Could your paint be dragging down your home’s value? Avoid these common painting errors before selling your home.

#1– Painting the exterior of your home in loud or overly specific colors.

Is your favorite color lavender? Great! But it’s probably not the best idea for painting the exterior of your home. Your home has to blend in with the street. And, if you are selling, you need a home exterior paint that will appeal to the broadest array of buyer’s possible. Some good choices: white, grey, beige, and the neutrals.

#2 – Failing to match the colors in your home to its architecture.

It’s easier to take design risks on the interior of your home. But especially on the exterior of your house, taking the architecture into your paint design is crucial. For instance, if you have a Tudor-style home with decorative boards and beams on the exterior, painting the trim white and the stucco red would make it look like a barn. If you have an old Victorian, however, such a color scheme would make the details pop. Paint for the house that you have, not the house that you want.

#3 – Neglecting the trim.

When people are ready to put their house on the market, sometimes they feel like then can get away with just putting on a coat or two of cream paint, and stopping there. But a home shows its age and wears the most on the trim. Peeling/rotting soffits, crusty caulking in the windows and scuffed up trim/doorways are red flags that make your home look as though it is in disrepair. Make your home look as clean and well maintained as possible. It just takes a little paint.

#4 – Forgetting about dents, scuffs and picture holes.

When you live in a house for a long time, you often become blind to the little dings and scrapes your home sustains on a daily basis. Check behind your doors for doorknob dings in your wall. Wash down your doors and jambs. Fill and touch up your nail holes. Scrape down nail pops and touch up. Details make dollars, and neatness counts.

#5 – Painting every room a different color.

Paint can make a home feel airy, or, it can make it feel visually cluttered. The choice is yours. Many people like the variety of having a different paint color in every room. If you are selling, that’s not the best idea. Not only can it make the home feel cramped, but it can also keep prospective homebuyers from seeing your home as “blank canvas” that they can move their things into. Save the bright accent walls, funky paint treatments, appliqued treatments, and decorative borders for the next house. Let your home be seen as bright and inviting, with airy neutrals on the walls and clean, updated trim.