How about you post some photos of your place for feedback? Generally I would say you want your place to look as big and bright as possible. Less is more. You can do some cheap things that give good bang for your buck but we don't know what you need without photos

you're right of course, here are some photos... the main living/kitchen area and the nursery are the only places that I've really changed a lot since moving in, I think the rest of the place is pretty boring. I just bought a couple of bright yellow eames replica chairs, which I'm pairing with a high gloss white table to replace current wood table + chairs in that main living/dining/kitchen room. I have also swapped out that tan couch for a more streamlined charcoal futon, which I like a lot better, but still have the chartreuse 70s lounge (tho it won't make it into the display photos).

The more I think about it, I'm more unsure about what to do with the current junk room - turn it into an office? Another bedroom? It's a decent sized room, probably something like 3.5x3.3 with a built-in cupboard.

And my front living area, I need to take a new photo, but it just has a black leather lounge, 3x bookcases and an old battered tv stand with an old battered tv that we never use. I'm not sure how to turn that into an inviting space either.

I think with the bathroom, I would like to swap out that shelf for a bigger, wood one, and put it just above where the tiles finish. And I'll stick some succulents on there. Is there any point spending a bit on a nice-looking tap from ikea for the basin? Do people notice taps?

With the master bedroom, that bedframe has since broken beyond repair and we are currently using a hand-me-down ensemble which looks dreadful. SO I want to get an affordable new frame, and probably update the side tables and lamps too.

I have also just bought ceiling fans for the 3 bedrooms to replace the bare bulbs we currently have. I want to put in heat/fan/lights in the two bathrooms, and the rest of the house already has downlights/pretty lighting installed.

I think that what buyers will look at is whether the house is clean, in good condition, and functional.

Broken furniture is not a good look, so by all means replace the bedframe and the battered TV stand - but buy things you'll need in your next house, not just stuff for show.

I only notice taps if they're leaking or damaged - so if your taps are functional, I wouldn't bother changing them. In fact, I wouldn't do much at all with the bathroom - it looks fine.

You will need to sort out "the current junk room." My own feeling is that a lot of buyers have trouble envisaging how to use space unless they can see furnishings in it. In our case, our third bedroom was used as a study, so it had the desk, the PC, a TV and lots of bookcases. The realtor made sure that it was described as a study/3rd bedroom on her website and when showing the place. So, declutter the room and give it some purpose, as a spare bedroom, study, sitting room. Maybe the chartreuse lounge could go in there?

And I'm sure you know that it will be essential to store the toys and other odds and ends away before any and every showing. We found it a pain in the posterior to always be vacuuming, dusting, cleaning, and to have a lot of stuff packed and sitting in storage, but that's what it takes to sell.

Refreshing a home can add value before selling. Whether it be a fresh coat of paint, re thinking a colour scheme, new furniture or updating gardens and outdoor spaces.

The front facade of the house is a good indicator on how well the owner has maintained the inside. Therefore having a tidy and landscaped front garden will maximise street appeal and passing traffic.

Potential buyers also notice the cleanliness so cleaning exhaust vents, shower grime, skirting boards and window frames when visualising a space to live.

Updating light fittings, door knobs, handles and painting doorframes are some smaller tasks that can not be overlooked when presenting a house.

Hope this helped!

I would get those couches out of the living room. to me, the room looks jam packed with couches. otherwise it appears to be a nice room and all the other rooms look fine

As a general rule: all can be done on a tight budget if necessary, give kitchen and bathrooms and your laundry a good scrub, including walls. BATHROOMS: declutter, remove any mould, repair cracked tiles. Polish mirrows or add a new one. If taps are looking worse for wear, invest in a cheap set from Bunnings. Wash curtains or remove, anything you can do to let lots of fresh air and light into the room. To dress your bathrooms: buy from Kmart or a similar discount store, buy a new set of matching towels and handtowels to place around on open or inspection days, add a brand new cake of soap in a new soap dish or attractive pump bottle with handsoap. Place a few baskets around. KITCHEN: declutter, polish your stainless steel sink and any stainless style appliances also. Put away appliances, place a few decorator items about, perhaps a unique fruit bowl, fresh flowers in a vase, bright canisters, new linen t/towel folded on edge of counter or island. Clean floor tiles yourself or professionally if really soiled with inground dirt. DINING ROOM: remove table clothes, repair or replace or remove broken or wobble chairs, thin out display cabinets, wipe out and only display a few quality items, which complement each other style wise, present this room as minimilistically as possible. LIVING ROOM: create furniture in a way that it represents a conversational grouping, move the furniture more into the middle of the room, away from along the walls, identify or create a focal point, if you have a fire, make that the focal point, never make a tv the focal point, try and make your tv blend in. Replace or wash cushion covers. Display a couple of decorator items and one or two coffee table books on a coffee table, put away all magazines. This is an adult space, it can reflect a family space but there must be no toys or games in this space. LAUNDRY: if any of your appliances are rusty, try and cover with stritigically placed baskets, so rust is not visible. BEDROOMS: declutter, that means, no shoes on show, put all clothes in wardrobes, tidy walk in robe, wash curtains, clean light shades, shampoo carpets, put out your new or fresh bedlinen, PUT AWAY PERSONAL PHOTOS, have matching bedside table lamps, display a couple of decorating pieces. PRESENT ALL BEDROOMS, by making sure you have a bed in each, if enough room, put double/king beds in 2 of the 3 bedrooms in a 3 bed house, if you have 4 beds you can display the fourth as an office or nursery. Staging childrens bedrooms beautifully and nurseries beautifully with a trendy mobile are great selling tools. Doting parents want the room for their kids, the older kids want the room for themselves and will pressure mum and dad and any new parent will fall in love with the perfect nursery. THAT SPARE LIVING AREA: if budget allows dress as a home theatre room, even if just dark curtains, a dark coach, a couple of footstools and a large tv. Finally add art around the house, modern bright and colourful, you can buy cheap art from Reject shops or similar. OUTSIDE: cut grass, remove dead plants, replace a couple of plants or decorate with planted pots which you can take with you. Fix any broken pallings. Gerny paths, clean gutters, wash down outside of house. Replace letterbox if looking daggy, or re-paint at least, remember first impressions. Always put away toys lying around the yard. Tidy and gerny garage, remove ALL oil spills, have a place for everything and everything in it's place, REMEMBER GARAGES SELL HOUSES TOO, men fall in love with a neat and tidy garage they can see themselves in, just as women fall in love with kitchens. Even a well pesented and CLEAN chook yard can sell a house, or a well tendered and healthy vegie patch for that matter. Even a rope swing hanging in that tree can help sell a house. EXTRAS: when preparing for sale IF YOU HAVE OUTDATED OR GARISH COLOURS, if budget allows, repaint in a nutural colour ON OPEN DAYS: place scented bunches of cinnamon sticks around the house, remember those fresh flowers, maybe some in the kitchen and one bathroom, or perhaps in the dining room and not the kitchen. OPEN WINDOWS, angle lourve or venetian blinds in a way that allows as much light as possible into the house at the time of the open. Sweep paths and add a door mat at the front door. Walk the house and try and look at it with fresh eyes, if anything is still looking tatty address it! FINALLY LET YOUR AGENT DO THEIR JOB AND GO OUT WHILST THE OPEN IS IN PROGRESS! Hope this helps

The key is to create space and ensure your house is clean. Remove any items that add clutter will help and a fresh coat of paint or touch ups if needed. Flowers are a great idea too. Make sure areas like your pantry, kitchen cupboards and wardrobes have been decluttered and sorted too. It will make a huge difference.

thanks to everyone for all the helpful advice, I will take everything on board. Sorry to be inactive after posting - believe it or not, we were in a car accident on Sunday, so this has been the last thing on my mind!

Hope you're all okay Miranda. Good luck with the sale.

Hi Miranda, I hope you're okay after your car accident.

We just sold and bought in Sydney's Northern Beaches last weekend (yes, same day). We had a stylist provide furniture because ours was not very flash. Our place looked fantastic and we're really happy with the price we got. Here are some lessons we learnt as both buyers and sellers:

1. Fresh and clean is attractive. It's a psychological game. First impressions DO last and will affect whether people warm to your house or get turned off. Modern, clean, bright and impersonal give good impressions. Impersonal doesn't have to be "cold".

2. Invest $9 in a tube of No More Gaps and seal all the unsightly cracks and gaps beside windows, in corners, on skirtings etc.

3. Clean every little corner, especially around the windows. I found it easier to run around with a can of paint and touch up, rather than try to clean the stubborn dust. We saw a house with a pull-out pantry that had vermin poo behind it. Don't think people won't see it - they might.

4. I changed our taps with some economical ones from Bunnings. They looked so new and shiny.

5. Exit Mould is a godsend. It even cleaned the back steps. Gumption cleaned our kitchen sink beautifully.

6. Best tip I got was to use 0000 steel wool to polish metalwork like deadlocks, door handles etc. without scratching.

7. We rented storage at Kennards for all our furniture. You WILL need to declutter, and I recommend you view a storage facility as an investment in selling. Removalist's storage is cheaper than self-storage, except that you can't get easy access to your own stuff.

8. A property for sale that used their own photographs looked cheap, which tainted our impression before we even saw the house. A professional photographer (through your agent) is an investment.

9. We viewed a house with a leaking toilet cistern (actually running during the open session), and the 5 light bulbs over the mirror had only 3 working. We wondered what else did they not fix, and became suspicious of the state of the house. Make sure everything is working.

10. This is important. Tidy the insides of your cupboards, wardrobes and pantry. People will look, and cluttered interiors give the impression of "don't care". An orderly house gives the impression that you look after the house and it will be a good investment.

11. We were advised not to add any scents. When we came across them we wondered what they were covering. We saw one house that put a single little apricot Danish in a warm oven. You couldn't smell it, and it looked like a stupid attempt. Don't be half-hearted.

That was our experience anyway. We may come across as finicky, and others will have different opinions, but I'm trying to emphasise the psychology of it.

thanks for all the kind words everybody! I have some epic bruising from the seatbelt but no broken bones, and most importantly our toddler was not in the car when it happened.

We have been focusing on the back yard so far, because it needed serious work done to it - which we are paying a professional to do, because our DIY skills are aesthetic-only. I can paint really well but I can't pave or build fences.

I think after all the feedback I will not bother with some of the upgrades I was going to do, like new taps in the bathrooms, and will pick up some of the great tips like buying new towels JUST for displaying during inspections (what a great idea!) and complimenting the house with fresh flowers and greenery.

We will hire a storage shed, and I will use the konmari method to go through the entire house and get rid of everything that we don't really need.

Stager's tip: Q-Tip clean everything including the light switches, around the door knobs, edges of doors. All should look spanking new.

It looks like you already have a good start on packing up and moving out the quirky personal items, delicate pieces, and religious items, if any. Oddly enough, if you live in a sketchy area, not that you do, some realtors will ask that before showings you remove sharp knives!

Some home stagers require that the carpet be replaced, even if it's with the least expensive Berber you can find.

Your challenge will be to put together an inviting adult space in your living room, with furniture and artwork in scale and style with the room.

The spare bedroom/nursery might be a tad too spare.

When grouping objects: Tall thing, short thing, soft thing.

A professional photographer may move furniture and artwork, styling the rooms so they are shown to their best advantage for the photos. But that's different from what it looks like as you walk around. You will need to close one eye and ask yourself, does the room look it's best from the moment you walk in the room. Does each one have a clear and specific purpose? Easy traffic pattern? How's the lighting? And the views to the outside from the window. You can remove drapes if they darken and close the room in, or leave a sheer if need be to disguise a disadvantageous view, and to let in some natural light.

Every room should have a focal point, for example in an ideal world; a fireplace in the living room, a kitchen with a view, a bedroom with a clever seating area, etc.

Your place has lovely bones, you've started a wonderful job of getting it ready for sale, and I'm sure by the time I sign off due to your efforts, your house will have sold!

Hi there,

There was only one thing that stood out from your photos - how about putting a wooden blind in the kitchen rather than the more impractical curtain as this adds to the clean look.

I have sold all of my homes without a realtor and saved a fortune- and my advice is to make sure you provide all information to potential buyers- get a valuation report so they don't have to and all other information available as they are more likely to take their interest further if they don't have to pay for these costs.

All the best with your recovery and your move. Take care

Who is buying in your area? That is who you are staging for. You can be leaving thousands of dollars on the floor by not having a professional home staging consultation.

Professional home stagers are visual marketing specialists for homes for sale and they do occupied home consultations using your existing furniture as well as vacant homes, etc. For only a few hundred dollars you will learn everything you need to do to find the dollars in your home for sale.

You can find the best stagers or property stylists in your area on Houzz, complete with before and after photos and testimonials. Your home is unique. Why not try that first if you are looking to achieve top dollar.

First impressions are everything when selling your home. Make sure your front yard is neat and tidy. Gide your lawn a mow, trim your hedges and clean up your garden. You could also add bright flowers to brighten your front yard.

Can i be honest.

In my experience its best to let go of some money and pay a stylist to come in with furniture as you will honestly be rewarded of up to $100,000 come sale (this depends on many things).

Declutter, get rid of any personal things as buyers want to see their family in it and not yours.

A base colour scheme with small amount of accent colours will work a treat (get knowledge of the clientele you are trying to reach and work with that ( a stylist will help).

Money well spent

Our real estate agent has a brochure, but I think exploring the photos in something like Domain or Allhomes is a good idea. Remember that people want to see themselves living there, and so pare back - it should look spacious, welcoming. Many stylists charge a motza to make your place look like everything else. De-clutter, remove personal photos and stuff and then look round. How would you feel if you were house hunting? Remember also that people like to change colours and add their own things so painting and anything expensive should be minimal - every estate agent has stories of people who spent big on a new kitchen which the new owners promptly ripped out. Cosmetic is the way to go - freshen up paint, grout, whatever, tidy garden, make sure the entry is welcoming, that the kitchen and bathroom are pristine. My view after three years of house hunting is that one wants a house to look liveable, but not lived in. (Which can be a right pain). Spending up to improve the place is rarely rewarded by extra price, unless the location and facilities are very sought after.

thanks for the advice, but we actually sold our house last year! I put a lot of work into restyling, and finishing all the half-done projects around the place (like had an electrician install those heat/fan/light things in the bathrooms). We sold without an agent which I only recommend if you're confident you can do a good job of everything from photography to negotiating price with buyers.

For anyone curious, here are a couple of phone pics of the house all done up for viewings - makes me feel very proud of the difference between these and the first shots I shared!

Hi Miranda, congrats for selling the house on your own :) Did you do the styling by yourself? I'm thinking about hiring home staging company so I wanted to ask you for recommendation.

I was considering these guys http://adorepropertystyling.com/ they have reasonable price. I would also love to hear if someone had experience with these kind of services. Thanks!

HI Sophie.

Im a property stylists and the company you are asking about looks very professional from their website.

Lovely furniture and the styling looks very professional.

I do not know of them but simply giving them a call or email is a great start and ask some questions like the style they think suits best in your area.

In regards to prices Melbourne is one of the cheapest states to have furnished with QLD and NSW coming in at the most expensive.

As a really rough guide a 2 bed starts at $2400, 3 bed starts at $3000, 4 bed starts at $4000 and so on with each additional living area styled at $800 and out door is usually complimentary.

Hopefully this helps you

Hi Sophie i forgot to add that prices should include the following

- Truck delivery of furniture

- Truck collection of furniture

- Decor set up (you are paying for their expertise)

- Alfresco area included

- Flowers (lots of companies add flowers at no cost)

- Insurance on furniture

- Work safe of all people at time of installation and collection

When people are paying a stylists they forget about all these expenses plus remember that a stylists is literally moving a whole house of furniture in an out so its money well spent.

My clients usually sell their homes faster and for $50,000 - $150,000 more once styled.

Great job, Miranda! So happy you were able to move the property on your own. Best wishes in your new family home.

Yes I can imagine how that feels, Miranda. I guess that's called progress, but it's disappointing so much land is being carved up.

When I was selling my house I hired a real estate agent to make the process faster. Also I made minor repairs:replaced cracked floor, patched holes in walls. I know that it's important to show a sparkle clean house so I hired Eco Pro cleaners. They washed my house inside and out. + bought a new welcome mat

Given that you’ve done all the hard work in the transformation of the house already. I say there really is not much to do but just tidy it up and declutter. You can hire professional house cleaning services to ensure quality clean. Now, in photographing it, or pretty much presenting it to prospective buyers. You may want to take off your fingerprints all over the place, so to speak. Meaning, do some efforts to turn it into an empty canvass (where de-clutter comes in). And give your clients an opportunity to imagine themselves in the house. Instead of keeping the impression that somebody else was there. That… and pretty much just keep it tidy and let it shine.

To prepare a house for sale, clean and declutter the space, fix any repairs, and repaint in neutral tones. Enhance curb appeal with landscaping. Stage rooms with minimal furniture. Highlight key features, and ensure good lighting. Professional photos and online listings are essential. Lastly, make the home welcoming for potential buyers.