When most home sellers hear the words kitchen makeover, they cringe. Remodeling a kitchen is one of the best ways to increase the sale price of your home, but the cost and inconvenience of a complete overhaul can be prohibitive in most instances. Luckily, using proven kitchen staging techniques, it is easy to update the look and functionality of your kitchen space, without a major renovation or a broken budget.
This tutorial provides simple guidance for making over a kitchen space to universally please prospective buyers.
Easy and Inexpensive Kitchen Makeover
Kitchens definitely sell homes. That is a simple fact. However, renovating an old or worn kitchen can be terribly expensive and extremely disruptive to a normal lifestyle. There are many other ways to improve the appeal of your kitchen without replacing cabinets, countertops and appliances. Of course, if you can do a complete remodel, you will likely recoup all or most of the cost when your home sells. If not, some of the best ways to get the most bang for your buck include:
Painting cabinets and replacing the hardware. This is a cheap and efficient fix for all but the most horrific cupboards.
Prime and paint countertops with acrylic paint. Sponge painting works fantastic to create faux granite finishes. Make sure to top it all off with several coats of high gloss protectant, using a food-prep-area safe product.
Laying a laminate floor is a fast and budget-friendly choice, which will win the approval of virtually every prospective buyer.
Touch up appliances with enamel paint and clean everything, especially the inside of the refrigerator and the entire stove and cooktop.
Clean out and organize cabinets and drawers to make them appear larger.
Declutter the entire room to open-up the layout. Remove all the items from the countertops to provide the appearance of more working space.
Replace florescent lighting with several updated fixtures, including overheads, under-cabinet lighting and pendants.
Replace the faucet with a nice new contemporary design.
Kitchen Makeover Process
Most easy makeovers can be completed by the home owner using simple DIY home staging. Although the actual work is not difficult to do, sometime sellers are best off hiring a home staging consultant to help them plan their new kitchen and the rest of their interior and exterior staging, as well.
It does not have to cost a fortune to make your kitchen look amazing and updated. It just requires skilled planning and perfect execution of the design. I have staged many kitchens for under $200 and you would not believe the difference. Paint, inexpensive floor tiles, proper cleaning and some drastic decluttering can really turn your kitchen into a dream space for any buyer. Of course, if you have more to spend, you can make some really profitable changes to the kitchen décor too.
Kitchen Makeover Assistance
Most kitchens suffer from neglect and clutter. Many also need a real cleaning. Just getting rid of the dirt and the majority of the cabinet clogging mess will already give you a fresher look and more functional layout.
Add to this some easy fixes using paint and cheap materials and you can have a completely new kitchen for a tiny fraction of the cost of an actual renovation and without the mess and headache.
For sellers who are willing to put in the time and money to really re-do their kitchen professionally, you will likely see all your money come back during the sale of your home. However, if your appliances are good and your cabinets and countertops are salvageable, then there is no sense spending more than you need to when you can recoup a staging investment many times over with some fast and easy fixes.