I had my living room and dining room painted a taupe color, and my kitchen a light yellow, and all the other rooms were pretty bright -- one periwinkle, one medium blue, and another a billiard green. My agent said NOT to paint ANYTHING over (I assumed I should paint things white too) and in the listing described it as "designer colors" LOL
The point is, people do tend to like more than just plain old white anymore, so don't worry if your house is different from just a neutral!
Declutter more than you ever thought. Take pictures down, and patch and paint over holes. Leave as LITTLE personal items out as possible, and put about HALF of what you own away into storage. Do this with every room, including kitchen cupboards, so when people open things up (they will) they don't see that there isn't enough room for their stuff if there isn't for yours! You will be shocked at how much "stuff" you own!
The most expensive things we did were replacing the furnace (the one we had was original 1922/with asbestos piping, so we HAD to do it to dump the house). We also pulled up our carpet, refinished the wood floors, and just as the market started to collapse last year, we sold it in December.
ALSO -- make sure you talk to a minimum of 3 agents. If I had listened to the first one, I would have made $50,000 less than I actually got for our house! There are a LOT of opinions out there, and pricing a house in this market is really an art AND a science!
Good luck!
Jules
Mom to Nora Rachel, born 9/17/07, Jacob Daniel, born silently on 7/7/06, and three other ^i^ in heaven, 5/02, 2/04, 1/05.
Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can. ~Barack Obama
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