Staging a Home with Color
If you are a regular to my blog, you know that I like to post free or low cost staging tips. The biggest reason for this was that I staged (and sold) my own home this past spring, and shared many of the choices we made--from no cost to high cost. However, a post yesterday by Nestor & Katerina Gasset made me think about the need for a different "box of crayons" in different parts of the country.
While some people might like Key Lime Green, it is not necessarily a color that you would pick when painting a room for sale in Connecticut; but the new build that was featured in Lone Pine Estate For Sale in Delray Beach used this color in one room and a bath to great effect in a Florida home. In an adobe home in Arizona or New Mexico, you would not hesitate to use turquoise and purple--again not colors that you would readily grab in Connecticut.
Of course if you are painting a home to live in, you can pick the colors that please YOU, but when you are painting a home to sell, you need to pick the colors that please the largest number of potential buyers.
Chris K. Canfield
REALTOR®, ABR, CRS, e-PRO, GREEN, MRP, SRES
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
2890 E. Skyline Drive, #250
Tucson, Arizona 85718
Chris-here in the Pacific Northwest we have an entirely different pallet of popular interior colors. Thanks for the links and article.
Best
Excellent information for home sellers. All need to be very careful with paint color selection.
Buyer agents and their clients still see too many darkly painted rooms that need to be refreshed.
Enjoy the holiday season and be sure to have your camera in hand to capture those special moments.
Dahlias in Kentlands. Photograph by Roy Kelley.
Roy and Dolores Kelley Photographs
Hi Chris,
I never really considered that different areas of the country would have different color preferences. But I do love a little color in a house - not bold, but soft, trendy, popular choices. White walls are too sterile. The color in the bathroom pictured above is beautiful.
Lisa
Hi Adrian - I would be interested to know what the colors of the Pacific Northwest would be!
Hi Roy - It is a tough pill to swallow, but even the paint colors of 2002 do not work in 2011 (thus the reason we had to repaint just about every room in our house!).
Hi Lisa - We loved that bathroom after the paint and counter change. That was one of our not-inexpensive staging efforts. : ) Our temporary rental is very white (I have a feeling it was very dark before it went on the market with one of my associates). We can't wait to move on and paint with the colors we used to stage our house!!
Chris, That is good advice, we have actually shown clients homes that they didn't like because the colors were so neutral that the home looked drab. I believe that a little color helps your staged home stand out from the competition.
Hi Tony and Darcy - It always amazes me how people don't want to paint a home for themselves. It seems that 50% of my married life has been spent with a paint brush in my hand (we used to move alot during my corporate days).
I remember seeing a house not terrible large or special in any way. But all the rooms were painted in very warm homey colors in the pumpkin and yellow okra family. And each room's color complimented the one before it.. This house sold in less than a week. Caprice