Montreal Real Estate Blog » Sveta

Top 6 tips to transform your space for staging or for living

Sveta Melchuk — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:07:14 +0000

Are you looking for a quick and efficient way to brighten up your space and make it look its best without spending too much? You can use these tips for staging your house for sale or for your own enjoyment.

These are some tips from decorators which will make each room stand out (and make your friends jealous of your talents?)

Each room has to have a ‘focal point’ or a main attraction. Either the room already has a natural focal point or you will have to create one and decorate around it. The easiest way is to look for an architectural feature of the room, if there is one. We will give you some examples and the ways to accentuate these features:

Do you have a fireplace? If you do, you already have the main attraction! Depending on the age and the look of it, you can bring it out by either changing the bricks, or painting them. If you need to enhance the fireplace, add the artificial stone around and above it all the way to the ceiling or paint the wall above it a different color. Then add a mantel and place some accessories on it. Don’t overdo it though – just a few well-chosen ones will suffice. A nice painting, a couple of candle holders, maybe even an interesting mirror… Complete the area by placing an area rug in front of it.

If there is a Half-wall in the room and you choose it as a focal point, you can transform it just by changing its color. Any opening to another room can be accentuated by changing the trim around the opening or the inside of the opening. This unexpected look will be sure to catch your visitors’ eye. You can achieve a similar effect with a dropped ceiling; paint it a tone darker than the walls to bring it out.

Any window can be an accent as well, especially if they are big and interesting or offer a nice view. One inexpensive option to bring them out is to paint the window trims a different color than the walls. New blinds, shades and curtains make a huge difference! By choosing the window treatments of the same color as the wall, you will achieve a more elegant and formal look. If you are looking for a more casual look, select the window treatments of a complementary color. For all the details on how to decorate with shades, blinds and shutters, please read http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/decorating-windows-with-shades-blinds-and-shutters.html. An important tip: long curtains make any window seem larger and the current trend is to have the curtains slightly train on the floor for an elegant image.

An Accent Wall brings a wow factor to even the most ordinary room. Usually, the accent wall will be the one next to another focal point (such as a fireplace or a window) if there is one or it will BECOME the focal point of that room. In that case, it should be the first wall you see when you enter a room or a wall on the side of the room. For example, you could accent the wall behind the bed; choose one wall in the living room or the back wall of the dining room so the dining room table is set against its backdrop. The accent wall is usually a darker and deeper color than the other walls. Not sure which color to choose for your accent wall? Find a color you like in a pillow, curtain, sofa or artwork and match a paint color to it for your accent wall.

Most of us don’t have enough lighting. Brighten and lighten your space and you won’t believe the difference. New light fixtures will modernize your décor and you can use lamps to accentuate spaces and objects in the rooms, such as a fireplace, an artwork or even a nice plant. Three main types of lighting should be present in every room. The general lighting could be overhead or recessed lighting for the whole room. As it is usually not sufficient and some rooms (such as the majority of living rooms in North America) don’t have any general lighting, you need to add accent lighting in specific areas, such as table lamps or stand up lamps. Finally, don’t forget task lighting, where needed, to accomplish a specific task, such as kitchen bar lights, or a reading lamp. For all the DOs and DONTs of lighting, please read http://interiordec.about.com/od/lighting/a/Lighting-Dos-And-Do-Nots.htm.

Artwork and accessories are the final touch, subtle but very important. Lamps, decorative cushions and carpeting are only a few of the many objects that you can accessorise with to add a color to a space and harmonise it. For example, if you prefer neutral colors on your walls and furniture, you could accentuate the space with a favorite color – such as apple green, deep purple or orange. Just add some cushions, artwork, and a few decorative objects and spread them around the room.

Whether you are preparing your house for sale or doing it to enjoy living in it, do a bit of research, collect some pictures of the rooms and looks you prefer, get some paint samples and then try it. Best of luck!

Posted By: Sveta Melchuk. Founder of Home Staging Montreal, a Montreal firm specializing in Home Staging and Interior Redesign. Simple and effective solutions, to help you sell your property faster and for more money. Call Sveta at: 514-482-9776 http://www.home-staging-montreal.com/

Les rénovations les plus payantes

Sveta Melchuk — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:00:35 +0000

Comme vous pouvez constater, il est possible d’accomplir beaucoup avec des petits moyens! Une professionnelle de home staging saura vous conseiller dans les priorités et les démarches à faire pour bien préparer votre maison à la vente. Cette étape est cruciale avant de compléter le tout avec un home staging pour un effet irrésistible!

Tout le monde souhaite maximiser la vente de sa maison mais est-ce que vous savez par où débuter?

On doit bien se préparer afin de réussir et cela prend un peu de temps, un peu d’argent et, surtout, de l’effort!
Dans cette partie de mon article, je vais discuter de la première étape – les travaux de rénovations qui augmenteront la valeur marchande de votre maison. La deuxième partie de l’article portera sur les astuces au niveau de home staging (ou la valorisation résidentielle) – à ne pas manquer!

Il faut distinguer, bien évidemment, les travaux majeurs des réparations et améliorations cosmétiques. Si vous avez l’intention d’habiter votre chez soi encore pendant quelque temps avant de procéder à la vente de votre maison, allez-y pour des rénovations majeurs mais surtout celles qui sont rentables.

Selon l’Institut canadien des évaluateurs les rénovations les plus payantes sont

Continue reading: Les rénovations les plus payantes

Renovations that generates the best return on investment

Sveta Melchuk — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 12:00:05 +0000

Everyone would like to maximize the sale of their house, but do you know where you should be starting?
It’s imperative to prepare well in order to succeed and that requires a bit of time, a bit of money and some effort.

In this article, I would like to cover the PRE home staging steps, namely the renovation work – which projects are more important, when and what will be your return on investment?

The first and foremost question is whether you are planning to live in your house for a while and enjoy the fruits of your labour or are you ready to move out.�

Continue reading: Renovations that generates the best return on investment

Home Staging – 10 tips for better sale

Sveta Melchuk — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:22:34 +0000

Are you interested in selling your house fast and for top dollar?
If the answer is ‘YES’, then you need to get it ready to look and feel its best. The concept of Home Staging is not new and is used extensively in the USA and Western Canada to market real estate.

These Home Staging tips cover some of the things you can easily do yourself at a minimal cost.

Before you do anything, you have to stop thinking of your house as a HOME and start thinking about it as an investment, for which you want the largest return possible.
If you don’t have pictures that show your house at its best, you are probably missing out on dozens, if not hundreds of potential buyers.
Curb appeal (or, lack of thereof) can deter a visitor from wanting to pursue. The exterior of your house has to be clean and taken care of.
Buyers want to see space, above anything else. You have to declutter, so the visitors can focus on the house and not on your stuff.
Chipped paint, loose or missing tiles, broken door handle, a closet door that doesn’t quite close properly can become a BIG turnoff for a potential buyer. Fix!
Painting is the cheapest way to transform a room! Repaint main rooms in fresh, neutral colors.
Refresh and update. Simple things such as a new bed ensemble, a few decorative pillows and two nice table lamps will transform a bedroom.
Make the house as neutral as possible to please a variety of potential buyers and their lifestyle and taste.
Make sure there is sufficient light in every room– you can’t have too much light!
Space optimization and proper furniture and accessories placement is essential. It will give a home a warm and appealing look and feel and create the WOW factor.

So, a small effort will pay of at the sale time. Stage your house-sell your house WELL!

A Staged house that sold in 3 hours

Sveta Melchuk — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:44:01 +0000

I wanted to share this recent story with you – a Staged house sells in 3 hours! Of course it’s exceptional but it does happen inspite of a slower real estate market.

I was recently asked to help a lady prepare her home for sale. The house is small (2 bedrooms only and a very small office), but very well located and well maintained. The paint was recent and the color neutral enough on the main floor but needed to be refreshed in a couple of rooms on the upper floor.

The problem? Old and outdated furniture, outdated and darkish curtains, some clutter and several personal items, such as the owner’s artwork displayed everywhere in the house (pretty but not to everyone’s taste).

We worked on a very limited budget (approximately $700). I made a list of accessories to purchase and we split the tasks – I went off to IKEA and the owner shopped in smaller local stores to locate items such as decorative pillows, a vase, branches, a mirror and some fabric. She repainted her old dining room table a dark brown (instead of a previous blue color) and recovered the chairs with dark brown microsuede fabric. She also repainted a small office and a bathroom over a weekend. The seller also worked very hard to declutter and put some of her furniture in storage.

Last, but not least, we rented two small white chairs and we reorganized her furniture to optimize the spaces, changed the curtains on the living room and set up the accessories.

Before

After

As soon as the photographs appeared on the Internet, the phone started to ring. Three appointments were set up for the evening. The second visitors made and offer to purchase on the spot and it was accepted. The house sold the same day for %96 of the asking price. End of story!

Home Staging: an invaluable marketing tool

Sveta Melchuk — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:45:36 +0000

The concept of Home Staging is finally taking firm hold in the minds of Quebec consumers and Real Estate agents. Home Staging techniques originated in California over 30 years ago and are an accepted and widely used real estate service in the USA. I have had a couple of clients from California who wanted to sell their properties in Montreal and they told me that no self respecting home owner there would show their property without staging it first!

Especially valuable in a tough market, Home Staging helps sellers and Real Estate agents to sell properties faster and for better price.

The 2008 www.Homegain.com survey of 4000 real estate agents asked:

How much do you think staging increases the value of a home?Continue reading: Home Staging: an invaluable marketing tool

Posted By: Sveta Melchuk. Founder of Home Staging Montreal, a Montreal firm specializing in Home Staging and Interior Redesign. Simple and effective solutions, to help you sell your property faster and for more money. Call Sveta at: 514-482-9776 http://www.home-staging-montreal.com/

So, you think you don’t need Home Staging?

Sveta Melchuk — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:15:24 +0000

You have decided to sell your property. You love the home decorating shows on TV. You have good taste and you house is well decorated. You are ready to put the property on the market. But, are you really?

I often hear this kind of thinking from certain home sellers, especially women. It’s perfectly normal, as home decorating is becoming an established hobby and is well represented all over the media (on TV, magazines, books, Internet, etc). That’s great!

But, please remember that Home Staging is a set of specific and very efficient techniques. The goal of Staging a home is not at all the same either; we decorate our house for ourselves, in accordance with our personal taste whether the Home Staging is decorating for others, namely the potential buyers! The point of view is completely the opposite – instead of personalizing, we actually depersonalize the property for sale!

And, another important point: it’s very difficult to be objective about your own home. As long as you look at it as a “home” and not as a real estate investment, you won’t be able to present it at its best FOR SALE.

A professional and impartial Home Stager will execute an assessment of your property and will provide you with recommendations to make the property irresistible to buyers. The assessment may show more or less changes to be made to the property but, believe me, in three years, I have still to see a “PERFECT” house!

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