In the kitchen, the latest trend is not falling for hyped-up trends.

The trend right now is to be untrendy or at least, to appear that way. Our lackluster economy and environmental awareness has resulted in a celebration of classic, sustainable design, and a less “Hummer” approach to decorating. In the kitchen, the focus du jour is about recycling consciously, refining gradually and regretting minimally.

When the urge to redo is tempered by financial insecurity, consumer conservatism sets in. Homeowners are getting coached on how to stay fad-free and debt-free, self-educating through relevant books such as “Right-Sizing Your Home” by Gale Steves and cable shows such as Sweat Equity on the DIY Network. Amy Matthews, “Sweat’s” hands-on host, urges remodelers to get organized and make design mood boards, before reworking their space. Doling out reality-based resale tips, Matthews stresses to “fit the remodel with the price point of the home and the neighborhood it’s in.”

It’s kind of cool right now to adopt a thrifty and conservative mindset, or as Paul Anater, kitchen-bath designer and the editor of Kitchen and Residential Design, observes, “at least appear that we are.” While blatantly obnoxious gadgetry and short-lived design ideas are scarce, manufacturers are tailoring their designs to fit today’s popular attitudes and ways of being. Of course, it’s a free country, and not everyone will follow the fold.

But here’s the good news: Most people are shopping smart and not buying compulsively. Sarah Fishburne, The Home Depot’s Trend and Design Director, says, “It takes about six months for a customer to start thinking about doing a kitchen to when they make the decision to buy. It really is the trend to know how you need your space designed.” After interviewing 300 homeowners, Steves’ findings were similar. People are staying put and reworking their space so that it functions more efficiently. “Right-Sizing”, which describes living better in the space that you have, is right on target.

In an effort to help you follow suit, we’ve pulled together the top five red-flag trends that you might want to avoid, or at the very least, really think through before taking the plunge. Remember your three Rs: Recycle consciously, Refine gradually, Regret minimally.

1. “This Is Good Enough” Trend
Once you’ve gotten what you think you want, stop and ask yourself, “Is that really what I wanted in the first place?” Using cheap, shiny granite as an example, Anater reports that consumers jump as soon as they hear the word “granite” and then they jump higher when they spy a deal. Uba Tuba, Baltic Brown, and Santa Cecilia are some of the inexpensive speckled and spotty varieties that Anater describes as loud and visually “ugh”. Literally an eyesore, the glare from the shiny surface is disruptive and will get tiresome. “The thrill of a cheap knock off,” he says, “is a recipe for ‘I’ll hate this in three years’.” When investing in the look of your home, Anater recommends going for an icon or an exact replica. He mostly specifies matte stone and believes the whole maintenance issue is overrated.

2.”You, Too, Can Be a Food Network Chef” Trend
Anater describes this trend as “selling the fantasy that you are the star of your own food show and the kitchen is the focus of all your great dinner parties.” It shows up as gallant gadgetry such as the pot filler — the articulated faucet that hangs out behind the stove, like some plumbing project that might not have been finished. Carl D’Aquino, nominated by House Beautiful as one of the top 100 designers in America and partner at D’Aquino Monaco wonders why “it just became so very required.” In his opinion, it is simply unnecessary. Steven Gdula, food entrepreneur and author of “The Warmest Room in the House” is emphatic that he’s never seen one used. Steves wonders, “Does it justify the plumbing cost?”

3. “This Will Make My Life Easier” Trend
Convenience and efficiency are two big marketing concepts for kitchen industry manufacturers. The mini-kitchen that once housed a demi-fridge and microwave has been added to and upcycled as “The Breakfast Bar.” Steves thinks this trend makes some sense in a sprawling home with a master suite or guest quarters, and sees it as a potential solution for multi-generational living. The satellite kitchen, however, probably won’t appeal to average-sized homes. Steves likens the current proposal for kitchens on every floor to the notion that every member of a household needs his own bath — nice but not really necessary. Gdula believes, “Manufacturers over-anticipate what people really want and need. They have this perception of convenience. But we’re actually not as lazy as they think we are.” Increased energy expense may also dampen the appeal.

4. “This Is So Me” Trend
As long as there’s a “me” this trend will always be. “Express Yourself!” has always been a positive mantra as it pertains to one’s emotional wellbeing. DIY’s Matthews, however, advises eager home remodelers with an eye on selling, to avoid over-personalization and kitsch in the kitchen. She recommends relegating the ego to easily removable décor such as dinnerware, window shades, or peel-and-stick wall decals, rather than semi-permanent elements like tile and wallpaper. Matthews believes, “It’s all about sustainability.” Her no-fail solution for a goes-with-everything-keep-it-simple background is white subway tiles. The Home Depot’s Fishburne says a white kitchen is always “clean, bright, and inviting.” Steves concurs, “White is always right!”

5. “Just Because It’s Pretty” Trend
“Fashion that runs counter to functionality is destined to a short life span,” says Tim Wetzel, an industrial designer with Rejuvenation Lighting. Case in point — the fancy chandelier. Though these unexpected luminaries may make a huge style statement and elicit praise from friends gathered round the island drinking wine, Wetzel says “they generally don’t provide the sort of light that is needed, and have lots of intricate detail that defies cleaning.” At the first glint of dust or layer of grime, the love affair will end. If you are not a clean freak and don’t have a weekly anal-retentive housekeeper, go for something with less surface area to maintain.

Source: www.shelterpop.com

If you’re planning to sell your house any time soon, home improvements that build property value should be on your to-do list. It’s a buyer’s market, and between tighter purse strings and plenty of properties to choose from, shoppers want homes that are move-in ready and free of the need for home improvement projects that will add to their own bottom lines.

“There’s enough inventory out there right now that buyers can find what they like without having to compromise,” says Harrison Tulloss, a ZipRealty agent based in Raleigh, N.C. “They don’t have the money or inclination to put in a down payment, get a loan and then turn around and spend more cash to do exactly what they want to improve a property.”

Planning home improvements that pay you back at the time of sale requires a strategic vision as well as design, finish and product selections that welcome the widest possible range of buyer tastes. Drawing on tips from real estate pros, along with Remodeling magazine’s annual Cost vs. Value Report, here are 10 home improvements that pay you back when you sell.

Front entry doors: Curb appeal is the first step in a successful home sale, and installing a beautiful, high-quality entry door is a simple home improvement that delivers impact both in buyer drive-bys and online listings. A new entry door will also help lower home energy costs and stand up to weather extremes.

Attic bedroom: Converting an attic into useful living space is a smart way to add value and attract those shopping for multigenerational family homes. “Parents are moving in with their kids and vice versa, or people are combining their incomes to live in a bigger house,” says Renee Mayhall, RealEstate.com managing broker for the Carolinas. “So we see buyers focusing on properties with a higher number of bedrooms and baths to accommodate that.”

Decks: Building a deck is one of the least-expensive ways to extend your living space. Composite decking is a great low-maintenance option, and even building a deck from pressure-treated wood can bring a return on investment of up to 80 percent at the time of sale. (Also see Best Landscape Design Options.)

Siding: A tight, tidy home contributes to curb appeal and takes major home improvement worries off a potential buyer’s list. Spruce up your home’s exterior by repairing or replacing siding for an eye-catching, protective finish. And for way less than the cost of siding replacement, consider adding easy-to-install decorative trim elements made of high-density polyurethane foam to spruce up an otherwise dull exterior. (Also see Siding for Your Home: Which Should You Choose?)

Kitchen: The kitchen is a major selling point for a home, and its appearance and layout can often be a deal-breaker. Improving your kitchen doesn’t have to be a huge investment, however: just replacing countertops, key appliances or cabinet hardware can transform a kitchen’s look and impact. (Also see Minor Kitchen Renovations Help Sell Your Home.)

Windows: Installing replacement windows is a pre-sale home improvement that pays for everyone, with the seller earning valuable energy tax credits and the buyer enjoying lower home energy bills. Says Tulloss: “Especially in older homes, buyers always seem to appreciate when new, better windows have been put in. People like the energy efficiency aspect now more than ever.”

Basement: Make the most of this bonus space by finishing it for use as an apartment, office or entertainment zone ─ more great ways to appeal to multi-generational households.

Bathroom: Along with kitchens, bathrooms tend to age easily, so neutralize potential design objections by replacing the vanity, installing efficient fixtures and choosing hardware that facilitates easy access for all. (Also see Increase Home Value With Bathroom Renovations.)

Backup power generator: With the aging electrical grid becoming less reliable, access to backup power is essential for a home. Gone are the days of bulky, smelly, portable gas-powered generators: You can now have a neat, compact standby generator installed right next to your outdoor AC unit that can repower most of your home within seconds of losing electricity from the utility.

Additions: If done wisely and in a way that won’t price your home out of the local market, additions are valuable home improvements. Add a second story, expand into a master suite, enlarge the garage or create an extra bathroom for a busy household.
A final thought comes from Atlanta agent Katrina Walker of RealEstate.com. “Of course your home is your castle, and you want to be pleased with the way your home looks while you’re in it,” she says. “But you don’t want to put in things that are extremely personal. For instance, choose colors that are neutral. I’m not saying that everything has to be beige and bland, but you don’t want to pick colors that the average person isn’t going to like.”

Source: realestate.aol.com

Trying to sell a home in today’s market requires courage, smarts and a fair amount of humble pie-eating. It’s a buyers’ market, which means sellers are expected to roll over and grovel appreciatively over each showing their agent landed.

Sometimes, whether through ignorance or a last gasp of pride, sellers make one of these critical mistakes that actually worsens their situation. So if you are trying to sell a home, make sure you:

1. Don’t move out with your furniture.

Let’s say you’re no longer dancing to the unemployment blues and finally landed a job that happens to be in another city. You need to sell your house fast and relocate because there’s a paycheck with your name on it, but it’s 3,000 miles away. By all means, you can move post haste. Just don’t take your furniture with you. Nothing sells worse (and by worse, we mean for less money and takes much longer) than an empty house.

Think about all those new developments you have toured. Which of the identical units looked the best? The ones with the furniture in them. Empty houses are cold and depressing. The rooms may look bigger without furniture but they also look soulless. Plus a house recently stripped of wall hangings often screams “paint me” at the top of its lungs.

2. Don’t assume home-staging is just for the wealthy.

Getting back to point No. 1, you want the house to look good and maybe your old La-Z-Boy lounger has passed its prime. Professional home-stagers are the magicians of the modern-day decorating world. They move things around, bring in a few pieces, stash away some of your junk and — voila! — your house looks like it’s worth $100,000 more than you’re asking and suddenly you have a buyer drooling. In fact, you might like the new look so much you don’t want to sell anymore.

A study by Stagedhomes.com found that 94.6 percent of homes that were professionally staged sold within 33 days, compared to an average of 196 days for homes that are not staged. Staged homes stay on the market 83 percent less time than a home that has not been staged.

Staging is something you should consider if you do need to move out your furniture.

3. Don’t think your dog doesn’t smell.

We here at AOL are pet-lovers. We even are allowed to bring our dogs to work with us. But we also know that not everyone shares our affection for our four-legged friends. In fact, it’s been estimated that 15 percent of the population is allergic to dogs and even more are allergic to cats.

Pets need to be removed for showings. Crate them and leave the crate in the garage.

But to focus on the odor issue. We often grow immune to smells that we live with. Many an ex-cigarette smoker has commented how he never smelled the cigarettes while he smoked them but now that he’s stopped, he can smell someone smoking in the next car on the highway. Same principle applies to dogs. Admit it: Can your pooch really roll around in the dog park and come home not a little odoriferous?

Steam clean the carpets and upholstered furniture; launder the bedspreads if Fido has been known to sneak up on the bed; and ask a pet-less friend to give your house the sniff test.

4. Don’t think that buyers will understand that you have kids and tolerate a little mess and clutter.

It’s just not so, my friends. The perfect house showing, says just about every agent bearing a Realtor’s membership card, is one where the personal affects are missing. You want prospective buyers to be able to envision themselves living in this house. Your son’s Little League trophy belongs in the garage, packed in a box ready to be moved. Having clean bathrooms and kitchens are most critical. Nothing turns a buyer’s nose up more than dishes in the sink or a bathroom in need of a good cleaning.

The declutter and cleanup advice applies to the outside of the house as well as the inside, said Jim Hamilton, regional vice president of National Association of Realtors. He says that 70 percent of the decision about whether to buy a home is made as the buyers drive up to it.

5. Don’t price the house based on what you need to get out of it or what you think it is worth.

Price it based on what it will sell for. Otherwise, what’s the point of chasing the dog around with a can of Lysol and making your kids pick up their clothes: You won’t be moving anyway.

Source: www.realestate.aol.com

Putting your house on the market this spring? You’ll need to polish it up. Some homeowners consider expensive improvements like new bathrooms, siding and more, but something as easy as painting can give you the best return on investment. “A fresh coat of paint is one of the first things buyers notice,” says home staging expert Jamie DeBartolomeis.

According to QualitySmith, interior paint to cover one room costs roughly $25-$100. Factor in rollers, brushes, and drop cloths, and the project may cost $300–double that if you hire someone to do the job. But the impact on potential buyers is worth much more.

Here’s how professional home stagers pick interior paint colors, and other expert painting tips for home staging that sells.

Painting Tips for Home Staging:

When to Repaint

“Light and bright sells. If your home feels more like a den for Dracula, then you know it’s time to open the curtains and paint the walls,” says Karen Otto of Home Star Staging.

Figuring out when to paint depends on a few factors. If walls are cracked, paint is peeling or drywall is damaged, then painting is an essential home staging step. Otto also points out a few less obvious reasons: smell and fading. Cooking, cigarette smoke, candles and fireplaces can not only tarnish walls, but they can also trap smells in the paint. And the paint in some rooms may be faded unevenly because of sun exposure.

“If it looks tired, stained or in need of refreshing, then do it” before staging the home, she advises.

Borders and faux finishes can look dated, so they should be painted over, too. “If anything translates in the mind of a buyer as ‘work to do’ or could be an objection to a sale, then [fix] it,” says Otto.

Why Stay Neutral

Home stagers across the country favor neutral or earth-toned paint colors for one simple reason: they have the widest appeal. Otto says neutral colors “reflect ‘move-in ready’ wall spaces and let a buyer imagine what they’d like to do.” What homeowners want to avoid is a buyer looking at a wall and thinking how hard it’s going to be to paint over that chocolate-brown or brick-red color. On the contrary, most people’s furnishings will blend with a neutral color palette.

An all-white palette can be refreshing in a house (though beware in a condo, where it can look unfinished). Pure white can be stark, DeBartolomeis warns. Instead, choose an off-white a few shades warmer. Stager and stylist Kelly Fallis of Remote Stylist suggests Benjamin Moore’s “cloud white.”

Where to Go Bold

An accent color on one wall can be used to add interest and liven up a room. Even if potential buyers aren’t crazy about the color, most people won’t mind repainting one wall. “I think you have more freedom to experiment with color in bathrooms, laundry rooms and children’s bedrooms,” says DeBartolomeis. “You can be whimsical in these areas.”

Fallis suggests painting all the main rooms one color, then maybe bedrooms or powder rooms different colors. Smaller spaces can stand up to brighter colors, while larger spaces are better with neutral colors.

What Color Palettes to Use Most painting tips for home stagers will point to taupes, beiges, off-whites, creamy tones of café au lait, butter, mossy greens and subdued grays as all safe hues to paint a home for sale.

Fallis suggests considering grays over beige shades. “Gray is now the hot neutral; it goes with more things and looks a lot better with yellow and greens.”

But beige is a crowd-pleaser and may work in your market and with your home. DeBartolomeis recommends Benjamin Moore’s “Shaker Beige” as one of the most popular and safe interior colors.

In general it’s always appropriate to go lighter with your paint colors. A great trick for picking colors that coordinate: Go online to Benjamin Moore’s site and find their suggested paint color palettes.

What Finish to Use

Don’t get experimental when staging your home for sale. Stick to the most common combination of gloss-finish paint for wood and trim surfaces and eggshell or satin finish for walls. The slight bit of sheen in a satin finish makes it easy to clean and resist fingerprints. Ceilings should get a flat finish.

For walls, “flat finishes are just that, flat,” says DeBartolomeis. “They don’t reflect much light and are more difficult to clean. And gloss is usually too shiny for most people’s tastes.”

What to do if you want to avoid painting

For those trying to avoid painting, you have one secret weapon, according to Fallis. “Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is brilliant,” she says. “It’s great for heavier traffic areas, stairwells and hallways where walls tend to get scuff marks.”

Read full article at realestate.aol.com

If you’re moving into a new home, your pockets probably feel pretty empty right now. You’ve just paid a down payment, closing costs and broker fees, so the last thing you want is an expensive move. Lucky for you, we’ve got tips to help you pack up and ship out on a budget.

1. If you don’t need it, don’t pay to move it.
   Movers base their prices on what you’re shipping, so cutting down on clutter will simplify your life and lighten up the load in the moving truck. We’re talking to you, the owner of the treadmill-turned-drying-rack. You can sell what you don’t need or donate it to charity.
2. If possible, schedule your relocation after peak moving season.
   Most people choose to move in the summer months, when the kids are out of school. The least expensive time of the year to move is between October and April, so if it’s possible to postpone your move, you could save some money.
3. Get at least three in-home estimates.
   If you’re hiring a professional mover to do the heavy lifting and packing, prices can vary widely between companies. To make sure you’re getting the best deal possible, get at least three estimates.
4. Don’t get scammed by a rogue mover.
   You’ll be loading up all your worldly possessions and putting them on a truck with a few workers you barely know. Protect yourself! Look for red flags and get recommendations from friends and neighbors to avoid getting scammed.
5. Use what you have for packing, and then buy your own supplies.
   Moving companies often charge hefty fees for packing supplies. Save money by filling up containers you already have, like suitcases or plastic bins. Use sheets and linens to wrap items. Buy the packing materials you still need from a recycled box company, or get them free from a local business.
6. Ask questions to unearth hidden moving costs.
   Even legitimate movers might not spill all the costs unless you ask. To get an accurate picture of your total, ask if they’ll charge for heavy items, repacking, stairs or waiting.
7. Get portable storage and delivery.
   Companies like PODS and 1-800-PACKRAT will deliver a storage unit to your door. You’ll save money packing it yourself, and they’ll pick it up and deliver it to your new digs.
8. Rent a truck for a totally DIY move.
   Renting a truck and doing it yourself is the most cost-effective way to move. Enlist your friends and family for packing, and read the fine print for mileage allowances and fuel surcharges.
9. Get moving insurance.
   Even the best movers have one potential pitfall: They’re human. If you do wind up with a lost or damaged item, you’ll likely need more than the measly 60-cent-per-pound coverage that comes free to replace it.
10. Deduct your moving expenses from your taxes.
    Don’t forget to save those receipts — you can also save money after the big move! If you relocated for a new full-time job at least 50 miles away from your previous home, you can deduct the cost of packing, transporting or storing your household goods from next year’s tax return.

Source: Frontdoor.com