If you’re selling your North Carolina house and are planning to host an open house, you want to make sure it’s in tip-top condition. Your floors, in particular, can make a great (or not great) first impression on potential homebuyers as soon as they step through the front door.

Having nice floors in living spaces throughout your home is like putting a fresh coat of paint on your walls — it can make the room “pop.”

When talking about flooring, a few questions may come to mind, such as:

  • How do I repair my damaged floors?
  • Do certain floors raise the value of my house?
  • How do I prevent allergens from getting into my carpet?

In this post, I’ll address each of these questions.

ideas for repairing damaged hardwood floors

Home staging can be an important part of the home selling process. Potential buyers aren’t likely to be impressed by scratched, scuffed, or otherwise damaged flooring. They want to be able to envision living there as homeowners. 

As such, you’ll want to make sure every inch of square feet looks spick and span. Varnish, hard wax, wood markers, and paint are all ways you can remove scratches from hardwood floors. If a scratch is particularly deep, you can use wood filler

You can also get rid of light scratches by gently scrubbing with mineral spirits and a fine steel wool pad.

If you have dents in your hardwood floor, first make sure no wood is missing. If it isn’t, you can place a damp towel on the dent or fill it in with either wood inlay, lacquer lay-in, or an epoxy.

Ideas for preventing allergens from getting into carpet

If you have carpet, especially in areas where you spend a lot of time, like the living room or master bedroom, keeping it allergen-free is likely important to you.

Here are a few ways to do this:

  1. Replace your air filter every month. Since air filters can remove over 99% of allergens, you may want to set a time each month for changing it. 
  2. Take off your shoes when you walk in the house. Allergens can attach to your shoes and subsequently your carpet. So have a particular spot on the floor or a rack or a shelf where you, your family, and your guests know where to put shoes.
  3. Use a dehumidifier. Mold growth can occur if the humidity level in your house is over 50%. If that’s the case, especially during the muggy summer months in North Carolina, you should consider using a dehumidifier.  
  4. Clean up liquids. If you spill a liquid on your carpet, sop it up immediately. Leaving it on the carpet can put your carpet more at risk for developing mold.
  5. Vacuum once or twice a week. This will help keep your carpet free of dust and other allergens.

Conclusion

To have a successful open house, your floors need to look great. And, if you do host an open house, we hope that you’ll consider us. 

We’re Raleigh-based real estate investors who can offer cash for your house. And, unlike most real estate agents, we’re the buyers, which means less back-and-forth when deciding on a price. Contact us today to learn more.