It doesn’t hurt anything to trade accessories a couple times each year based on the season. Adding tiny bits of color to a room for spring and summer and making easy updates help make the transition and freshen up a space! We gladly welcome the change of seasons for an opportunity to breathe new life into our homes and make things a little different. Here are a handful of simple updates you can make this summer season…

Incorporate white fabrics // Keep it light with white; cream, and sand.

Decorate with flowers // When house plants get moved outside to soak up more of the hot summer sun, decorate inside with fresh flowers, which make a room more cheerful, bright and playful. Of course, more greenery never hurts.

Get the outside ready // Get your garden looking good, your patio set up with table and chairs etc. White fairy lights are another summery touch that add a little something extra, and don't forget the barbecue and fire pit.

Accessorize with citrus // Keep your fruit bowls filled with bright and in season fruits. Something like a bowl of oranges brings a lively and natural bit of colour.

Bring in the beach // Shells, coral, anything that reminds you of the beach and beachy vibes, you can’t get more summery than that. 

Rotate your art // Have a few pieces that you can rotate out every season for a little bit of a change up, keep the bright prints for the summer.

Update pillows // Pillows are one of those easy accessories that can also be rotated out every couple seasons to accentuate on the sense of the time of the year. The same goes for curtains, throws, bedding, and any other easily exchangeable items.

Consider Scent // Believe it or not, the fragrance of your home really influences the aesthetic. A pleasant and clean smelling home is just more inviting! Each season you can try to add a new great smelling candle to your collection, or if you’re not into candles, try a diffuser or a scentsy.

Choose a pastel or primary palette for your accent colours // Keep your all-year round furniture in neutral colours and then have your soft furnishings or accent pieces in the crazy prints or wild colours. But try to not over complicate your colour palette in a room, keep it simple. 

So imagine you’re a buyer and you find the perfect house for you, you put in an offer and your offer gets accepted! You’re so close to the end of this home buying journey but before we can close on the purchase of your new home, there’s a few more steps to make sure the purchase is a sound decision. 

The Home Inspection:

As a buyer you have the opportunity to hire a professional inspector to evaluate the condition of the home. An inspection clause is included in the written contract given to the seller. 

The goal of a home inspection is to give you an objective independent and comprehensive analysis of the physical condition of your potential new home and check for any safety issues that might otherwise be unknowable.

A professional inspector will check on the structure, construction and mechanical systems of the house. This usually includes checking these areas:

You will receive a written report on the inspection. If you choose to be present during the inspection, you can ask your inspector about unique features of the property and get his or her opinion on the necessary maintenance for different areas of the property.

Depending on the results of the inspection, you will have the opportunity to:

• Get out of the written offer if major problems are discovered

• Renegotiate the purchase price to account for necessary repairs

• Negotiate what repairs are made by the seller before final purchase of the property

Our office has some trusted inspectors for you to choose from. We will arrange the inspection time for you.

There are certain decorating trends from the past that may be lingering in your home now. These were probably trending at some point in time but now they are only taking away from the appearance of your home. Make just a little bit of adjustments and you’ll see the difference!

Curtains That Don’t Touch The Floor | You want your curtains to just be touching the floor, or else it will look like you’ve purchased curtains that were too small for your space. Also when you’re getting curtains, you want them as close to the ceiling as possible, higher curtains make a room feel larger. Big homes are of course correlated to luxury, so if you want to achieve that feel in your home, you’ll want to make your home feel as big as possible. Width matters as well, they should extend at least a few inches on either side.

Not Styling Your Furniture | It’s okay to buy IKEA furniture, but you have to style it. If you don’t add your own twist or decor, it will just look that much more like an IKEA set. You want it to be affordable but also look nice at the same time. Add some art, some decor, and style and arrange that furniture. You can also buy the IKEA dresser but throw some nicer handles on it. We want people to know we spent time thinking about our home, curating the objects we chose, and representing ourselves. 

Buying Cookie Cutter Art | The third thing that is going to make your place look cheap is that you’re buying the art that everyone has. In those luxury homes, they searched for just the right art for each room. Art is something that should be specific and unique to your home, not just what everyone else is buying. You don’t have to try to convince people that it’s an original or you commissioned it, but you want something that’s going to look amazing and that’s perfect for your home.

Buying Rugs That Are Too Small For Your Space | This is definitely something that will make your place look cheap, and it’s an easy fix. A small rug that doesn’t fit the space is going to look like you just went out and bought the first thing you could find. It can actually also make a room look smaller. You want the rug properly scaled to fit in your space, but you also want the furniture in the space to touch the rug. Measure before you shop!

Be Done With The Plastic Furniture | Leave the plastic furniture in college! Obviously plastic furniture is cheap, it breaks, you can see through it. You can have it in your closet or use it for storage, but no one wants it out for everyone to see. It isn’t furniture, it’s just storage for private places. 

All Leather Furniture | We know it might have been all the rage at one point, but if your entire living room is all leather furniture, that’s just not it anymore. Not saying that you can’t have leather pieces, because that will of course work. However leather tends to be dark, it makes a space look smaller, it’s just not going to work for everything to be leather. Leather isn’t ugly, we just can’t crowd it in one space. We won't buy one leather piece, we want it to stand on its own. Too much of the same thing is going to look cheap. You don’t need to throw it out, but just spread it apart. 

Having Cords Exposed | We all struggle with this one. But having all the TV cords flung all around for everyone to see, just looks bad. Take 5 minutes to just clean some of these up, run the extra extension cord, because the truth is, the big mess of cords… looks messy! 

Light Fixtures Not Appropriately Sized | Things like chandeliers are meant to be a statement, and when they’re too small for a space, they come off looking cheap. This also applies to lamps on tables, proportions are everything, you can't have a large lamp on a small table. 

So, you are already under contract for the house, an offer has already been accepted, and you have that waiting period before the possession date. 

Here are the don’ts on what you should do before closing day:

• Do not finance anything - meaning on furniture etc do not open a credit on things like that. You should wait after closing to purchase any large items, during this time.

• Do not change employment - even if it is for the same pay, you want to stay the same during your loan application. 

• Don’t co-sign on other loans - you don’t want to do anything that will have an affect on your banking at all. 

• Don’t pay off large balances on your credit card - unless your mortgage broker specifically tells you to, don’t make any of those decisions on your own. 

• Do not accept any gift funds without lender approval - the bank wants to know where that money came from.

• Do not drive by the house and talk to the seller by yourself without your agent - you both are being represented by agents and any negotiating without them could get you burned some way or another. It can easily become a “he said/she said” scenario. 

And with that, let’s get into to do’s:

• Do keep saving - it is always good to have a little extra money in the bank.

• Stay on top of paperwork - you want to get your paperwork over to your lender as soon as possible. This will give you as much time as you’ll want for you to close in time. 

• Stay in touch with your agent - You want to be accessible to your agent for any paperwork that might need your signature. There’s lots of documents that can pop up that they may need you to sign right away. 

• Get a home inspection - While you’re waiting on financing to get approved, schedule in for your home inspection. You get into the home, learn more about the home, knowing what you’re getting into and that you are happy with the condition of the property. 

• Make moving arrangements - Take some time to let your landlord know what’s happening, or if you have any problems with where you are living currently you need to make those arrangements ahead of time, and not be waiting for the last minute.