- Kerb appeal matters: now is the time to revarnish the garden gate, ensure the wall or fence is freshly painted, order a new house number plaque, and plant up your verge garden. First impressions last!
- Place clean pots filled with pretty flowers outside your front door. Keep them watered and fed.
- For broader appeal, your front door should be freshly painted in a contemporary colour, ideally matching the garage door.
- Tidy up your garden. Get the weeds pulled out, the lawn cut and plant up some pretty seedlings or pots on the patio and around the pool. Cut back intrusive trees and bushes to maximize the garden, and place a relaxing hammock or bench in a shady part of the garden
- Keep the pool spotless and inviting, but also safe for prospective families who are looking.
- Clean out the garage or storerooms: sweep the floor and the walls, and get a start on moving by boxing up your “junk” to be collected by charities. In fact, declutter the whole house, room by room - if you haven’t used it in a year, box it up for a charity.
- Check for any damp on the walls or leaks in the roof, and have it fixed before any prospective buyers come through.
- Replace anything broken – light fittings, handles, skirting, and floor tiles. It might not seem noticeable but it adds to the immaculate impression you want to present.
- Revarnish or repaint wooden window frames and ensure the putty is intact. Repaint rooms where needed, especially if you have children and pets.
- Clean the windows and all mirrors of dog noses and hand prints!
- Hide your bulky and ugly kitchen appliances in the cupboard, and remove all reminder or notes from the front of the fridge.
- Hide all your cleaning materials in cupboards, as well as all of life’s mess – shopping lists, medication, dog beds, kids toys, and so on. It will present a fresh and clean start for buyers.
- Throw out any tatty, old oven gloves, tea towels, trays, vases, indoor plants, artificial flowers, and replace them where needed for a homey and warm touch.
- Repaint or replace handles on the cupboards, and ensure cupboard exteriors are spotless.
- Replace or remove old blinds, curtains – this can change a room dramatically.
- Spring clean all sanitary ware like loos, baths, basins. (Hint: Sugar soap and Jik are brilliant!) Tidy bathrooms of ALL extras and personal items, including robes, personal toiletries, medications, etc. Throw out old threadbare towels and replace with new ones in neutral colours for maximum appeal.
- Keep all colours of walls, floors, bed heads, bed covers neutral, it makes the room look larger! Pops of colour in the bedroom and lounge are good. Scatter cushions should be new, bedside lights should match.
- Clean, clean, and clean again!
- Keep all clothing and shoes religiously packed away
- Bake bread or a roast or biscuits before your showday. Leave a plate of biscuits on a pretty plate at your showday, and arrange fresh flowers in strategic places.
Remember! Contact ANIMALS IN DISTRESS, ANIMAL ANTI-CRUELTY LEAGUE, SPCA who will gladly collect any of your junk / previously loved possessions… even that old hose pipe!
Tips from your Fourways Gardens Estate Agent, Francesca Beattie