We sold our house in 1.5 days. I busted my rear cleaning... there was not a single spot on a sink faucet handle or a crumb anywhere in the house. Countertops were clear, except for a few things... I did not burn candles, but brewed a pot of coffee! MMM yummy. Even non-coffee drinkers love the smell of coffee. I had soft music playing in the background (light jazz or something).

I had a beautiful bowl of bright apples (red and green mixed) in the center of my kitchen island.

I left a lamp on in each room and closet lights on... shutters open so light shone through.

We stayed away from home as much as possible during that time in order to keep it clean. Luckily it sold fast b/c I had 3 kids including a 4 month old. When we did eat/shower/sleep, I immediately cleaned every last dish (nothing was allowed in the sink) and all soaps, grooming products were put away immediately. Beds were made and rooms were spotless. All toys put away. I did invest in pretty towels and hung tassels like they do in model homes. Aside from that, just get rid of all clutter, pictures, and stuff, as everyone else said.

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declutter even if it is in storage bins it helps or get the pod fill it up and store it delivers right to the new home. New carpet sure only get cheap stuff and not expensive padding and paint. make sure every light is on when you show your house open up windows for some time to air it oue\t fresh flowers on the table. little thingd like that help alot.

You say you 'need carpet'. Unless it is really awful, don't replace it, clean it. If you want you can negotiate a carpet allowance with the buyer. If you MUST replace it, then seriously consider installing pre-finished hardwood floors if you can find them cheaper than carpet. Even a cheap hardwood floor will sell better than a more expensive carpet. If you feel you must go with an inexpensive carpet, upgrade the padding. Great padding can make inexpensive carpet seem wonderful.

Other than that, pretend that you are a buyer considering your house. Approach the front door as though you've never seen it before. This is a wonderful exercise to do after you've been out seeing open houses for the afternoon. Obviously, you want to spend your money fixing anything that has been unrepaired FIRST. If the hole in the screens right next to the entrance (DO NOT have a screen door on the front of your house) isn't fixed, a buyer will wonder what else you left undone.

Since you've done the painting and I'm sure the decluttering is continuing, the best place to put $1500 or less is in the garden. Especially this time of the year, people really appreciate seeing some landscaping around the front and back doors. With the winter weather you may not be able to plant anything but extra shredded bark or river rock in the areas that aren't snowy will make an impression. If you can add trees, DO!

If you want to spend the money indoors, one of the highest impact things you can do is replace the plumbing fixtures. A new faucet at the kitchen sink can have amazing impact. The same goes with new faucets in the bathrooms. If you feel driven to replace the faucets in the tub and shower areas, those can be done relatively inexpensively since those pieces are just handles and covers, not actual plumbing parts. An upgraded showerhead in the master bath - with an 'S'-neck extender to raise the showerhead up - is a nice, inexpensive addition. Of course, if you have standard toilets, you might consider upgrading those to nice low-flow toilets (we use Toto brand).

The second, but more expensive, high impact change is your interior doors. Unfortunately this is an all-or-nothing proposition so it can get expensive. But I tell you, just replacing the interior doors to something a little more current (a 6-panel door instead of a plain slab door, for instance) can make an older house look completely remodelled. To replace your interior doors inexpensively you can remove the doors and all the hardware. Mark the butt end of each door with where it goes as you're removing them. Package the hardware together - if you're reusing it which is more cost effective - so you don't mismatch or lose pieces and mark the bags or keep them in their appropriate spot. You can generally re-use your hinges even if you decide to get different handsets. Take all the doors down to a store that specializes in selling doors (usually a contractor's outlet) and have them pre-jig all the new doors using your old doors as the template. They'll mark the new doors on the butt end with the same mark that you put on the old door. When you get home, all you have to do is paint the new doors and install them where the old door was located. The hinges and handsets should line up exactly like the old doors did.

I don't know the age of your current house. If it has 'cottage cheese' ceiling (that accoustic stuff from the 70's), consider hiring a contractor to scrape it off and re-texture your ceilings. You'll then have to repaint your ceilings but your house will look much better. I have been known to scrape and retexture my own ceilings but it is a slow and grueling process.

For someone who hasn't already repainted but is planning to, I highly recommend that they retexture their walls before painting. Again, this is a low cost way to make an older home look remodelled. If you've noticed, wall texturing patterns have changed over the years. From the 50's thru the mid 70's, when sheet rock was used extensively, the texture pattern most popular was called 'large island' skip texturing. In the 80's the much smaller 'spray-on, knock down' texture pattern became the norm. Now the most popular texture pattern is a 'faux plaster' look which has large flat areas defined by trowel gouges. Again, look at NEW model homes in your area to see what contractors are using. Retexturing your walls is a simple do-it-yourself project and really worth it if you're going to be painting anyway. Besides, even if you don't change the texture style, most older homes lose their texturing definition because each layer of paint sort of fills in and smooths it out. New, sharper texturing makes a subtle impact.

If your doors are in fine shape, consider replacing all the interior handsets to a more updated look. That bright golden brass is 'out' and darker brushed colors are 'in'. Modern hardware usually isn't just a round knob anymore. Levers and oval knobs for people with range-of-motion handicaps are more popular now. Again, look to see what is being used in new model homes. If your kitchen and bath cabinets require knobs and pulls, definately upgrade them. If they don't require knobs and pulls, consider whether or not they'd look more up-to-date if you added some.

Lastly, think about making an impact statement somewhere in the house. When we sell we will be changing the light fixture in our dining room. We'll spend a little more and make an impact statement there. Sometimes changing the light fixture in the entry will accomplish the same thing. Definately upgrade any light fixtures that are beyond passe. Those tiny pendant fixtures in the kitchen are awfully popular now. If you can find a way to add a grouping of those, it might be money well spent.

When you're done, take real estate type pictures of the interior and exterior of your house and tweak as necessary.

Good luck!

I meant to mention - another impact statement you can make is to add crown molding to one or two special rooms. Those rooms are usually the dining room, formal living room and master bedroom. If you don't have much money, add crown molding to the bathrooms and update the plumbing fixtures in the bathrooms AND the mirrors / medicine cabinets.

If you have any older pattern linoleum in the house, install new. Usually a scrap of lino can be had a flooring outlet for under $100 which would be enough to cover a small bathroom floor. Even cheap new lino will sell better than old pattern lino.

Gee, once you're done fixing up the place, you'll wonder why you're moving - lol!

I read in an article once that having a good looking stove fan above your stove. It said some people even look at that!! If yours is in good shape, you could just dust it.

I would pack everything that makes the house look personal, such as family pictures. Buyers need to visualize themselves in your house.

Make sure your home has good curb appeal. Trim the bushes, cut the grass, take down the christmas lights! Install a cheap new mail box if yours looks bad. Throw away that old rotting door mat!

Have you ever watched Sell This House (on AandE I think) or Designed to Sell on HGTV? Both are about this exact topic. They have professional stagers and designers come in and get houses ready to sell on a small budget. They have given us some great home improvement ideas!

When we were looking at houses the first thing we noticed was the smell. If it smelled bad we were immediately not interested.

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Seems like most of my ideas are already out there but I can't stress enough about cleaning and organization. It will be tough, but try to go to "Martha Stewart" standards.
When we sold our house the agents that we interviewed to list were shocked how clean it was and asked if we always lived liked this!

Another must is to show each of the rooms to it's potential. If you have a third bedroom that is a toy room, clean it out and make it a bedroom. If there is a back hallway that is unused but could be marketed as a mud-room, do it, all in a Martha style.

We also played jazz and had the house well lit.

We added extra shelving in high closets where there was wasted space.

If you are painting then my #1 must do is to use calking on all the joints, seams etc. around the doors and baseboards. We had a entry from the garage that was a mess, and looks years beyond the age of the house. I used a tube of Dap calking that is applied by hand (meaning not a big tube that you use a gun with), filled, wiped and then painted and I tell you that area looked like a million bucks! I'm ashamed to say that we lived like that for 6 years and only when we moved did we put the effort in.

I also agree about putting down new linolium or even good peel and stick tiles in the bathroom if yours is worn. Clean peel 'n sticks are better than torn linolium.

House sold in 9 days with almost a 6 digit profit in only 6 years time. The work will more than pay for itself and we didn't spend more than $400.

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Organized, generic, generic, generic, make it look like their stuff will fit right in! They need to see themselves in the house! If you need new carpet, then think about hard wood floors/laminate floors they will be very accepted. New paint on the walls. Update the hardware on the cabinets. Curb appeal is also important. Your front door, entrance is what buyers see first!!! Much of this has already been said, but maybe something will help! Also just reiterating get the majority of your stuff in storage so there is a roomy appearance. Be sure every space is defined...dining room, looks like a dining room, bedroom functions that way...etc. That is huge on hgtv when they do the house selling shows. They want each room to match its function. Hope some of this is good info for you!!!! Angela

Thanks so much for all the ideas. We have new front entry and storm doors, new back storm door, new shower head in master bath, new vinyl in the kitchen, new kitchen faucet, new stove, and new dish washer. We found a great new vanity/sink combo at Home Depot for under $150 we want to put in the main bath (the old one is original to the house, 1978, and cracked). We are eliminating anything dark as the house needs all the brightness it can get (tyehy were stingy with the windows). So all wood work is done white. We have thought about new interior doors, ours are original to the house and we would love to put 6 panals in. We could do it for about $450 - $500, so if we spend less other places, it could be doable. Again, thanks, you've all been so helpful.

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