Easy DIY jobs to improve saleability before selling our house

[nc909]

partner and I have separated and agreed to sell the house. Loads of jobs we’ve been meaning to do. What are easy DIY jobs you’ve done to make it more sellable?

I’m happy to prep and paint. happy to have a go at small wood repairs in door frames.

whole kitchen needs redoing. Bathroom looks dated but maybe passable.

has anyone tried laying own flooring? How easy is that?

thanks

If I were you I'd make sure it was spotless and decluttered. Get new towels and bedding, make sure garden is tidy. The fact you're asking how easy it is to lay flooring would indicate you're a bit lacking in experience.

What actually will make a difference OP?
I suspect flooring is false economy, but not necessarily. Painting -maybe, can you share photos. Difficult to answer what’s worth doing without that.

Paint and nothing else. New cheap flooring is worse than leaving the old in place for the purchaser to choose what they like.

Agree with pps. Maybe just paint and ptice adequately.
I viewed houses where they tried to quickly sptuce up on cheap, it was well obvious and priced as done up. Paint over tiles kind of thing and some new cheapo lino with eood floor print. Which they pointed out is nee. No benefit to me if I don't like lino....
As pp said it's better to sell as is so people can do it up. Just to add, especially if you ar3 not skilled DIYer.....

Total declutter. Deep clean. Steam clean carpets. Repaint woodwork with fresh white paint and maybe a neutral colour in any rooms that look a bit tired. Repair any damaged wood like rotting window sills etc as that can look worse than it is.
Very tidy front garden with some nice flowering shrubs in pots for kerb appeal.

But nothing else. They will want to do their own kitchen and bathroom refits.

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

Here’s some basic suggestions. Many may not apply.

Clear up at the front.
If necessary paint front door. Polish the letter box.
Cut grass.
Trim hedges.
Sweep the path.
Keep bins away nice and tidy.
Ditto bikes & kids stuff.
Clean windows

Make sure floors are clean. Shampoo carpets.
Pet paraphernalia out of site.
Pet covers off sofa!
Declutter everywhere into boxes for sorting as required.
Get rid of cooking smells by airing rooms.
Tackle mold in bathroom.
Make all beds like a hotel bed! No scruffy creased duvets.
Take stuff from top of wardrobes.
Clear as many coats as possible away from entrance hall.
Make sure toilet seats are down on photographs’ day!

Then … think about DIY. You might not need to really do much after that. 🙄

Dont bother replacing flooring. Buyers will want their own taste.

Clean any grout and redo any silicon. ANY silicon. Kitchen, bathroom, around windows and doors. I always notice it when it’s mouldy.

You're trying to create an impression. So definitely declutter and then again. Look.at each room is it well organised?

What about what's on the wall? Art is easy and cheap and you can take it with you. Same with light shades, lamps etc. In bedrooms you could consider new bedding.

In the bathroom I would try and have as little on show as possible. Look at storage, can it be improved. Make sure you have lovely clean towels - we had some for photos and when we showed people round. I also made sure things like bin / toilet brush etc were either new or out of sight.

You want the house to smell nice so if there are any issues around pets, drains, old carpets sort them out.

So skirting and bannisters can look terrible if paint is worn and don't actually take that long to clean up and paint.

Hire out a storage space and declutter literally everything into it. It could increase your sale price by more than the cost of the storage.

Literally put any unnecessary furniture in there as well as what you'd ordinarily think of as clutter. Stuff like the little side table by the sofa you put your drink on. Veg trolley. Little chest of drawers. Get rid of all of it and the house will seem twice as big.

Remove any and all stickers. Especially window stickers! You wouldn’t believe how many houses we viewed that had kids’ stickers on the bedroom doors, walls, windowsills and/or windows. It’s really off putting because I don’t want to have to sort that when I move in. Ditto blu tack remains. Our last house had one room with so many blu tack bits left on the wall from posters that it took us weeks to prep for paint! I wouldn’t buy another house that needed me to do that job.

I've sold two houses by scrubbing and decluttering. I think the house has got to be very clean and to look like it has lots of storage. Tidy up the garden.

I wouldn't do any DIY unless you needed to paint some walls.

I bought this one completely empty which was useful because I could see any faults.

Freshly painted woodwork makes a huge difference so skirtings and door surrounds mainly.

Any wooden areas you can sand and wax / varnish.

Grout pen on all tiles

New sealant in shower / bath

Dont bother with floor, kitchen or bathroom - expensive and new people might change them anyway. New towels in the bathroom.

I paid for a deep clean and declutter. Worth every penny.

Hire out a storage space and declutter literally everything into it

what's the point of paying for storage, to store a load of junk. Just spend a weekend or two sorting, binning, donating or selling. Storage is very expensive!