360renos

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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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Sold With Only 1 Viewing!!

With a fresh coat of paint on the main floor this home in Orleans sold with 1 viewing by the Realtor and never made it to the MLS web site.

Home Staging companies know how to show off your homes best features and get maximum value for you. See what we can do for you before you list your home.

Dave - 360renos

Monday, June 29, 2009

Home Staging in Ottawa/Orleans

Staging Your Home to sell for top dollar is helping in the Ottawa Market also. Great article .... http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Business/Staged+sell/1738230/story.html

Dave - 360renos

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Shadow Box Fence

Also known as "The Good Neighbour" fence as it looks similiar on both sides.

Removed an existing fence that had served 6 homeowners well since it's installation over 27 years ago

Over 300 feet of new fencing installed along with gates

Dave - 360renos

Monday, June 22, 2009

Repaint ... Repaint ... Repaint

Always an easy way to freshen up a room. Especially foyers and hallways that get a lot of traffic. Painting the areas in the same colors will instantly brighten and crisp up the areas. Amazing what a quick 1 to 2 day painting project can do for a home.

Dave - 360renos

Monday, June 15, 2009

Whistle While you Work ....

Fresh new color on the Kitchen walls to complement the cabinets and new counter top selected by the Interior Designer and the cusotmer loves it.

I'm now using a new counter top manufacturer here in Ottawa that so far has the best prices for laminate counters.

Dave - 360renos

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Ceramic Tile Flooring

Removed existing grout in Master bathroom and front foyer. Replaced with a color that complements the ceramic tile.

Dim The Lights

If you're using incandescent bulbs, think about replacing your on/off switches with dimmers. (Special dimmers are available for fluorescent bulbs and low voltage halogens - be sure to get the right dimmers for the bulbs.)

Dimmers give you more control over lighting levels, and when you dim the lights, you use less energy.

If you find that you're always dimming the lights, maybe you should replace your bulbs with lower wattages.

Choose the right bulb for the job

Over the last decade, we've seen major improvement in the selection of energy efficient lighting.

Check the lighting replacement chart to see which bulbs you could be using to reduce energy consumption.

-Courtesy of Hydro One-

Which Paint Is It - Latex or Oil?

Determining, definitively, whether a given paint was oil or latex has always been a bit of a problem, but an important one as you can paint oil over latex, but not latex over oil unless you use a special 'super adherent primer' first.

I used to recommend taking a bit of paint thinner on a clean contrasting colour cloth and wiping hard. If any colour comes off, it is oil based paint. If nothing happens, it is latex. But that didn't always work. Sometimes if the paint was very old, nothing at all came off.

Now a product has come out that reverses those rules. These swabs have acetone in them and they have no affect on oil based paints, but do take off latex. If the surface is stripped, it is Latex paint. If it just cleans or polishes the surface, it is Oil/Alkyd paint. Instead of the special swabs you could just use acetone and a contrasting coloured rag, if the paint colour shows up on the rag, it is latex. Acetone will do nothing to oil based paints. Old fingernail polish removers were made with acetone, and many still are -- look for a bottle that does not say 'without acetone'. You should test it first on a surface that you know is latex paint to be sure you have acetone in your liquid.

By the way, if you really want to paint latex over oil -- you can do it if you sand off the gloss and apply a "super adherent latex primer" first. Then you can continue with ordinary latex paint!

Dave - www.360renos.ca