Category Archives: decorating

Selling property: weird, quirky or unusual features of a home can put off buyers

Posted on April 19, 2016 | Leave a comment

aquarium

When you’re looking to sell a property, you want it to appeal to a broad market – for punters to come in and be able to picture their happy, home-owning future. What you don’t want is a confused giggle when they get a look at your bathroom.

When buyers are attending several inspections over a weekend they’re looking for reasons to rule out properties, according to agents.

“Buyers tend to exclude rather than include”, says Walter Burfitt-Williams, of BresicWhitney. “You might think the leopard print wallpaper is gorgeous, but it’s not to everyone’s taste.”

In older homes it’s better to stick to classic styling rather than something on-trend, and try to avoid over-complicating interiors with multiple trends or time periods. You don’t want a clash of different styles in a house, let alone a room, he notes.Steep, spiral staircases in narrow terraces – a popular option for renovations of a certain era – were another feature to rethink, according to Peter Gordon, from Cobden & Hayson, particularly in small terraces in Sydney’s inner west. Jacuzzis were another addition to consider getting rid of, as buyers tended to view them more as a second-hand spa.

Ways to Brighten up a dark space

Posted on April 11, 2016 | Leave a comment

lights

A better way to choose the right bulb is to look for the color temperature (measured in Kelvin), says David Weeks, founder of David Weeks Studio. The lower the number, the warmer, more yellow the light is. To create an inviting atmosphere, bulbs that fall within the 2600K to 2700K range are ideal, Weeks says. Most incandescent lightbulbs produce light in this color-temperature range. Specialty studios — including Urban Chandy — are also starting to offer even warmer options at around 2200K. These bulbs mimic the candlelight glow of old-fashioned Edison, or filament, bulbs (which are typically lower in color temperature than incandescent bulbs are). Brush, who makes vintage-inspired chandeliers with recycled materials, says — “2200K is the magic number for LEDs that we’ve determined gives the same fireside glow as traditional incandescent bulbs.”

To light some of the darkest parts of your home, consider LED strip lights, says Sheila Schmitz, editor of Houzz, a leading platform for home remodeling and design. The flexible strips with adhesive backs can subtly illuminate challenging areas. “You can light up just the floor area, which can be a light suck,” Schmitz says. Houzz users have incorporated LED strip lights in the toe-kick area under bathroom counters, in living-room entertainment displays and bookshelves and underneath cabinets in the kitchen. (Stringing twinkle lights around windows, over your bed or around doors is another easy and energy-efficient way to add extra illumination that’s easy on the eyes, Schmitz says.)

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Lighten up your home without loosing privacy

Posted on April 3, 2016 | Leave a comment

windows

How to open an old, dark house to the light, while simultaneously maintaining privacy for occupants, is a question not always happily or successfully answered.

Cruise down any suburban street in Sydney and chances are you’ll see a lot of unhappy, unsuccessful responses: window or door openings where maybe there shouldn’t be, and no openings where potentially there could be – privacy presumably compromised, views presumably not viewable, light not optimized. All indicating inadequate consideration and solutions to the question at hand. Fortunately, the successful renovation of a previously very dark semi with privacy issues in Sydney’s eastern suburbs offers a thoughtful, beautiful response to this all too common issue.

Pip Marston and Matt Argent of Marston Architects say the owners, a professional couple with two dogs, essentially wanted to “find the light”, having lived in a sunlight-starved, south-facing semi for several years. The house should be low maintenance, with an urban look and feel. And, they wanted to stay put during renovations, negating any major physical upheaval or additional financial strain.

The house itself was a single-storey Federation semi suffering the usual issues: with no northern light, it was dark and gloomy, and cold in winter. The layout was fairly standard – two bedrooms at the front, living space in the middle and add-ons at the rear. Sitting above ground level at the back, the house failed to connect to a long, underused rear garden. And, importantly, privacy was a problem, with the rear garden overlooked by neighbours to the east, north and south.