Hartley house sale prep

My darling friend,

Your beautiful house is set to release you into a future full of new dreams and big plans. In order to maximise its potential sale price, I am suggesting the following ideas for changes that are designed to ignite a buyer’s imagination, whilst not setting fire to your wallet. You can take whatever you will from this plan - it is a moveable feast.

To be brutally honest, your house is suffering a bit from nest emptying. You’ve been fleeced. It happens and for good reason - we let our kids take more than their cherished presence, we let them take whatever they bloody want because without them living there anymore, you don’t really need the stuff they take.

But…. the result is that you’re left with a few gaps. We need to fill those so that the house resumes it’s cohesive family home flavour and evicts the sense of furniture and frills pillage.

I strongly suggest that we get the stylist on board asap - I look forward to meeting her and being as much a part of the process as you’d like me to be. I am at your disposal!

So let’s get started.

Hx

The Garden:

As Spring approaches, so will the lushness of a Cremorne garden return. If you had a mind, how about popping a few bulbs in the ground so that there is some colour? Maybe it’s too late for that, but I’d go to Honeysuckle nursery on Military Road and ask their advice on what you could plant now that would deliver joy in the coming months. We talked about seaside daisies…

The entrance to any house has a massive impact at first sight - so it’s super important that we dress this up a bit so that it can do some heavy buyer-luring lifting.

Given it’s a sunny spot, this is the ONLY place I could entertain pots - dark pots with petunias or jonquils or something similar arranged on the right hand side of the steps will soften the area and lead the eye up to the front door without looking like pot prisoners - AKA the one that is there lurking in he dark currently!!! Release him, I say!

Three pots, three burstingly luscious pots of soft greenery and flowers - get them planted now so they look loved-in.

The current pot just makes the space look dark and gloomy - but pots on the steps in the sun will look expansive and happy - the Ooh Aah girls to the main event.

We talked about the big plain coir door mat - pictured below, from Bunnings - as wide as the front door will allow. They’re quite chunky and lush but also so understated. But if a door mat could talk…

Three black hooks for a coat, a hat and a brolly, like these could be attached to the left hand side, facing the front door. I found these on Etsy, but they really can be found anywhere and will cost more to put up than to buy!! I liked these because they’re a bit vintage-y - like the house, but without being rustic, which is not the vibe we’re after,

Down the side of the house along the driveway is a little bit more challenging given the cracked concrete, but I have to say, I think it’s nothing the seaside daisies won’t remedy. Just get them in the ground now and give away all those pot plants, EXCLUDING the urn on the table which we are taking into the entrance hall. The only pot to keep here is the one beside the bench seat.

I suggest you move the bench seat to sit between the window and the vents (which remind me of gun turrets!!). The reason for this is that the scale will work better. Put that tall pot plant on the street side of the bench. Then you are framing the bench and drawing more attention to the beautiful stone wall. All the other plants need to find a new address - they’re officially evicted. The greatest offenders are the ones on the window sill in the image above. Gone, I say!

The entrance hall:

Your house is really quite grand in its layout and scale, and the entry hall is a fabulous space that has gravitas! It is not your intention to buy new furniture and although a bigger central table would be grander, this one will do! However, i would be tempted to push it into the corner to the left as I think it’s too small to be in the middle of the room.

Black table, black sideboard, bigger mirror, huge green plant, relocated urn…

The urn is exactly the right scale. If it’s too porous, put a big jar inside it into which you can put water and cut stems. Perfect. Do you love how I am so into recycling??

Move the little white square side table - neither use nor ornament.

And the mirror. Needs to go. We need a big black frame mirror to replace it, propped on the sideboard. The lamps are a bit dated, but we can live with them,, especially with the bigger mirror.