We finally got our house on the market, and have found that the market has really slowed here. This weekend, we lost a "potential" buyer simply because of the color of the grout we have. The living areas of our house are a light blue, and while I know that is not eveyone's idea of great decor, we love it. It is not that big an issue when selling, as paint is so easy to change. The problem is the tile grout. The tile is a very light almost white, but with a tinge of light blue. The grout we chose back when we built the house is a dark blue. (I wanted a dark color so I didn't have to be cleaning white grout all the time.... been there done that). It is pretty to us, but we realized that while the paint isn't an issue, the grout is because people think it can't be changed. I think if the grout color were changed to white the blue tinge would be barely visable. I found a company "the grout medic" who advertises that they can lighten the color and from their before and after pics on the website it looks like THE answer to our problem. My question is ....has anyone ever had this done? Did it work? Did it look OK and were the results consisten through out? I talked to our realtor and he thought this would be a great idea, but didn't have any experience with it. Any input anyone???????

Arlene: I cannot give you info on will it work?? But if someone commented on it?? - I would think about changing it ...I watch some show about staging a home?? (Leslie did it??) funny the things that potential buyers get hung up on - sorry I don't know a thing about grout :(

Can't help you, either, Arlene. Surely there is a tile grout guru amongst us to answer your question.

Wishing you luck with the sale of your home. Bet you are getting very excited about the upcoming move.

Can't wait to see you and Marc next month!

That is great thing about LCT...always an expert...hang in Arlene

Arlene, I can't help you either with the grout question, but I wish you & Marc the best of luck! Those buyers sure are picky these days, and I know firsthand how tough the market is (we still haven't gotten one single nibble in over 6 months on our home back in Florida, and we're priced below market!)

Where are you moving? (I think I've seen some of Marc's postings talking about being in the DC area?) I hope all goes well with your move and hopefully a quick sale on the FL home! :)

Arlene,
a couple of years ago at work I had to research a similiar situation. The consensus at that time seemed to be that it was almost impossible to change a dark grout color to a much lighter color so we did not go forward with the project. It's possible that there have been new products introduced now that will accomplish this. At the minimum, I would ask the company for a list of clients in your area who have had this work done and contact them to see if they are satisfied. Its very easy to make pictures on a web site look good. Good luck.

Arlene,

Have you considered re-grouting? Not sure how involved that process would be or the costs. Just something maybe to consider.

Arlene - we didn't change any grout, but we were the ones who had our home "staged" - it sold in 2 days, but I'm sure it was mainly due to the old maxim, "location, location, location", although clearing the clutter, depersonalizing and updating the paint colors and palette in afew rooms helped. Our agent and stager said there is a "new buyer" you have to cater to these days - not the same buyer we were.

Arlene, I have colored grout in my bathrooms, but haven't ever thought about trying to change them.

Re-grouting would have to be a major headache, and I don't know if straight Clorox would do anything except knock you out.

Thank you all everyone! Vicki, that is a great suggestion. I agree, a website is not the best "proof" of actual results. I guess I just got excited when I thought that maybe it could be changed. I guess we'll see. I put a call into them and will find out the cost and whether it is even cost effective for us to hav it done. Then based on that, I will definitely ask for references.

Kristin, we have a BIG move coming up in October or early November... Marc's company is transferring us to Tokyo, Japan! We are SO excited, but at the same time every overwhelmed with all the details of an international move. I sympathize with your house situation. Ours has only been on the market 3 weeks, but it has been slow compared to other times we've sold a house. Where is your house in FL located? We are a little worried we might be overpriced, but we didn't want to price it low and not have any "wiggle" room to bargan with. I have a friend at work who has his on the market (down in Kissimmee) and he hasn't had a single nibble in 6 months. His wife and kids have already moved to Maryland with her new job so the kids can start school. He is really in a bind over it, as I would imagine you are. It is difficult to make 2 house payments. We are lucky in that the comapny will buy ours after a certain time if it hasn't sold because they want us over there. The bad news is we don't know what we could get for it. This is one of those down cycles I guess and one of the main reasons I got out of the real estate field... it is such a cyclical businss. Earlier this year, prices were skyrocketing here and sellers had numerous buyers. Best of luck to you.

Arlene, WOW!!! Toyko! Now, THAT is a major move. Come to think of it, I did see a post from Marc about selling the car before going to Japan. I thought he meant on vacation - LOL!

I admire you guys for taking this leap - we had a chance years ago to move to Okinawa for a position (basically 2-year contract) for Greg, but we thought, "what would we do with our dogs?" We were just kids. It was far too scary at the time, but I always do wonder...what if?

Hey, another thought: is it possible for your agent to recontact those buyers and ask them if they would consider an allowance for them to re-grout? You could get some quotes on how much it would cost and then knock that off the price of the house?

I am excited for you guys and will follow your story with great interest! Best of luck!

Kirstin, That was my thought too. I was thinking of doing just that after I've gotten more info. We'll see.

I know what you mean about it being scary for you at the time. A couple of years ago they broached the subject with Marc and we decided not to. At the time we would have jumped at the chance for something in Europe, but Japan just seemed to "foreign" or something, never having been there. Since then we cruised some of Asia and found we really liked it, so this time we jumped at it, even though we have never been to Japan (other than a several hour layover in the airport!) Beleive it or not, we had a friend of a friend tell us recently that we "are TOO OLD" to make a move like this. We both just cracked up laughing. We are only in our late 40s for pete sake. TOO OLD..... TOO FUNNY!!! By the way.... maybe an opportunity will present itself again one day when it is more feasable for you. You never know.... ;)

Too OLD?! I think late 40s would be the ideal time in life to make a move like this!

Arlene instead of changing the grout is there any way to just make it less noticeable? add some throw rugs in a color that would compliment it, for example? Or if much of your stuff is the blue, to pull some other colors in?

Arlene,

what I learned in my research - there are two ways to change grout color.

grout stain (dye) - like wood stain, soaks into the grout but is limited to only changing color a shade or two.

grout colorant - topical application (like a thick paint over wood). apparently you can get a greater change in colors but I have no idea how this would look & how long it would last. Maybe this is what this company is using. Gives you some questions to ask though.

Believe it or not, there is a message forum dedicated to tile, stone & grout questions. lol johnbridge.com

Leslie,

I didn't seee your post until this morning. For some reason it didn't appear last night. How did you find a stager? I thought about that a month ago but didn't know how to find one. Our realtor didn't suggest one, but gave me a long list of things to do and I have done the vast majority of them. The house has been almost completely depersonalized. I protested on a couple of his suggestions because I wanted to still feel like I was living in my own home, rather than a hotel. In my opinion, the realtor thinks he has all the answers (if you know what I mean) so he didn't say much when I suggested it, and I didn't know how to find one. Can you give me an idea about the cost?

Arlene,
Thanks for the suggestion. I think it would be pretty difficult to pull in different colors without painting it. The celings are about 16 feet, so not a paint job I can do by myself. They would need to be repainted also, as the walls are a very light blue, and the cove celings are a darker blue. Sounds strange, but there are massive columns between the living, dining and family rooms (no walls) and they are white, as is the crown molding. While it might seem strange, the effect is really pretty, it is just a lot of blue. One of the other homes built at the same time was done the same way only in shades of light pink and the model was the same, in shades of light peach. I am afraid of spending the $$s to paint it and not choose colors everyone would like. I really don't think it would show well if it were painted all white, as I think it would look "institutional." As for the rugs.... tried that. But the entrance / foyer is so long and wide, I have never been able to find rugs that I can afford that don't seem so small they look silly. I do have rugs in the master bath, but they are blue too (white walls there... had to get some blue in there!!!) I will take them up and see if that helps in there.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.

Arlene - our realtor hired the stager - and she paid for it! I thnk she got a good return on her investment - quick turn around eliminating a lot of the marketing expenses she'd incur if the house was on the market longer.

Our house hadn't been redecorated for at least 15 years and we had been living mainly in Santa Fe for about 4 years prior to the sale so we hadn't focused at all on updating things, except some repairs. Definitely you could say it looked "dated" - a typical midwestern colonial, with an 80's look.

The stager was probably in her early to mid 30's. She had previously worked as a consultant. She had good taste, and was tuned in to what the target demographic (her!) was looking for and responded to. She had the MBR painted beige - I guess a happening color - which didn't go with our comforter cover, area rugs etc. So she bought a new spread and pillow shams, got rid of the window treatments and rugs, rehung some art. In one of the guest rooms (which she subsequently referred to as "the former Laura Ashley bedroom") she got rid of the spread, dust ruffle, window treatments, changed the art and put on a beige spread with brown and blue pillows. Brown is especially big now, I guess. Her biggest transformation was our basement - half our basement was finished - carpeted, with a fireplace and panelling - all done in the 50's - we never changed it - and although we had some twin beds down there for when our nieces all visited, it was enjoying life as a computer and junk graveyard - really a mess. She had that painted, put in some new track fixtures, and turned it into a fourth bedroom.

Although this is embarrasing, here's a link to her before/after pictures. (The befores were taken before I had done a thing...) She makes comments on the pictures about what she did.

before/after staging pictures

use my email to sign in - lkbside@aol.com
password - Elmwood

We re-did our house last year. Browns are VERY in right now in combination with either pink or BLUE.

You could find a stager by calling some interior designers. There are quite a few of them who do that as well as professional organizers. My friend does that here - she is both. It's very big to do that here.

Paint for neutral colors. We did our house in Bone with Swiss Coffee trim and it looks wonderful. Our old house had that 80's green/blue (think country-ish) carpet. No one liked it but it matched the Laura Ashley wallpaper with the little flowers in the entry.

The right buyer came in because she LOVED the floor plan. She did a pretty good makeover - tile, flooring, lighting, even taking out my brand new built in oven, which had I known, I'd have purchased since I bought the same one for our new house which needed the same size. The appliance installer remembered me from the year before and told me and my friend was the interior designer.

Leslie, the differences are amazing! I love the window in the kitchen.

Leslie - I enjoyed getting to see your before and after staging pictures. There's really nothing to be embarrased about. I'm sure you knew beforehand that the basement would need to be changed from the guest/storage area to a nice additional living area. It's so good that your house sold in 2 days. I had heard about clearing kitchen counters as a means to make the home more presentable but I would hate to have to live that way for a long period.

Our housing market here is also very slow. 2 years ago it was a sellers market. A condo in our development (only 44 units) would sell in the first week at or above the asking price. Currently we have 4 on the market (1 death, 1 couple into assisted living, 1 couple retiring out of state and 1 lost job). The units are barely being shown. I can only hope that the economy picks up before we need to make a move.

Leslie: Your staging was very interesting - she did an incredible job with the "new" basement bedroom!! The house had much appeal - no surprise it sold so quickly - Joanna

Leslie...We have (had) some of the same furnishings...We have the same living room furniture pattern... and the rug in the bedroom was just "removed." Our kitchens are almost identical...Love the 80's...have to still update the kitchen and downstairs bath....You might have been "embarrassed" but we're still living in our unstaged house!!

Leslie, that was very helpful to us as well! We are contemplating downsizing & have wondered what the staging process was all about. Thanks for allowing us to see your wonderful example.

Arlene, your home sounds so beautiful. It would be so hard to "please" everyone. I would try giving an allowance for the grout IF that was a real deal breaker. We're remodeling right now & I will grab one of the workers around here to see if they have an answer to your question, although I'll probably have to wait for our Contractor to get back from vacation next week. So good that you've got MUSH to look forward to! - Michele

Andi - I'm embarrased about all the clutter - she took the pictures while we were down here, before we had started to de-clutter and begin to get ready to sell. Although Brad would go up there once a month to work, I hadn't been up there in a long time. The basement, although bad, wasn't as bad as the pictures show since she had the painters pile everything in the middle of the room, but still!

Looks like my basement and it is that bad! Shudder....

We had our house staged about ten years ago thinking we would sell it. After it was done, I liked it so much we're still here. Now I guess it's almost time to do it again!