Selling a house is no child's play. Buying a house is arguably the biggest investment people make during their lifetimes. It can be quite stressful. Not so surprisingly, selling a house is also equally difficult (if not more). And if you have a house that's not buyer-ready, things become even more tough. Kindly note if a house stays on the market without takers for long, it may end up not selling for the price it's truly worth.

Selling a house in the quickest possible time is not just about putting a competitive price tag on the property, but also making the house look good. To push up the curb appeal, buyers usually make upgrades to the house, depersonalize it, and hire a professional photographer. There are quite a few ways to make your house look better. But the big question is, 'where to start the tidying process from?'. The answer is a 'house paint'. At times, exterior and interior painting is all that you need to completely transform the way your house looks. Even ambitious DIY plans would not have an impact like a paint job.

Painting a House Before Sale

A house's entrance is the first thing that a buyer notices. If the buyer is not sold at this point, it would be very difficult thereafter to get the buyer on-board. The exterior must be neat and clean, and a fresh coating of paint would help significantly. A doorway colored nicely would draw the attention of the buyer to the door and be the perfect entry point into the house. If the house performs well, it would most likely fetch you a bigger offer.

For house painting experts, neutral colors such as beige, greige, gray, off white, and sand are in vogue, and appeal to most buyers. Neutral colors also serve as the right background for interior decoration. If required, you may always add multiple instances of color within the house in the form of furniture, pillows, art, and décor. These items along with the neutral background would make a room or any space extremely stylish.

Paint Finish

House paints could have different finishes, such as matte and glossy. But there are quite a few layers of finishing that reside between and around the two. The following are the levels of glossiness you can have with the paint:

• Flat: This is the least popular option. 'Flat' is completely flat. It's chalky, powdery, and ideal only for painting hulls of tanks and oil tankers used during desert warfare.
• Matte: This finish is flat too, but not as flat as the flatness of 'flat'. The true effect of matte can be seen in a house that has matte walls throughout.
• Eggshell: This paint finish is quite common. Generally, it's used in bathrooms, hallways, and kitchen. You may even end up using this finish on the walls of your living room and bedroom. Eggshell is glossy, but the glossiness is subtle.
• Semigloss: Many people use semigloss in their bathrooms. But that is not the right thing to do. Semigloss would make your bathroom look a bit too glossy. It would repel light and water and would shimmer too much. Also called satin or pearl, this finish is best when used for some crown molding and trim.
• Glossy: Glossy is the other extreme of the spectrum; the first being flat. Like flat, this finish is also very rarely used. Even glossier than this is the 'high gloss' finish, which is essentially clear coat. This finish looks like paint out of the base of a cold, clear pool.

Of the five major options, matte and eggshell are the most commonly picked finishes.

Paint Texture

Texture is basically a surface made of joint compound, a thin mud. It's applied on the wall and when it dries, paint is applied over it. There are different kinds of texture. The following are some of the main varieties:

• Rolled: The thin mud is applied using a roller. These are rollers that you come across in closets and garages.
• Stipple: For stipple texture, a texture brush is used to draw the mud up in different patterns after the mud is applied. It could also be done using spherical sponges, which result in circular patterns. These patterns look like fireworks' outline, especially when combined with the eggshell paint-finish.
• Trowel: This entails using a trowel while applying the mud. The process entails applying a layer. Once the layer is dried, another layer is applied atop. It's probably the easiest of textures to apply.
• Knockdown: For this texture, the mud is sprayed on the wall and it's let to dry a bit thereafter. Then, a rubber trowel is dragged over the application to knock down the texture's high points. This creates a uniformly uneven, nice texture that's quite commonly found in expensive homes.
• Orange peel: This technique is a variation of 'knock down'. The texture is sprayed very thinly and finely so that there aren't high points. Once dried, the texture that shows up is akin to a grapefruit peel.

Hire a Professional

Painting a house is not an easy job. It needs quite a bit of practice and patience. Painting is also monotonous, boring, and tiring. If you try to do it yourself, you may end up spilling the paint on the door jamb, carpet, TV, etc. The paint may even come contact with your eyeballs, pets, and other humans in the house. If the house is quite spacious, significant amount of time and effort would be required to paint the house, which you could have spent somewhere else. Moreover, there is a skill to painting that DIYers would most likely not have.

Conclusion

A house that looks worn out would remain on the market for long. De-cluttering or tidying up a house is mandatory if you want the sale to happen quickly. Besides painting the house, trimming flower beds, cutting the grass, repairing gates and fences, cleaning the windows, etc. would also add to the curb appeal of a house.