Freshen The House, Sweeten The Sale

Spring is nearly upon us, the season when the housing market starts to peak for home sellers and buyers. If you're about to put your house up for sale on the market, now is the time to start freshening up around the home. (Even if you aren't, who doesn't like a fresh, clean home in the springtime?)

Here are a few quick things you can do to get going.

Clean, Clean, Clean!

The most simple thing to do is to give your home a thorough cleaning. Take advantage of a sunny day to go through all your rooms and pick up clutter, dust, scrub, vacuum, clean windows and mirrors, and store anything you aren't using. Eradicate the dustbunnies in those neglected corners. Organize your drawers and closets. Take care of minor repairs. Change your furnace filters. Take out the garbage and cat litter.

See if there's any neatening up you can do outdoors. If it's far enough along in the season, pull your lawn chairs and patio sets out of storage (and replace any damaged pieces). Repair or replace failing fences. Tend to your landscaping, get rid of yard debris, mow the lawn, and start that spring planting you've been meaning to do.

Apply Some New Paint

Spring is the best season to get a new coat of paint on the exterior of your home. Mild spring temperatures are ideal painting conditions, especially for latex paint. High summer temperatures can cause paint to dry too quickly with a poor finish, while wet and cold winter temperatures can prevent it from drying out at all. In spring weather, paint forms a durable and protective finish instead (but make sure to avoid any rainy or windy days, and get your painting done before you start any landscaping around your home's exterior).

In Victoria winter brings on plenty of wind and rain, which can damage your home's exterior and cause your paint to peel, exposing the wood beneath to dangerous wood rot and termites. You should check your home once a year every spring to prevent this. The earlier in the season you inspect your interior, the sooner you can catch any problems and have them repaired by a professional so you can go ahead with your paint job.

Look at a bright paint colour for the exterior of your home, especially if you're selling. A fresh paint job will improve your home's curb appeal, and bright colours will reflect heat and cool your house down in the summer (which can save you up to 20-30% in energy usage). Bright paint also takes less damage from sunlight, making it longer-lasting and less likely to chip or peel than darker paint.

Having your home professionally painted is a great investment for selling. The increase in value it adds to your home will usually far outstrip the cost.

Rearrange The Furniture

One of the least expensive ways to refresh a room in your home is to rearrange your furniture. You can get a new look with no cost, and a careful arrangement can be more effective than buying something new. There are plenty of tutorials on how to plan an arrangement online, but here are a few extra tips:

• Take measurements of everything first so you can test your arrangement out on paper without having to shuffle heavy items around. Draw the room to scale on one sheet of graph paper and the furniture on another, then cut out the furniture pieces and shuffle them around on your "room".
• Move your sofa away from the window. Years of sunlight in the same spot will make it fade faster.
• Keep short bookcases, shelves, and tables away from room entrances: as the first surface you encounter when you come in, they become a magnet for clutter.
• Avoid overly-large tables; they make it hard to navigate around the room and get to seating.
• If you have a small space, get rid of any excess furniture and clutter. If your sofa isn't against a wall, you can use the space behind it for shelving or storage if you plan carefully. A simple table can be turned into a desk by adding a chair and a work lamp.
• If you have a medium-sized space, "float" furniture out from the wall. It will make the room feel more inviting and bigger than it is.
• If you have a large space, make the room do double duty. Try a game area and a study corner, or an entertainment arrangement and a kids' play space.
• Find any overburdened outlets and spread the cords around. It will make it easier to find their respective appliances and will lower the risk of an electrical malfunction.
• Find alternate uses for dressers. They can hold silverware, DVDs and video games, appliances and more.
• Choose a focal point like a fireplace or picture window. Most living areas have their arrangement based around the television, but maybe it's time for a change!
• Make sure dark pieces are in the light of a window or lamp, or they'll blend into dimly-lit spaces.
• Mix up the old and the new, like an antique side table with a more modern bed arrangement.

Freshen The Indoors

As real estate agents we know the important of a home's smell — fresh scents can make a home feel clean and inviting, helping to entice buyers. But a lot of home owners dislike expensive, chemical-laden perfumes and air fresheners. Luckily there are plenty of alternatives, many of them natural.

Air Purifiers

Indoor air tends to become more polluted than outdoor air, and running a simple, quiet air purifier machine in your home can make a huge difference. Make sure to invest in an energy-efficient purifier with a 2 or more Energy Star rating and you'll be reaping the benefits for a long time.

Airing Out

When cleaning your home, air out your linens: leave your duvets and pillows out in the sun, and spritz some linen water over the bed. Direct sunlight can go a long way to removing odours, and you can protect your items by laying a tarp out on the grass beforehand. If you can, take the drawers out of your dressers and lay them out as well. Several days of airing is ideal if the weather cooperates, but even an afternoon of sunshine can make a difference.

Odour Absorbers

Commercial odour absorbers like Febreze can work well, but there are plenty of cheaper, more natural options you can try. Plain tea bags in shoes and gym bags can absorb odours, as can a dish of bicarbonate of soda. Activated charcoal in an open container is great for refrigerators, garages, and storage areas like cupboards (look for it at pet stores in the fish section). Sprinkling baking soda on the carpet before vacuuming, or in the kitchen sink before running the garbage disposal will naturally freshen them up.

Coffee grounds can be used as flea repellent or odour absorbers when bundled up in a woven container like a satchet or a coffee filter tied closed with string or an elastic. Undiluted vinegar can be flushed in your toilet tank, used in a spray bottle, or simply left out in a dish — infuse it with sage to get some extra antibacterial properties. Clean kitty litter can be poured into musty drawers or luggage, sealed in a plastic bag, and left for a week to make them smell like new.

Potpourri & Herb Satchets

Potpourri is easy to make at home with minimal cost: choose your own ingredients like cloves, cinnamon, orange zest, and some essential oils and toss them all together in a bowl. Place it in the center of a room or near your home's entrance.

You can also buy herb satches with essential oils which can be placed in dresser drawers, hung in closets or stashed in cupboards. They often look attractive and have a long scent life.

Spices & Citrus

Citrus fruits, especially oranges, are fantastic for adding a fresh scent to your home. You can make a simple pomander by poking holes in an orange with a toothpick and inserting cloves, rolling it in cinnamon and other spices, then threading a needle through it and hanging in a spot of your choice. Or you can try your hand at making clementine candles.

If you have a garbage disposal, peel some citrus for a snack and grind up the peels. Or put a pot on the stove and fill it up with citrus peel and fresh mint or basil, then simmer it until the smell fills your home. You can also make fresh-squeezed lemonade or limeade (especially with mint) and enjoy the way it freshens up your kitchen.

Candles & Warmers

The best candles for scent are beeswax candles, followed by soy candles. Avoid candles made of paraffin. Both beeswax and soy candles can often be found in a variety of aromatherapy scents, or you can invent some of your own: a common trick is to sit a vanilla-scented candle in a bowl of fresh coffee beans. (Make sure not to burn candles near paper, on surfaces where they can be easily knocked off, or beneath low ceilings or close to walls. Move them around occasionally to avoid soot stains.)

If open flames aren't practical for your home, try a candle warmer. These come in electrical form as well as the traditional ceramic house-and-bowl form that takes a tealight candle and blocks of scented wax.

Essential Oils & Extracts

Essential oils can be expensive, but you only need a few drops to scent a room and they can be used on just about anything. Fill a small vase with reeds and oil to make a reed diffuser. Create a mixture with distilled water in a spray bottle to create a spritzer (make sure to shake it well and let it sit for a few hours before using). Soak a cotton ball in rosemary oil and keep it in your trash can. Sprinkle a bit of lavender oil on your pillows and sheets. Dab a fingertip of orange oil on a (cold!) lightbulb and turn it on — the scent will spread as the bulb heats up. Collect some pine cones and drip a little cinnamon oil on them, or buy wood cubes from a craft store and shake them up in a jar with your oil of choice, let them sit overnight, then display them in a bowl or as ornaments.

Extracts can also be good for scenting, especially vanilla. Put a tiny amount in a small saucepan (cloves and cinnamon optional) and warm it on low heat on your stove. Your entire house will smell like cookies! Or if you're cleaning your fridge, add some vanilla to the water for your last wipe-down and enjoy your amazing-smelling refrigerator.

Grow Plants

A number of great-smelling plants can be grown indoors and serve extra use as ingredients for cooking or tea.

• Rosemary - An evergreen plant with year-round aroma that can be used for cooking or as an herbal tea. It also works as an insect repellant.
• Lavender - Instead of buying essential lavender oil, you can grow a pot on your bedroom windowsill instead. Make sure to provide it with plenty of sunlight, and when the plant withers in the autumn, gather the seeds and plant them again next spring.
• Basil - The well-known basil has a rich aroma and can be used as an herb, tea, or an additive to your salad. Its four-seed nut drops in autumn and can be replanted in the spring.
• Mint - With many subspecies, mint makes a great herbal tea and different varieties can be used for different kinds of cooking. It thrives well indoors and can improve your home's air quality, making it easier to breathe.
• Jasmine - Jasmine has a beautiful aroma, especially when it opens its flowers in the evening. You can make tea with the petals and some boiling water.
• Geranium - The scent of the many types of geranium may not be to your taste, but if it is they serve as excellent mosquito repellent, have lovely blossoms, and help purify the air. They don't require much care and can live for two weeks without water in cold weather. A great houseplant for beginners.
• Coffee Plant - The arabica coffee plant species is the easiest to grow at home, blooming white flowers and releasing refreshing coffee scents in the morning. It can grow to the size of a small tree outside, but indoors in a pot it will usually stop growing when it reaches about 1 meter.
• Woodbine - Also known as honeysuckle, woodbine grows in vines that you can encourage to climb up a branch or pole. Its scent is very sweet and especially strong at night.