Do you have a CONNECT THE DOTS landscape?

Stand in front of your house in the street and look at your front yard.  Do your eyes jump from plant to plant or pot to pot, or tree to tree?  Especially when you are selling your home you want prospective buyers to have an immediate, intuitively positive experience. The buyer eyes should see a cohesive picture of your home married to your landscape.  The reaction might be peaceful, exciting, or interesting, but definitely not a bobbing head looking here, there, and everywhere.

Whether you like symmetrical landscapes or free flowing ones, you want to strive for a rhythmic, pleasing-to-the-eye first impression of your yard.

When planning a symmetrical landscape you want to have identical items and plants placed strategically in the yard.  It’s best to put these items relatively close to each other.  I have been working on a house that has a yellow daisy planted at each end of a wide front yard.  The effect is disruptive as it breaks the yard apart.  They will be much more appealing if put into identical pots and placed 10 to 20 feet apart.  To offset the stiffness of symmetry, place an accessory such as a bird bath or a large pot, or a stunning specimen plant in a pleasing place.  Always move items around and stand back to see where it fits best.  Don’t be afraid to dig up a plant if it does not look good or grow well in a particular place.

If you must plant the annuals sold in certain seasons such as primroses or cyclamen at Christmas, avoid planting them in a straight line 5 inches apart.  Instead, mass them in particular spots – even numbers, if symmetry is desired, or strategically if in a free flowing landscape.  Planting these kinds of color packs in pots is desirable also.  Since for the most part they are short lived, don’t be afraid to really crowd the pot to overflowing or planting close together in the ground. Small pots should be grouped together; avoid using plastic pots and especially re-pot plants that come in the 1 gallon or 5 gallon black plastic.  These pots look cheap and tacky.

One of the quickest and easiest ways to enhance the flow of your plantings is to mulch with woods chips.  You can easily get them for free.  Not only do they complete your planting, they eventually become valuable compost and enrich the soil.  They warm the soil when it’s cold and cool the soil when it’s hot.  Call the tree companies in your area and ask for a load. Wood chips do not have the capacity to spread disease so use them freely.  They especially help visually connect young plantings until they can mature and fill in empty spots.

Before Photo of an Ugly Home

When I asked my client to show me around her home, one of the things I’m doing while we are viewing her home, is making a list of things that need to be rearranged, removed, cleaned, and added to when the home is on the market to potential buyers.

Think about it this way, if you were going to sell your car, what would you do first before you showed it to a buyer…. no matter who I ask this question to, the answer is 100% the same every time…..DETAIL IT! That’s right. So the first thing you should do is clean your home from top to bottom, paint the walls, clean or replace carpet, and polish the floors.

Think about it this way…. the moment you decide to sell your home, it becomes a commodity, a product…. and is no longer your home.

After Photo of Ugly Home

Of course it’s difficult to live in your house while you are selling it. That idea strikes fear into the hearts of many home owners. Especially if you have small children, the idea of selling your home and keeping it clean with your children in the house, is a terrifying experience. When you decide to sell your home and you will be living in your home while you are selling it, make eating out, spending a lot of time away from the home on the weekends, and possibly a weekly house cleaner and gardener as part of your home selling costs.

The first thing you should do is get rid of clutter. This is the “lived in” look that everyone has but everyone hates. Bills that need to be paid, paperwork from your childrens’ school, knick knacks on shelves and tables, make-up, toothbrushes, and contact lenses on the bathroom vanity, even some of the furniture should go. If you were going to get new stuff when you move anyway, sell it. If not, then consider getting a storage unit or if your garage is not already overflowing, make a very specific and small spot in the garage for any furniture you will be keeping. Another very important thing to do is clean out your closets. Get rid of at least half of the stuff in the closets. One of the major things house buyers look for is storage in the home, and stuff closets are a real turn off.