When it comes to selling a home, the bare bones of the matter are that buyers don’t want to spend any more money than they have to! Buying a home is costly; it’s the single, biggest financial investment that most people make in their lifetimes. There’s the price of the house, the stamp-duty, solicitors’ fees – and not to mention the cost of the move itself. Savvy sellers will know that the best way to make their property more attractive to cash-strapped buyers is to reduce the amount that needs spending on it. However, selling your home can often reduce the available budget for makeovers and facelifts. In this event, the best thing to do is to focus your efforts on the heart of the home - the kitchen!
What’s letting the side down?
Giving your kitchen a facelift doesn’t have to mean gutting the whole thing and starting from scratch – that’s too costly and impractical. Have a look at your kitchen and pay particular attention to the surfaces. If anything’s going to let the side down, it’s the state of your worktops and, more specifically, your kitchen cupboard doors and drawer fronts.
Kitchen doors and drawers tend to bear the brunt of the daily battle of kitchen life. Spills can cause stains, grubby fingers can cause dull colours, bashes and bumps can add dents and dings, and even the simple opening and closing of doors and drawers can exhaust hinges and ruin runners. On top of that, all these surfaces are exposed to extremes of heat, which can cause warping or paint to peel.
Optimise the aesthetics
However, this doesn’t mean you’ve got to rip out all your kitchen units. The likelihood is that the wear and tear isn’t structural, it’s aesthetic. And as we all know, when you’re trying to sell your home it’s the aesthetics that pack the greatest punch.
Rather than putting yourself through the financial trauma and inconvenience of trying to completely renovate your home’s headquarters, the trick is to focus on those surfaces that show up the most signs of kitchen warfare. You’ll find that there are a number of companies who specialize in the replacement of kitchen doors and drawers, saving you significant sums of time and money – and providing you with a virtually-instant kitchen facelift.
Take control of your kitchen
Not only does this option allow you to return your kitchen to its former glory, but it also gives you greater control on how you want it to look. If the colour scheme isn’t quite cutting-edge, you can choose to change the colours and even the materials from which doors and drawer fronts are made. In addition, many refurbishment companies will make doors and drawers to order, so if you’ve inherited a quirky cupboard or a droopy drawer, you can have the frontage made to measure and – hey presto – those ‘characterful’ corners suddenly fall in line with the rest of the room.
A kitchen facelift doesn’t have to be expensive and it is worth doing, as a newly refurbished kitchen can add significant value to the price tag of your home and make it much more desirable to potential buyers from the moment they walk through the door.
