Getting ready to sell....

Hubby and I bought our first home with the intention of it being a starter home. We planned for 3-5 years in this house and this is year 2. While we are not planning on selling any time soon (probably a few years), we have decided to focus our "projects" on things that will make the house easier to sell/raise the value. As the housing market begins to make a slow recovery, we want to put a little extra thought into the things we decide to spend our time and money on to ensure that we will get back what we put in to the house.

After searching blogland for ideas on where to start, here is the beginning of our list:

To Do:

1. Paint the kitchen.  This is the only main room that didn't get a paint job when we moved in and the walls are pretty dirty.

2. Paint the trim through out the house. I actually started on this one tonight. First I had to clean all the trim with a magic eraser, but my next step is to paint.

3. Add board and batten to the dining room (and maybe living room)

4. Paint living room and dining room a neutral color (not everyone loves bright yellow, even though they should!)

5. Paint the front door. Nothing says welcome home like a freshly painted entryway!

6. Finish landscaping the front flowerbeds and entryway. (We started this summer but never finished)

7. Organize spare rooms and closets. This needs to be done anyway, but no one wants to check out the size of the closets in a house to find we have randomly thrown everything we didn't have a place for in there!

Wish list:

1. Granite counter tops. We currently have old school white laminate counter tops. Granite will definitely increase the value of our kitchen but it comes with a hefty price tag. For this reason, this is on our wish list and not our definite list.

2. Update hardware. While we did change out all our cabinet hardware and most of our lighting, our door knobs are still brass and our faucets are still chrome. I would love to change everything to oil rubbed bronze but there are so many doors!! I'm thinking about following one of the tutorials out there to spray paint my current ones, we will see!

3. Add a patio area. We currently have a small covered patio area, but I would really like to extend it out behind our dining room window and add an area for a table and chairs.

Do you have any suggestions about improvements that makes a house sell faster/for a higher price? We would love to hear from you!