If you were buying a home....paint and decor question

[lecach]

If you were looking to buy a home, would you rather have a light cream (sortof a very subtle butter) color paint on the walls OR would you prefer to have more vibrant colors?

Also, do you like to see it with minimal decor so that you can imagine your furniture and decor or would you rather see it look "decorated"?

We're listing our house next week. It's 4 years old and when we built it, the choice of paint color was either white, the butter color, or gray. So we went with butter and never repainted.

Our decor is pretty minimal too. Our windows have the 2 inch plantantation blinds that were professionally installed but no curtains except in the Master.

We have the realtor coming by this week so of course I will ask her what we need to do. But I also would like to know what the average person wants to see. We will do what we need to do but I am hoping we wont have to put a lot into getting it ready to sell.

 

[SpecialK]

I'd stick with the butter color, the moe neutral the better. Anything more vibrant will be too specific and won't go with a lot of furniture.

 

[lecach]

I'd stick with the butter color, the moe neutral the better. Anything more vibrant will be too specific and won't go with a lot of furniture.

that's what I was thinking, but one of my friends said that the only reason their house sold was because of the paint colors. I would personally prefer neutral colors. We saw one house online that we were thinking of looking at until we saw that the master bedroom was painted dark green and the living room was really RED. Our furniture and decor would totally clash with that.

 

[PaulaSue]

plain colors ... I hate bright/wild colors

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Neutral and minimal stuff.

Your friend is misguided. Maybe the one person they sold the house to loved the paint color however the majority of buyers want neutral and NO wallpaper.

 

[Scurvy]

I'd prefer the butter color, because if nothing else light colors are easier to paint over. The previous owners of our house had used really dark paint in a couple of rooms and it was a huge pain to paint over it. The colors weren't that bad, necessarily, but it didn't fit what we wanted to do with those rooms. Even if we had liked the colors, we would have repainted rather than purchasing new furniture to match the paint.

 

[Golf4food]

Neutral. Much harder to paint over vibrant colors and if I were buying the house I would make that a condition of the sale - that you paint over everything neutral before the sale. No thanks.

I could care less about furniture.

 

[Tinkermommy]

Neutral paint. Your butter color sounds find, but I would touch it up in any areas that are looking shabby.

Also, take out all personal photo/effects/collections, etc. You want your house to look somewhat like a model home. Nice with a few key accent pieces, but not too much of your personal style. I would tour some in my area for ideas.

 

[kirstenb1]

I just went from beige/butter to a light khaki. I've decided I really prefer the khakis/olives as a neutral to the beige/butter. The lighter shades were too light for our furniture.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Neutral and minimal, definitely.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

We just bought a home. Hubby did most of the search.

The turn offs:
misleading listings (we had one that heavily went on about the SIX bedrooms. It only had 2 legal bedrooms and 1 room that could be passed as a bedroom. We never found anything that came close to qualifying as a bedroom)

stinky smells

mass clutter (well beyond the lived in look...the I can't see a pathway from the front door)


The pleasant homes had clean walls---neutral paint colors (any palette but nothing like lime green). It didn't matter to me if it was furnished or not.

As it turns out, we bought an empty foreclosure with filthy/chipped walls. Our offer and final purchase price took that into account.

 

[JessicaR]

Neutral and minimal stuff.

Your friend is misguided. Maybe the one person they sold the house to loved the paint color however the majority of buyers want neutral and NO wallpaper.

Yes, this!

People have different tastes and I think its easiest to envision your things in a house that is neutral and minimal.

 

[Luvchefmic]

Neutral///leave the crazy colors for me to pick out seriously the walls were white when I found the house ..unfortunately for me DH & I still have white walls 2 yrs later because we can't decide

 

[lecach]

unfortunately for me DH & I still have white walls 2 yrs later because we can't decide

Thats why we still have the original color . I have brought home many chips of paint but cant decide what color so we just have never painted. Plus we kindof like the color....

For smell, something that I found when our last home was on the market, was a plug-in with the scent of Snuggle fabric softener. It's very subtle but made the entry smell like fresh laundry.

Thanks to everyone so far-you've really made me feel better about my laziness in decorating

 

[Green Tea]

I much prefer looking at homes that have colors throughout. The house I last sold had a lot of colors and the buyers said they loved seeing it as it could be. But every home show and real estate agent will say builders white. I hate to see houses look so stark.

 

[golfgal]

It always surprises me that people can't look past a paint color to see a house. We always repaint anyway so it doesn't really matter what is on the wall, I am going to change it to match my tastes. A little primer and some paint will easily cover any color of paint on a wall. I don't really care if you have pictures of you and your kids, etc. around the house, you are leaving and so will they . I am always more concerned about things that are not easily fixed like floor layouts and sizes of rooms.

What really sells a house is functionality, cleanliness and location, location, location.

Our last house had wallpaper on EVERY wall and some of the ceilings--THAT would be a big turn off for me because of the work involved to remove the wallpaper.

 

[Green Tea]

The one paint issue that would make a difference in my mind is the woodwork. If the woodwork was painted cream instead of white, that would be a turnoff for me. Just like the wallpaper being a pain to remove, woodwork, to me, is a very time consuming change. All other things equal, I'd take the house with the white woodwork.

 

[wildernesslodgelover]

It always surprises me that people can't look past a paint color to see a house. We always repaint anyway so it doesn't really matter what is on the wall, I am going to change it to match my tastes. A little primer and some paint will easily cover any color of paint on a wall. I don't really care if you have pictures of you and your kids, etc. around the house, you are leaving and so will they . I am always more concerned about things that are not easily fixed like floor layouts and sizes of rooms.

What really sells a house is functionality, cleanliness and location, location, location.

Our last house had wallpaper on EVERY wall and some of the ceilings--THAT would be a big turn off for me because of the work involved to remove the wallpaper.

I agree with this 100%...but I am also amazed at how many peolpe can NOT look past simple visual things. Have you ever watched House Hunters on HGTV? A couple will walk into a home, raving about how it is the perfect location, sq footage etc...then agonize over the ugly light fixtures or carpet.

We bought our house last year, and since we looked at a lot of short sales...you would not BELIEVE the disgusting messes we looked at. I mean, the homeowners actually stayed inside the house while we looked (can you say AWKWARD?) and the house was sometimes a pigsty or in disrepair.

Anyway, to answer your question...YES on the neutral. Look, I love bright, vibrant colors...but what are the chances I will like YOUR choice of bright colors? Good luck on selling your house!!

 

[tlmdisney]

The bright color of the walls was a big selling point for our house when we bought it.

 

[AKL_Megs]

We liked the house we bought for numerous reasons, but we really appreciated the fact that all of the walls were painted the same neutral tan color.

They are now a multitude of different colors, but it was nice that we didn't have to COVER UP someone elses color choices before we painted our own.