Low Cost Home Makeovers - 11 Handy Tips. (2) Colours

I was recently invited to Grand Designs Live in Birmingham, to talk about home makeovers and how to keep costs down, whether you're selling your home or want to enjoy living in it. To follow is a summary of the suggestions I made, with lots of 'Before' and 'After' photos as illustrations.

COLOUR -could you work with some of the existing colours in the house or should you change them?
• Check all the existing colours in your house. Include tiles, floor coverings etc. If you add a new colour, will it work with all of these or would you have to change them?
• Completely changing the colour scheme in a house can be very costly, especially if flooring, tiles and window decorations are involved.
• Don’t mix two different colour schemes
• If you do want a new scheme, buy the art and fabrics first, then choose wall colours and flooring, then accessorise
If the makeover is for selling. purposes..
Use existing colours wherever possible to keep the budget down

Before - the homeowners thought they had to replace the sofas to help sell the house...

After - My preference was to just make them work!
 

Exterior view - you wouldn't like to see the following colours in a house like this... 



Before

Before



After - with calmer colours

After - much warmer

CLICK HERE to see the above house in detail

 

Before - don't mix colour schemes - pink and gold don't work together

 

After - the most cost effective change was to replace the pink

CLICK HERE to see the above house in detail

Before - this was the entrance to a house mainly decorated with golds

 

After - so we made it work

 

Before - in the same golden house as above, this  scheme didn't work...

 

After - so we warmed it up

 

 Next - Room Use - how do you use each room and do you need to change this when you're planning a makeover?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hotel-style bathrooms sell homes

When you're selling your home, the bathroom needs to be pristine. Spotlessly clean and tidy.  No toothpaste, no children's toys or potties, no wet towels! Try to add a plant, a few expensive, matching toiletries, fluffy new towels (just put them out for viewings), and put the lights on for photographs. Imagine it's a beautiful hotel bathroom!

Before

After

The 'Spare' Room debate

Spare rooms are great for storage, office space, gym, occasional bedroom, sewing room, photography studio - and often a combination of several of these uses!  But when you're selling, they always, always need to be a bedroom. I've had this confirmed by numerous Estate Agents - they all agree that this adds the most value. 

Before

After

Get the colours right

This house needed to be prepared for sale. All the curtains were made from one fabric, which was a golden colour. Similarly, the carpets were golden. There was no reason to change these expensive items, so this set the scheme for the entire house. Some of the grey-based purple paint in a couple of rooms clashed with the gold, so I recommended re-painting the bedroom and hallway. It's vital that the colour scheme flows through the house.

 Before

 After

Moving in to first home

This lovely couple were moving in to their first home. It was fun discovering the right style and colours for them. They didn't want to change any of the wall colours yet, so I added warmth in the accessories.

Latest project...

Just finished this home staging project - all ready to sell now. These are all 'After' photos - will show the 'Befores' once the house has sold!!!

I will put all the bedrooms in my next blog entry...

Shopping...

I've been shopping for this house today - I'm staging it next week. (Don't worry, the homeowners have been working on it since these photos were taken!!)  Looking forward to the challenge!!!

Latest makeover - Master Bedroom

Here's the Master Bedroom.  The rooms were very narrow in this house, so I had to be careful not to emphasise this.  I'm often asked about lighting in my 'before' and 'after' photos - why do you cheat, and put the lights on for the 'after' photos???  Well, I take the 'before' photos as the room is shown to me.  No-one ever puts any lights on for me, so that's how I take the photo.  I would always turn the lights on for a viewing, it brings the rooms to life, so that's why I have them on for my 'after' photos.  That's not cheating, is it?

There will be another bedroom transformation in my next blog entry - another double room in the same house - here's the 'before':

Latest makeover - kitchen , dining and conservatory

This is our latest makeover, from a rented 'mess' into a lovely home about to go on the market.

The Kitchen:

         

The Dining Room:

The Conservatory:

Photos of the upstairs will be on my next blog entry ... wait for the Master Bedroom transformation- here's the 'Before' photo: