective criteria, such as the location of the property, sale price of comparable homes in your neighbourhood and today’s market conditions. But don’t forget the desirability factor…
While you can’t control some of the other criteria, you definitely have a say in the way your property looks, feels and is perceived by prospective buyers. Increase the visual/emotional value of your property and you will increase its desirability, therefore the price and the urgency to buy it from potential buyers. Why?

It’s the perception of the value that counts. The first impressions make a big difference in the way we perceive a person, an object or a service and, subconsciously, the decision is taken within the first 90 seconds on whether we’ll be «buying» and what value we assign to it.

Even before the prospective buyers set foot in your house, they are probably shopping on the Internet, checking the photos of the properties available in the selected neighbourhood and within their budget. They will make an opinion about your property based on what they see in the pictures and they will decide right there whether it’s worth their time to visit in person. If you have not managed to draw them in at this stage, you might have lost dozens, maybe hundreds of visitors to your house!

Your strategy should be to make the BEST first impression possible, in the Virtual world and for all the prospective buyers who will come to your door. Once they are visiting, make them focus on the property’s best features and show them the value of what they are getting. Choosing a particular house is a largely emotional decision, so make them choose yours. Statistics clearly demonstrate that a clean, spacious and well decorated home sells faster and for more money than other comparable properties.

Staging uses some simple but highly effective techniques to make your house look its best in preparation for sale. So, by spending a few hundred dollars on preparing your house properly, you will be gaining a lot more at the sale time. And staging services cost much less than a price «adjustment» on the house!

So should your house be staged before you sell?

This article was written by Sveta Melchuk from www.Home-Staging-Montreal.com. A Montreal firm specializing in Home Staging and Interior Re-design services.