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The most inexpensive decorating project is paint. You only need about three to four gallons of paint for the average bedroom. Paint runs about $25 per gallon, so you are talking about $100 to make a big difference in the room. If you really want to save money, paint it yourself. As much as people hate painting, it is one of the easiest projects you’ll ever do in your home. I won’t go into great detail here, but take the time to fill the holes and cracks and prep the walls for paint. There are hundreds of web sites out there that can provide you with the right instructions.

If you consider yourself somewhat adventurous, think about adding some decorative molding to your master bedroom. I’ve seen rooms be completely transformed with this simple technique. Add a chair rail all the way around the room. This allows you to divide the wall space and use two different paint colors. We are not suggesting red on the top and green on the bottom. We are talking about subtle shade differences between the top and the bottom.

To further enhance your chair rail, consider adding “picture frames” below the rail. Picture frames are easy to make using decorative molding available at Home Depot. The molding comes in 12 to 16 foot lengths and you will cut them done to the exact size you need using a chop saw to miter the corners just like a picture frame. Next you measure out each wall on graph paper and plan your picture frames to evenly fit the wall. Say for example you have a 12 foot wall. I would cut two picture frames 30″ wide by 24″ high. I would then cut three frames 18″ wide by 24″ high. Then start 5″ in from the left side wall and put your first 18″ frame, then add 5″ and put you first 30″ frame, then another 18″ frame and so on. You will end up with a very stylish arrangement of small and large frames to fit your 12 foot wall. The frames are attached to the wall using a combination of paneling glue and nails. If your walls are nice and flat, you can get away with just using glue to hold the frames in place.

Crown molding is also a great addition. I’ll warn you, it’s tough to get the corners just right. There are instructions all over Internet to help you, but it’s still a challenge, especially since you are working overhead. The finished look is well worth the effort. So you’ve installed your decorative moldings and picked your general paint color, now it’s time to focus on the decorating options.

You can look a decorating a room much like an upside-down funnel process. You need to start with the product that has the least amount of style and color options. Normally, that’s the carpet or area rug. Here your restrictions will be size and color options. Don’t forget that you can take any wall to wall carpeting and have it cut to an exact size for an area rug. You can bind the edges with a range of materials, including leather, to make it very custom looking. As you are deciding on your carpet, reference your paint group and make sure it works.

Moving through the funnel, the next area that gives you more options than carpet are fabric colors and patterns. There are so many options here, that you could literally spend months and suffer from paralysis. Don’t let that happen. Spend time looking through the magazines to see what you like. The products featured in the magazines are typically the most expensive options. You don’t need to go down that path. If you see beautiful silk drapes in a room setting you love, there are faux silks out there that are so good no one except you will know.

Decide on your pattern stripe, floral, solid patterns and then the material, cotton, silk, linen, etc. Narrowing your search will make the task much easier. Get the swatches down to ten or less and bring them into your room. Match them up with your carpet and paint family. Once you make a fabric decision, you can now tie the whole color palette together. You’ve got the carpet and fabric, now at the widest part of the funnel is the paint color. Pick a paint color that works with the carpet and fabric you’ve selected. The choices are vast. You’ll need a trim color and a wall color and a ceiling color. The wall color is your primary color in the room and the one you coordinated with your carpet and fabric. If you installed the chair rail, then this color is painted above the rail. We like flat or eggshell finish on the walls. The trim color should be a slight contrast from the wall color and have a semi-gloss finish. Don’t make the trim the focal point of the room. It should be a subtle transition. If you installed crown molding, the ceiling can be white. Without crown molding, we like to take the wall color and cut the color intensity by 50% to 75%. They will do this for you at the paint store. What you get is the same wall color, just a lighter version for the ceiling. It really looks great and where the walls and ceiling meet, you don’t see obvious painting mistakes.

Finally, the focus is on the finishing decorating touches. You need to decide what you are going to put on the windows. Fabric Roman Shades are beautiful and provide privacy and light control. If you like traditional drapes, then a combination of fabric and window blinds works well too. You can also use a valance or cornice top treatment with a shade or blind concealed beneath. You want to draw a balance between fashion and function and not just have one or the other.

Now let’s talk about the bed. It’s a third of your life, right? We once had a wrought iron headboard. It looked good (fashion), but try to prop a pillow for reading or watching television – forget it (function). We switched to an upholstered headboard and what a big difference. Not only does it look great, I don’t get my head stuck between the bars anymore. We also tied-in the fabric on the headboard to our Roman Shades with a banding option. These little touches make a big difference in the finished room design.

There are a lot of bedding options to consider. This is where you can bring in a nice contrast fabric to make the bed the center point of the room (fashion). You can make a custom comforter, bedspread or duvet cover. You need to decide which works best for you based on your lifestyle (function). I once had a comforter that was so heavy, I couldn’t breathe. If you are going to use your bed cover as a decorative element vs. functional, then you need to take this into consideration. Include some beautiful pillow shams and accent pillows with a coordinating dust ruffle and you’ve created the look that’s all over the magazines.

Shopping on-line for all the decorative elements in your master bedroom can save you thousands over retail or hiring a decorator. Sites like FabricWorkroom.com give you all the measuring guides and live support you’ll need to get the specifications and design just right. The turn around time is four weeks from your order. The day you place your order is a good time to start your molding and painting work. In four short weeks, you’ll have a space that will look like you hired a decorator at a fraction of the price.

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Not so long ago, homes were sold while the realtors sign was being planted in the front yard. Those days are long gone as we ride the rollercoaster between the credit crisis and the high cost of energy.

The media has a knack for presenting the information to us that can be considered “sensational”. We’ve all heard phrases like “Not since the Great Depression” recently. We agree that the economic situation could be better, but ready for some good news? In the last 12 months an average of 5 million homes were sold each month in the United States according to the National Association of Realtors. Sure the numbers are down from the blistering pace of the last few years, but 5 million is huge, isn’t it?

But what about the glut of for sales signs we all see driving around town? The data reveals that inventory numbers are up. Inventory is realtor speak for homes that are for sale. The average monthly inventory figures for this year are running around 4.3 million. So what does this mean? It’s easy. About 10 million homes are for sale a month. A little more than half of them sell while a little less that half don’t. Back in 2005, a pretty good year for real estate, of the 10 million homes for sale each month 7 million sold while 3 million did not. There you have it, same number of homes for sale, just fewer of them are selling right now.

So what does this mean to you? If you are buying, it’s a great time to score a deal. What if you are selling? Here is the way I like to look at home selling. People like to use the word competition when they are talking about their business or sports. How often do you hear that word when selling a home? Rarely. The whole concept of selling a home is on a completely different tangent. You “list” a property. You “show” a property. All very lofty stuff. When I speak to a neighbor who is selling a home about another neighbor who just “listed” they say, “it’s a good thing – it will bring more buyers”. Baloney! You just opened a hamburger stand and learned that McDonalds is opening in three months across the street. Your neighbor is your competitor or at least his house is. If you get one buyer on your street, you want him to buy your house. Correct?

So like business and sport, how to you become a ruthless competitor and win? Analyze the competition. Do you ever check out your competitor’s store or web site? Then you had better take a look in his house. Get your realtor to take you on a tour, they have the access. Analyze all the information available on the Internet. Know how the other properties compare to your property. Are they perfect, are they tired or on a busy street. You are in a battle and you have big money at stake.

Once you have all this information, what’s next? Simple, you need a perfect house. With the high inventory, buyers have a lot of choice. Do you think buyers are shopping for fixer uppers right now? Not on your life! In this market, buyers can take their time and pick the best move in condition home. More good news, you don’t need to spend a fortune getting your house in top condition. Your focus is to make it cosmetically attractive. Start with the outside. Keep the grass cut. Trim the bushes. Fix pealing paint. It’s all very basic stuff, but during your competitive analysis, you’ll see how many of your competitors completely miss this fact. Now let’s move to the inside.

The first thing a buyer notices is the smell. Do you have a dog or a dozen cats? You may not be bothered by the litter box odor in your kitchen, but your buyer is already in the car. Eliminate or mask strong odors. Next thing they look for is abuse. Scuff marks, dents and dings on the walls are signs of neglect and a ton of work for the buyer. Fix this stuff. Paint the walls – neutral please! Paint is just a few hundred dollars and a couple of weekends of work. Remember, we are talking about thousands of dollars here. Clean up the clutter in closets, basements and garages. It’s time to get the dumpster. Whatever you can’t part with, fill a moving container and store it off-site. It’s not expensive. People want to imagine themselves in your home. They are not the least bit interested in your hunting trophies. Depersonalize.

Now let’s talk home décor. Kitchens and bathrooms must look good. We are not suggesting that you go nuts remodeling to sell, but do whatever it takes to be competitive. Buyers can accept imperfections here and can rationalize a remodel down the road, so get it looking clean and neat so they can live with it for a while. Furniture placement and condition is important. We all do things in our homes to fit our life style. “I know it’s weird, but I don’t care what other people think”. We put our couches not in the best location, but where we can see our giant TV. I went into an open house once where the owner loved house plants. He loved them so much that he had hundreds of them covering nearly every square inch of floor space. Do you think he had trouble selling? Remember the competition and trade your unique habits for a sale.

I remember the first time I thrust into the home decorating world. My wife wanted to do custom window treatments, bedding, pillows, etc. I thought it was expensive, but rationalized that I had to finally face adulthood and move beyond my dorm room past. What I didn’t understand at the time was the investment angle. When we decorated each room of our first home, we always did something interesting with paint, furniture and window treatments without spending a fortune. We were creating a personalized lifestyle while secretly creating a ton of investment value. When we decided to sell, we were at contract in seven days setting a record in our neighborhood for price per square foot. As a condition of the sale, all the window treatments had to stay. Do you think we had competition at the time? Of course we did, but our buyers had seen all the competition and put our house first on their list. We did everything a seller must do in a good or bad market. You see we just don’t preach this stuff, we live it! Right now, you need to be doing everything in your power to be in the half of the market that is selling so put your selling plan into action crush the competition.

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