The Kitchen

The Heart of Your Home

If you want to sell for top dollar, start in your kitchen. This is by far the most important room to buyers, and the price you end up with will largely depend on how happy the buyers are with the kitchen.

Though it is rarely a good idea to start spending $30,000+ to upgrade your kitchen to sell, it is often a great idea to invest a few thousand in the room that can make or break your sale price. Maybe all you need are some new knobs and a coat of paint. But if your kitchen is a 20+ year vintage, let’s look at the To Do List.

1) Cabinets

Studies have shown that a white kitchen is the #1 most requested style of kitchen. If you already have a white kitchen, you’re already off to a great start! But what if you don’t?

• Work With What you Have: If your cabinets are all in good condition, and they are a neutral maple, oak, or walnut, we work with them and ensure the other finishes in the room compliment the quality wood.
• Paint it Out: If your cabinets work well but the finish is worn out, or if they are pickled pink, orange-beech, black-walnut or any other strong colour that dates the house, paint them out. Give buyers that fresh white kitchen cabinets they crave. There are many companies that specialize in painting cabinets to a high quality finish – doing all that work and ending up with poor or sloppy results is time and money wasted.
• Replace: If your cabinets are broken, already painted many times, or are dated panel melamine, it’s time to consider replacing them if you want to sell for top dollar. IKEA to the rescue – we have done many affordable and stylish IKEA kitchens that have saved the equity in our client’s homes.

2) Appliances

If your appliances look in decent shape and work well, keep them and save this money for counters and backsplashes.

• White Appliances: This is all the more reason to paint your cabinets white, especially if your kitchen is small. It eliminates the choppiness between cabinets and appliances and creates a longer unified visual line. This visually expands the space. White appliances tend to look cheap against wood cabinets, and will immediately make buyers mentally cost out new appliances (not good, we don’t want this).
• Black Appliances: Black Enamel and Black Stainless are in vogue and look great with both light wood and white cabinets. If you are painting your cabinets white, black appliances look best when the lowers a dark charcoal/navy/black and do the uppers white. This way, the sheer size of a black fridge doesn’t dominate the room.
• Stainless Appliances: Looks great with all shades of wood cabinets and white. This is really the only good choice if you have dark wood cabinets. If you have stainless, you’re good to go!

3) Counters & Floors

If either is showing any signs of wear or is too strong in colour or pattern, it is well worth your money to replace with a fresh & cheap option. It makes the space livable enough for buyers to see themselves in that kitchen without wanting to totally gut it.

• Counters: in high end homes, the expectation is stone, there’s no getting away from this. Anything less that stone will disappoint these buyers. For most family homes, we have a trick to use laminate and butcher block that keeps buyers happy. Custom cut, with NO attached backsplash provides the same profile as stone. Combined with a high end stone backsplash, we can achieve a high end look and feel for a fraction of the price. Contact us to arrange a design consult!
• Floors: If your floors have cracks or holes, this will reduce your selling price. If you want a higher sales price, replacing them is the only option. Never cover the problem and hope no one finds it. While replacing any damage, ensure all of your floors are the same shade of colour – it will help your home feel bigger. In large homes, you can contrast floors to define different areas.

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The Little Details, Often Overlooked…..

A successful kitchen design truly is in all the details. If you are thinking of selling in the next 6-12 months, it will serve you well to use that time and plan weekend projects. They will cost very little but add immense value to your kitchen and your home. Once you’ve sorted out your cabinets, counters and floors, here are the little details that make a kitchen sing:

A) Backsplash. Adding a backsplash is like having a secret weapon. It’s a project that costs less than $500 and lifts your kitchen into an entirely higher class level. It adds texture, elegance, durability and value – and it’s something too few owners do! The cheapest option is white subway tile and it’s a true classic. If you want to spice it up a bit, add in a 4” strip of glass/stone mosaic in neutral, watery tones. Use a white un-sanded grout.

2) Lighting. No builder ever installs enough lighting, EVER. Focus on upgrading your lighting fixtures to ones with more lights in each. For ceiling flush-mounts, 3 lights are ideal. For over tables, get a pendant or chandelier with 3-5 lights. Think glitz and glam, lighting is the jewelry of the space. You can get beautiful chandeliers that make a real statement for around $200; try to avoid the traditional & expected $79 option.

3) Faucets & Handles. More jewelry! These are the little details that get into a buyer’s subconscious about whether your kitchen is gorgeous & contemporary or drab & dated. Coordinate your metals to all satin or polished nickel for the elegance every kitchen needs. You can get new handles for under $100 and a new quality facet for about $200.

4) Paint. A fresh coat of paint on your walls and trim is world-changing. Choose a bright, white semi-gloss for trim and a light watery toned eggshell for the walls. Accents of blues and greens are always the most successful with this white/black/silver theme. Try to avoid dingy yellows or rusty reds. Check out article on the Top 10 Paint Colours for Staging Your Home.

5) Storage. Time to get rid of everything you don’t absolutely need in the next few months; extra serving trays, pots, small appliances etc. Pack them away so that nothing ever has to sit on the counters and your cupboards are neat. When you sell, only very pretty and completely useless accessories should be on your counter, nothing practical or utilitarian.

6) Art & Accessories. Don’t forget to dress the space. Add full length white curtains to a window in an eating nook, hang large scale, neutral art prints on the wall. Bring in potted plants and bowls of artichokes or limes or green apples. Add texture every way you can.