Interior Designs To Avoid When Selling Your House

Trends come and go.

But when it comes time to sell, some decors that used to be trendy may actually turn many potential homebuyers away.

These days, most buyers would much prefer seeing a home that’s been updated and move-in-ready. When staging your home so that it’s market-ready as quickly as possible, these are the design trends you should be avoiding in 2021.

1. Personal and Generic Decor

Because potential buyers like to envision themselves living in your house, you should always remove anything specifically personal. That means removing all of the excess clutter from bedrooms, as well as any religious items and family photos from the living areas. Just don’t go replacing all of your personal décors with anything that looks generic, plastic, and overly cheap. Remember you don’t want your home to feel un-lived in and clinical, so you can also add a vase of fresh flowers somewhere near the entry.

2. Wall-to-Wall Carpet

Carpet is a relatively common and inexpensive choice of floor covering in Australia. But many people actually see wall-to-wall carpet as a downside because they stain too easily. Refinished hardwood and polished cement floors on the other hand are both highly sought after. They work with most décors, they’re always in style, and they can sometimes actually increase the price or help make the sale. So even though it's a hassle, you may want to look into getting it removed when you decide to sell your home.

3. Mosaic and Colorful Tiling

While mosaic or colorful tiling on kitchen countertops, bathroom backsplashes, and shower walls can be eye-catching, these distracting tile choices can be divisive for many buyers. Sure, tiles were totally groovy back when the word groovy was still cool, but these porous surfaces require regular maintenance and sealant to keep them clean. Not every buyer in the current millennium will like the same colors or patterns as you, so stay away from any tiling trends.

4. Bold Print Wallpaper

Despite the popularity of wallpaper consistently rising over the last few years, it is still very taste-specific. As most buyers will probably only see patterned wallpaper as being too bold, kitschy, and busy, it will become something they’ll have to waste their time and money to remove. So rather than taking a chance on overdoing it with the visual clutter of bright wallpaper, paint your walls with neutral colors that will ensure your house sells quicker.

5. Accent Walls

When trying to create a stand-out focal point or feature, accent walls have become undeniably fashionable recently. Unfortunately, accent walls are a lot like mosaic tiles and bold wallpaper in that they are a massive turn-off for many buyers. In fact, some brightly colored accent walls may stop potential buyers from even coming to inspect a home. Most buyers actually prefer interiors with neutral palettes as this gives them the flexibility to change rooms simply by adding pops of color to a room with bright furniture or bold artwork.

6. Garage Conversions

Converting your garage might make sense if you are one of those people who don’t mind keeping your car outside or you don’t even own a car, but it can very easily end up becoming a huge deal-breaker for potential buyers. That’s because most of them would much rather have a garage where they can secure their car at night, than an extra area for a home gym, bedroom, office, or hobby room. If you do decide to convert your garage, make sure that it is still relatively easy to convert it back to use as a garage before you actually put your house up for sale on the market.

7. Final Thoughts

These are just some of the things you should avoid in 2021 if you want to charm buyers with a favorable first impression. If you want to learn more about interior design, whether it’s for a current project, a new hobby, or as part of your career, there are always some very good courses available online. Either way, you should always keep up with the latest design trends when you’re staging your home to sell.