360renos - Home Improvement & Decor

How to make your home stand out when selling

We can help your house sell quickly and at a good price -- even in a slow market.

It takes a lot more than sparkling windows, scented candles and chocolate-chip cookies to sell a home in today's market.

Improvements should be made so that the property shows well, is consistent with the neighborhood and does not involve capital investments.

Beyond any doubt, the best investment you can make is new paint. Painting can make a room or an exterior façade look brand-new, and totally transform the look and feel of a room or the entire residence. It is always wise to be somewhat restrained when choosing colors for a home-staging paint project. Avoid choosing colors that are too individual or flashy and favor neutral colors and schemes. This does not mean painting everything white, however.

Use subtle color schemes to accentuate the home's strengths and minimize weaknesses. Dark colors, for example, tend to make a room feel smaller, while lighter colors and pastels can make a room feel bigger.

There is another benefit to painting as well: the process of preparing the interior or exterior surfaces of a home for painting automatically allows us to go over the entire area receiving paint in great detail, and this can often expose items or areas requiring repair. It seems you always discover where the caulking has let go, where the wall is dinged.

It is always preferable that we discover and deal with these items before the real estate agent (or worse, the prospective buyer) points them out to you!

Dave - 360renos




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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Design Considerations for your Home's Trim

 Selecting mouldings is very much a personal choice. Having said that, there are a number of factors which you should consider.

Symmetry: Normally your baseboards and casings will reflect the same profile. By doing so the house is brought together.

Depth of Profile: The thicker the moulding, the more profile it will have. Better quality mouldings usually are ¾” thick. These profiles give the room a much richer look. Generally suburban homes come with mouldings 3/8” thickness.
Ottawa & Toronto: mouldings, trim, casings, crown and baseboards. 
Crisp Profile lines: The crisper the profile line, the more the moulding will stand out. By using finger joint or solid wood the profile lines are very crisp. By using MDF the lines are less crisp and hence will not stand out as well.

Proportionality:Sizing the profile to your room is important. The following is a good guide -

Ceiling height     Baseboard          Casing  Crowns
Stand 8 ft             4 to 5”   2 ½”       4 ½”
9 ft ceiling            5” plus  3 ½”       5 ½”
Over 9 ft              5” plus  3 ½” with backband         5 ½” plus
Proportionality also appears to vary by community. Houses in Toronto tend to use larger trim and backbands than those in Ottawa.

Wood Type
Generally I prefer fingerjoint pine trim.  Both the depth of profile and crisp lines are obtained at reasonable product cost.  In addition, it comes in lengths of 14 or 16 feet which minimizes waste.

Ottawa & Toronto: mouldings, trim, casings, crown and baseboards.American Yellow Poplar is a good solid wood.  It is excellent for painting and more durable than fingerjoint.  Like any solid wood it costs more. MDF is great if price is your most important variable.  It will not wear nearly as well as fingerjoint pine and the profiles are not as distinct. 

Pine, Maple or Oak:  If you seek wood for staining, any one of these will do an excellent job.  Remember, with pine you can stain it to reflect any natural wood for colour.

Thanks,
 Dave

Dave Bennett
Owner
phone 613.429.5000 
mobile 613.282.2124
email dbennett@360renos.ca
www.360renos.ca

"Everything you can imagine is real" - Pablo Picasso


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