Ohhhh she’s not in Central Ohio or I’d be asking this stager to guest blog on ColumbusBestBlog in a minute. Painting oak cabinets… Rachel Backus is an authority and on Rachel’s Hudson Ohio blog MyStagedLife.com gives an even higher authority… for painting oak. Gee somehow “higher authority” reminds me of a hot dog commercial… back to staging.
“Oak is out!” Rachel say it isn’t so?
What happens when maple goes out or cherry goes out? Do we slap paint on those beautiful woods to get the house sold too?
I had a house listed in Dayton Ohio, long, long ago built in the 20’s or 30’s where my seller had bought the house from a member of the original family. It had the original cabinets in the kitchen… My seller was widowed shortly after buying the home and was relocating to be closer to family. An agent in my office sold the home in it’s original condition with original cabinets (which were painted) and lots of great wood trim throughout the house to some fellas with great taste.
I personally had relocated to Columbus a year or so later but I heard from an agent in Dayton who was listing the house and had some questions (the selling agent when I had the house listed had died…) sorry for the morbid details of people dying. They do.
Whenever I think about homes being updated for the latest rage in home decor or to get the house sold because the details of the original home have gone out of style I think of those cabinets and the toile wallpaper in the foyer of that home that had been there for longer than I have been alive and the preservationist in me screams “STOP the madness…”
Then the real etate agent in me says “every home is not THAT home” there are lots of homes that are not going to be original. People update. People make changes for their lifestyle or to sell. Dark stained oak cabinets do date a home.
I found Rachel’s entry on her blog via an entry on ActiveRain which she entitled “WOOD you tell a homeowner to paint the cabinets?”
Staging is getting a home to look it’s best for the sale of the home. In a sellers market you can put your house on the market in some areas and the buyer is going to snap it up and paint the cabinets themselves if that is their taste. Or not paint the cabinets themselves if they like them as is. In a buyers market with lots of competition buyers just go look for a house where the seller has painted the cabinets or made upgrades that suit their taste.
In a buyers market seller’s have to make moral decisions like things about painting oak. Or painting brick?
