Prepping House to Sell, Need Opions
Debi Rotert
2 months ago
last modified: 2 months ago
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Debi Rotert
2 months agoRelated Discussions
China Manufacturers...need your opions, please
Comments (8)It's not just the wood for the face frames and doors that can be a problem. It's the plywood for the boxes. (Especially the plywood for the boxes!) It's the finishes on that wood.(Can you say lead paint and toxic varnishes!) It's the adhesives. (VOC's) It's the hardware. (Crappy fall apart low quality metal poorly cast with no finishing work.) It's the shipping. (You get enough issues just shipping cabinets from one location in North America to another.) It's the quality control. (A whole kitchen of dreck and you're waiting on another slow boat from CHina, literally.) It's the whole package. (Inexpensive isn't always cheap, but cheap is always cheap.) Just think. If you find a "competitive" price on North American hardwood cabinets that are Chinese made, think how on earth they manage to get a competetive price when they have to ship the wood to China to get the process started in the first place. Think of how many corners they have to cut to get something shipped all over the globe be price competitive. It's not just the slave labor wages and child labor and the questionable work conditions. It's the lower quality everything! that goes into making something cheap be, well, CHEAP. I wouldn't touch them with a thousand yard pole personally, and I've had the chance to rep some Chinese lines for my budget lines. I refuse to. I have yet to see a single Chinese line that meets MY quality control standard. If I wouldn't put them in my garage, I wouldn't put them in anyone else's kitchen. Just ask them where their KCMA certification is. That's the absolute minimum standard to which cabinets should be built, and virtually all North American production manufacturers subject their lines to be certified to that minimum. Not so the Chinese ones. Be very very careful....See Moreprepping to sell
Comments (6)If you plan to replace the carpet, you might want to consider waiting until spring when you can open your windows. We purchased our (unoccupied) house in the winter. Temps in the single digits. The seller did a great job fixing it up. New paint inside/out. New carpet upstairs. Only problem was that he bought the cheapest carpet/paint on the market. It off-gassed like crazy. Each time we would visit the house, DH would develop a headache and scratchy throat. If he stayed any longer than an hour he would become disoriented. We had the brand new carpet removed and that helped considerably. We found nice hardwood floors throughout and had them refinished. While the refinishers were working upstairs, we noticed the smell of cat urine. The refinishers said there were urine stains in the floor. The buffer brought up the smell. Yuck! Thankfully, two coats of polyurethane took care of it. Once the weather warmed up, we left the windows wide open as often as possible so it could air out. It took awhile, but we were finally able to move in. Some of your buyers might have allergies or chemical sensitivities. They might not want to deal with the strong smell of new carpet. Do you have hardwood floors under the carpet? If so, you might use that as a selling point. You could also offer buyers a credit to replace the carpet to their liking. A link that might be useful: http://www.lung.org/healthy-air/home/resources/carpets.html...See MorePainting in prep for selling house
Comments (12)My house has just gone on the market, after we spent literally months decluttering (we have multiple storage units and made many, many trips to the dump) and "staging." All of the realtors we interviewed had absolutely nothing to add, saying that we did everything right. Whether this will translate to a sale in my market, which is still down, I don't know. But, I'll add a vote for "neutral color," if that makes sense. We did not go with beige or off-white throughout. Every paint color is a more neutral version of the color, but there is still color. I'm not saying all-beige is always bad, but in our case using actual colors (yellow, greens) combined with neutral creams and "greige" in other rooms is really bringing out the trim (which is all white) and making the most of the space and natural light. The house used to be all white (which I know is different from all-beige) and it looked terrible....See MoreTimeline to Prep House for Sale
Comments (20)This is a very helpful post as we are also in that situation. I particularly wanted to comment about scheduling the charity pick ups. I do these regularly anyway so our house is not too cluttered, but it's a big house and we have so much stuff that we just don't need. I recently (like 2 weeks ago) had a charity pick up of lots of stuff (like maybe 15 bags full) and decided to schedule one for the end of the month as well. Mostly it is clothing and linens but I also put in small household goods. I find having a pick up scheduled is very helpful. Soon will be scheduling painter (we already got estimates and decided on who to use). We had planned to get the house inspected before listing and might still, but someone explained to us that since our house is well maintained and all, it;s probable that they would pretty much find stupid nuisance stuff that they always find, and it's no big deal or $. We are reconsidering this as it would cost $$ to get the inspection done. What we haven't done is interview the realtors. I am so torn and think I will wait until at least the painting is done (which should be by the end of January). I am torn if we have them in before we really put our best foot forward if that will influence them or not. The other thing I am pretty sure I will do within the next few weeks- I think I will replace range and dishwasher. Other appliances have been replaced within the last 2 years and are stainless- the older ones (which still are quite functional) are about 15 years old and white. I just think that it will show the kitchen totally updated when I do that. ( I don't intend to get super high end appliances but just updated and good ones) that will just go with everything else in the house. We do have carpeting, which is in very good condition but needs cleaning- that will be done right after the painters leave.:) Would realistically like to have house listed by March/April. Gotta go get rid of more stuff. Charity pick up is scheduled for next Wednesday!...See Morearcy_gw
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