Q. My apartment doesn’t get much natural light. What can I do to improve the way it looks to buyers?

 

A. “You can’t create exposures or more natural light, but you can enhance the natural light you get,” said Leonard Steinberg, a managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman. The objective, he said, is to “show how you can live in that space comfortably, without it feeling dark.”

Fortunately, Mr. Steinberg said, “Dark spaces aren’t dark only because they don’t get natural light.” In fact, most of the time, he said, “It’s because they’re painted a dark color, or have bad lighting or heavy curtains.” And all of those problems can be fixed fairly easily.

Matthew Tanteri, principal of the daylighting consulting firm Tanteri & Associates and an assistant professor of lighting design at Parsons the New School for Design, said that there are two key ways to enhance natural light: improving interior reflectivity and reducing obstructions from furniture.

With reflectivity, “You want to maximize the amount of times that daylight bounces inside the room,” Mr. Tanteri said. To do so, he suggested using light colors that are “close to white” on ceilings, walls and floors, and avoiding glossy finishes. “Glossy surfaces can actually be a detriment because they can create glare,” he said. “The safest finishes are matte finishes, because they reflect light in all directions.”

Mr. Steinberg also recommends using light hues, and offered specific paints. “Linen White by Benjamin Moore is a very reliable, sell-your-house coat of paint,” he said. He suggested another Benjamin Moore color, Decorators White, for the ceiling and trim.

On a related note, Mr. Tanteri said: “You don’t want to cover the wall with dark hangings. Paintings and posters will absorb light.”

As for reducing light obstructions, “Orient objects in the room to promote the flow of daylight,” he said. “So, things like bookshelves and partitions should be perpendicular to the window wall.”

Mr. Tanteri also says that light from the top of a window will reach the farthest into the apartment, so it is important not to block that part of the window with heavy blinds or drapery.

He favors Venetian blinds because they provide solar control and can also redirect sunlight to the ceiling. “That’s when you get deeper daylight penetration,” he said. Another option: shades that travel from the bottom of the window upward, rather than top down. “That’s something that works for daylight as well as privacy,” he said.

And you can supplement the sunlight with strategically placed light fixtures. “Use indirect lighting, aimed at the ceiling,” Mr. Tanteri said. A torchier floor lamp near the back of the room could “take over where the daylight on the ceiling starts to fade away.”

If some areas of the apartment still appear dark, it may not be as big a problem as you think. “I’ve actually had buyers specifically ask for dark areas of an apartment, because of fine art and photography” that could fade, Mr. Steinberg said. “There’s a silver lining in every cloud.”

LONDON — The English poet John Betjeman described the towering Gothic rail station of St. Pancras in north-central London as “too beautiful and too romantic to survive.” But survive it did, even after being slated for demolition in the 1960s.

And now, as home to London’s Eurostar terminus and a hotel and apartment complex, it has kick-started the regeneration of an entire district, where residential prices are estimated to have risen more than 9 percent in the past year alone.

Although the neighborhood’s focal point is the famous red brick St. Pancras, Londoners usually refer to the area as King’s Cross for the rather prosaic rail terminus of the same name a block away. (There also is a third main rail station, Euston, in the area.)

The soaring hulk of the old station, raised in 1871, is now listed as a Grade 1 building, “of exceptional interest,” by English Heritage . Turning part of it into luxury apartments was “extremely challenging,” said Harry Handelsman, chief executive of Manhattan Loft Corp., the London-based developer of the project.

“But it was also incredibly satisfying to know that we were restoring the building faithfully and accurately from an historical perspective,” said Mr. Handelsman, whose team incorporated railroad ties, the large timbers used as a base for tracks, into the design of some of the apartments.

All 67 units in the project, known as St. Pancras Chambers, were sold in 2005 before construction began at an average of slightly more than £800 per square foot — unprecedented prices for the area at that time and what today would be $1,245 per square foot, or $13,400 per square meter.

The first owners got the keys to their apartments in 2009. There is now a two-bedroom, 1,097-square-foot, or 102-square-meter, unit on sale for £1.25 million through the Knight Frank real estate agency.

Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank, calculates that average house and apartment values in the King’s Cross district have risen 41 percent over the past five years, with a 9.1 percent increase in the past 12 months alone.

Stanley Fink, a British hedge fund manager and former chief executive of the Man Group, owns a spacious three-bedroom apartment at St. Pancras Chambers, partly occupying what used to be the station’s water tower.

Lord Fink, who was made a baron for life in January, did not want to disclose the price of the apartment but said that he had bought it as a shell and paid for the completion. The unit retains the water tower’s inspection platforms and some brickwork and has several fireplaces. The railroad ties were sandblasted, revealing a honey-gold color, and look like ship’s timbers in the apartment, the owner said.

While he likes the residence, Lord Fink also praised the location. “This is a neighborhood on the up,” he said. “It’s incredibly good for communications. If you move about London by public transport or by car, you are 15 minutes from the City and Parliament. Paris is literally two hours from my bedroom.”

In real estate terms, the neighborhood between Islington, the fashionable area northeast of King’s Cross, and Bloomsbury, home to the British Museum in the southwest, was long considered one of London’s missed opportunities.

And in some ways it still is: unlovely Pentonville Road, the main artery connecting King’s Cross and Islington, features ramshackle pubs, liquor stores and a string of discount mattress and bedding outlets. Side streets contain long-stay hotels patronized by welfare recipients and backpackers’ hostels.

Crucial to the long-term future of the neighborhood is King’s Cross Central, a 67-acre, or 27-hectare, development north of the train station, straddling Regent’s Canal. It is designed to contain 8 million square feet of mixed-use space, with investment in new infrastructure expected to total £2 billion.

The limited partnership behind the project includes London & Continental Railways, the company responsible for the St. Pancras rail station renovations.

The development is to contain 2,000 new homes, plus student dormitories for the University of the Arts London, which opened on the site in September. The first residential building will be ready at the end of 2012; the rest is scheduled to take at least 10 years to complete.

The developer also promises a focal point, Granary Square, that will be “similar in scale” to Trafalgar Square, according to the developer’s Web site.

While neighborhood prices have continued to rise, Nick Moore of the Islington branch of the Cluttons estate agency noted that a family house in Islington, the area that Tony Blair and his family called home before Mr. Blair became prime minister in 1997, might sell for £1.3 million. A mile away in King’s Cross, it still would only fetch around £750,000.

But, Mr. Moore noted, overseas buyers in particular are starting to take notice of the area: “King’s Cross is very convenient to the City of London. Meanwhile, St. Pancras offers Eurostar connections on the doorstep. This is attracting a lot of interest from French and Italians, who have not up to now had this area on their radar.”

Residential property investment in London generally was bolstered in August by the news that the average monthly rent in the capital had broken through the £1,000 barrier.

For the moment, flats in large terraced houses are a staple of the King’s Cross property market. Turning them back into single-family homes — the aim of many prosperous buyers — requires planning permission that is often difficult to obtain, as the local authorities in London tend to see this type of reconversion as reducing the housing stock.

A four-floor Victorian terraced single-family home on Gifford Street, close to King’s Cross station, and with 1,456 square feet of living space, is available through the Cluttons agency for £795,000. The property has three reception rooms and a modern kitchen and bathroom. One of its two bedrooms opens onto a roof terrace overlooking the property’s rear garden.

It is undoubtedly the kind of house that would command a higher asking price almost anywhere else in central London.

In October, the Lloyds TSB bank reported a revival in the market for properties of £1 million and more, particularly in England’s affluent southeast. It said there were more than 3,300 property sales of £1 million or more in the first half of 2011 in Britain, an increase of 10 percent from the same period last year. Most of these sales were in the capital.

Q. The neighboring apartment has a loud dog. Should we add soundproofing along the shared wall?

A. Effective soundproofing can be expensive, but it may be worth it if potential buyers are going to be put off by noisy neighbors.

Ilsa Vasquez, a sales associate with MNS Real Estate in New York, said: “I’ve had the issue myself, and I’ve also had the issue of selling an apartment with very thin walls. If it was bath time next door, you would know about it. That’s how clearly you could hear.”

Loud noises can be deal breakers. Although many New Yorkers expect to encounter sounds in the city, “There’s a different conversation to be had if it’s a dog or a baby crying next door,” Ms. Vasquez said.

In such cases, she recommends investing in soundproofing along the shared wall.

But sellers should not expect absolute silence. Soundproofing is a game of incremental improvements: the goal is to reduce noise as much as possible.

Devin O’Brien, the owner of Brooklyn Insulation and Soundproofing, said the first step to improving the noise-muffling capabilities of a wall is to add blown-in cellulose insulation, assuming the wall isn’t insulated already. “That would give you about a five-decibel reduction for airborne sound, which is noticeable, but not major,” he said.

The next step up, he said, would be to add a second layer of drywall to the existing wall and to put Green Glue, an elastic damping compound, in between the layers to “cut down on the resonance.” That could reduce sound transmission by about 10 decibels, he said, noting that for every 10-decibel drop, “Sound is perceived as half as loud on the other side.”

A more effective, even extreme, solution, Mr. O’Brien said, is to remove the existing drywall and add insulation and sound isolation clips to the studs (the clips have “a rubber shock absorber” attached, he said). The seller would then install two layers of drywall with Green Glue in between. This assembly, Mr. O’Brien said, could reduce sound transmission about 25 decibels.

While every installation is different, the cost for this type of soundproofing generally starts at about $4,000 per wall, Mr. O’Brien said.

Mason Wyatt, owner of City Soundproofing in Manhattan, offered a similar approach, but noted, “Some buildings prefer that you don’t disturb the existing walls for code and fire rating.”

For that reason, Mr. Wyatt said, “We normally recommend adding an isolated wall next to the existing wall.” A layer of heavy vinyl soundproofing material is applied over the existing wall, followed by thin framing and insulation, and two layers of fire-rated drywall with Green Glue in the middle. This kind of installation, which costs about $35 to $40 a square foot, “takes up about three inches of space altogether,” he said, and can cut neighborly noise substantially.

But even when using such elaborate measures, Mr. Wyatt said, “I never promise that something is going to be soundproof, 100 percent. That’s almost impossible.”

Questions about repairs or redecorating in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. I have an overflowing wall of books in my living room. Should I store them or reorganize them to make it look less cluttered?

A. Although real estate agents, home stagers and interior designers often talk about the importance of clearing out clutter to make a home look more appealing, books don’t necessarily need to go. In many cases, they can be an essential part of a room’s decoration, and may actually be advantageous when selling.

“You should hang on to them,” said Confidence Stimpson, a senior vice president at the real estate broker Stribling & Associates. “A lot of books can make a seller look smart, as long as they’re the right books.”

The right books? “Keep the James Joyce, store the James Patterson,” Ms. Stimpson said. “A prospective buyer walks in, sees good books and thinks, ‘Well, this person is smart and they live here, so I could probably live here.’ ”

That kind of impression could be especially valuable in emerging neighborhoods, she said, where strategically placed brainy tomes “could really elevate a property.”

Some interior designers and home stagers buy or rent collections of books purely for their decorative appeal. Companies like Books by the Foot and Juniper Booksand separate services offered by stores like Housing Works Bookstore Café and the Strand cater to such customers and help with design.

But if your problem is that you have too many books and don’t want to get rid of any of them, “you can double layer the books,” said Jenny McKibben, accounts manager for the Strand’s Books by the Foot service, who has helped create collections for private homes as well as sets for television shows and movies like “The Departed,” “Julie & Julia” and “The Devil Wears Prada.”

“I line books up on the very edge of the shelf, so it looks neat and uniform,” she said. “That usually leaves a pretty big gap behind,” where you can hide a second row of titles.

To really make a statement, she suggests organizing books by height or color. On long bookshelves, she said, you could sort books based on size, “like stairs, from high to low. Visually, that looks nice and neat.”

She also frequently mixes rows of books set on end with horizontal stacks. And when she has a particularly impressive book with a handsome cover, she will sometimes turn it face out, she said, “like a bookend.”

In bookcases with square shelves, she suggests grouping covers with similar hues to create solid blocks of color. For instance, “you can do pops of blue next to little white sets,” she said. “I try to put golds and yellows together, and put contrasting colors next to each other to bring a visual pop.”

Whichever approach you take, Ms. McKibben echoed Ms. Stimpson’s comments about quality, and suggested giving center stage to handsome art, history and classic-fiction books.

“I generally recommend getting rid of the cheesy summer paperbacks,” she said. “Or at least putting them out of sight.” 

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. Can green updates increase the value of my home? If so, what are the most cost-effective options?

A. “If you do just one thing, it’s probably not going to add value,” said Jeffrey Schleider, managing director of Miron Properties, a real estate company specializing in green properties, in New York.

But when a number of environmentally friendly updates are implemented all together, they can help your home stand out from the crowd. “If you do five or six things as a package,” he said, “it really makes your property more appealing.”

That said, he added, “there are some investments where you won’t see a return on your investment, because they’re too expensive relative to the value they add.” So he advises starting with easy low-cost changes that target energy savings, clean water and clean air.

To cut energy consumption, he recommends motion-sensor switches in bathrooms and closets that will automatically turn lights on and off when people come and go. Basic models often cost under $20 at hardware stores.

To improve water quality, he suggests installing an under-counter filtration unit by a company like GE or Kohler, for filtered water at the kitchen sink.

“That’s something that people, both environmentally conscious and not, are interested in,” he said. “It stops the use of bottled water, but it’s also a convenience to have clean water at your tap. Even a very good system can be added for a few hundred dollars, and that adds value.”

To improve air quality, he said, sellers should use paints with low or no volatile organic compounds. “It’s not significantly more expensive,” he said, “but can be a huge appeal to buyers. Certain buyers are especially sensitive and can’t even look at homes that don’t have no-V.O.C. paint.”

Ellen Hanson, a New York interior designer who focuses on sustainability, echoed Mr. Schleider’s advice about using low- or no-V.O.C. paint.

She also suggests adding Energy Star-certified kitchen appliances, low-flow bathroom faucets and showerheads, and dual-flush toilets to the list of possible upgrades.

All these items save energy and water, she said, while giving your home a fresh new look.

“We also like to use multilayered window treatments to control solar gain and heat loss,” Ms. Hanson said. “You end up consuming less energy, but whether a buyer of your home would perceive that or not, I’m not sure.”

Indeed, many of these upgrades may go unnoticed if not spelled out in promotional materials. “A lot of them are choices you don’t see,” Ms. Hanson said. “But you can brag about them when you describe your property.”

Mr. Schleider also stresses the importance of marketing these upgrades, pointing out that they could give sellers an edge on the competition.

“It’s pretty tough to sell in some markets right now,” he said. “So any edge you can have is a positive.”

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. Will installing stone countertops in my kitchen increase the home’s value?

A. Granite or marble countertops will make a home more appealing to buyers than will older countertops made from materials like laminate or wood. “They do add value, most definitely,” said Mary Lou Currier, a senior vice president at the real estate broker Bond New York. “Beauty sells. A beautiful kitchen, with marble or granite, is all to the good. People hate dingy, dirty, old and things that look like 1982.”

But there are two things to consider before splurging on stone. First, “it’s not just the granite, it’s the entire kitchen,” Ms. Currier said. If your cabinets, tile and appliances are old and grungy, new countertops are likely to have little effect.

Second, stone countertops can be expensive, and it may be difficult to recoup your costs in a sale. “Granite is not a quick fix,” she noted. “It’s more involved because it’s custom-made.” Cabinets, she said, are typically an easier and less expensive part of the kitchen to change because they come in standard sizes and as prefabricated units. Even changing the knobs on the cabinets, she said, can help fine-tune a kitchen’s look.

If you do decide to install stone countertops, Ms. Currier said, granite may be considered timeless at the moment, but it “is probably on its way out in the next few years, because it’s been around for a while, and styles change.”

Evan Nussbaum, a vice president of Stone Source, a stone distribution company, said he has observed the same thing. “I think people have become a little sick of the traditional speckled granite look,” he said, even though the material is an ideal choice for countertops in terms of performance, since it doesn’t react to liquids like coffee, lemon juice or wine in the same way most marble does.

For those who prefer marble, he recommended a finish that is honed, rather than polished, to help disguise any etching that acidic liquids might cause. He also recommended Danby marble, a creamy white stone quarried in Vermont, because it has “tremendously low absorption” and is therefore not as delicate as other marbles.

For cutting-edge looks, Mr. Nussbaum said, many designers now use quartzite, “which tends to give you the drama and character that people are used to seeing in decorative marbles, but doesn’t have the acid sensitivity.”

Basalt and schist have a more subdued look, and are becoming popular, he said. “Those give you more of a monolithic-gray, minimal-looking countertop,” he said. “They typically have a higher absorption than granite or quartzite, but when sealed well, they’re a great kitchen countertop.”

Just spend carefully, Ms. Currier said. “I wouldn’t spend $30,000 renovating a kitchen thinking that you’re going to get that money out, if you’re doing it just to sell,” she said. But “if you’re going to live in it for a few years, it can be wonderful.” 

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. My apartment has very little closet space. Should I add storage before I put it on the market?

A. An apartment that’s free of clutter, with carefully organized storage space, can be very appealing. “When you live in New York City apartments, closets are always a problem,” said Monica Podell, an executive vice president at Halstead Property. “So, the more storage space you can have, the better. If you can do anything to maximize storage space before selling, it’s a great idea.”

Even simple changes, Ms. Podell noted, could help make the most of the closet space you have. She recommended emptying existing closets and rethinking the way they’re organized. “Spending a couple of hundred dollars to add a bar and shelves in a closet,” she said, can often have an impact.

The next step up, she said, would be to add built-in shelving or wardrobes that appear to be part of a wall. Spending money on features like that just before selling might seem counterintuitive, but “a little bit of work now can help maximize your profit,” she said.

Melanie Fascitelli, president of the closet design firm Clos-ette, said she frequently encounters homes with limited storage space, “even in the most expensive apartments in New York.” To add more, she recommends three strategies.

“Usually, the best thing to do is to build out a wall of closets and mask them as part of the existing wall,” she said. “They can go flush with a doorway, a soffit or another wall.” With floor-to-ceiling doors hiding them, she said, an addition like that would require a space about 30 to 36 inches deep.

A second option, she said, would be to add a free-standing wall behind your bed. One side serves as a headboard and provides bedside storage, while the other side offers closet space.

Her third suggestion is to build out radiator covers. “You can create bookshelves and media storage just by making the covers a little longer and deeper,” she said. “It’s a very simple way to add just a little bit more storage.”

Ms. Fascitelli’s company specializes in high-end renovations, and costs for these kinds of custom installations can run from $8,000 or so into the tens of thousands of dollars, she said. But she also noted that prefabricated components are readily available for do-it-yourselfers with tight budgets.

“Ikea has amazing headboards that double as armoires,” she said. “For a wall of closets, again, Ikea is good for an affordable solution: they have long, long wardrobes. For radiator covers, you can get prefab ones at lumber and hardware stores.”

Whichever way you choose to increase your apartment’s storage space, it usually makes good sense. As Ms. Fascitelli put it, “It’s unimaginable; in the city that probably offers the least square footage for most people, we also have the most stuff.”

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. Is it worth renovating my bathroom before I try to sell my apartment?

A.Depending on how bad your existing bathroom looks, making a few affordable updates might pay off. “It’s really the grunge factor” that you need to consider, said Clare Donohue, a New York kitchen and bath designer who runs One to One Studio. “If you bring a stranger in off the street and they look at your bathroom and are creeped out, you’d better renovate.”

Also important is the apartment’s asking price. In New York, said Burt Savitsky, a senior vice president at Brown Harris Stevens, “if you’re dealing with an apartment that’s under $2 million, you have a better shot” of recouping renovation costs. “At that price point, most buyers are less able or less willing to do major renovations.”

Above that price, he said, many buyers will be planning to do their own renovations. “People come with decorators and want to put their own stamp on a space,” he said. “The one thing they really don’t want to do is pay for someone else’s work. If someone put in beautiful pink-and-gray marble that doesn’t appeal to the buyer, they’re going to have to pay for it and then rip it out.”

If your bathroom seems like a candidate for renovation, it’s important to keep a lid on the cost. “I can’t imagine someone who puts more than $25,000 into a bathroom getting more than their money out of it,” Mr. Savitsky said. “But under that, in the $10,000 to $15,000 range, it may really help you.”

And most buyers negotiate a purchase based on an apartment’s condition, he noted, so a fresh new bathroom can potentially put a seller in a stronger position and boost the selling price. But stick to the basics: install simple fixtures and tile in white or off-white. Don’t splurge on steam showers or radiant floor heating, and don’t replace bathtubs with glass shower stalls.

“A lot of people love stall showers,” he said. “But when you do that in an apartment that only has one bath, you’ve limited your appeal to a couple with older children or no children.”

To keep costs down, Ms. Donohue recommended retaining the location of the existing toilet, sink and bathtub, since rearranging the plumbing requires more-extensive renovation.

Another trick is to install a pedestal sink. “The vanities that you can afford for this kind of renovation tend to look cheap, but a pedestal sink makes the room look bigger and is usually more affordable,” she said. “Also, a good water-saving toilet is essential.”

And if your bathroom has a charming old cast-iron tub that has worn with age, it can be reglazed “to make it look new, white and clean,” she said, for a fraction of the price of a new one, by a company like Porcelain Industries (800-698-4023 or porcelainindustries.com).

“If you put a new faucet in, reglaze the tub, plaster and paint the walls, and get a fresh shower curtain,” Ms. Donohue said. “That’s the kind of fix-up that makes it look like a brand-new bathroom but costs only $2,000 or $3,000.”

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. I have a number of high-end lighting fixtures. Should I leave them in the apartment as a selling feature, or can I take them with me?

A. When you’re selling a home, the expectation is that any hardwired lighting fixtures will remain in place as part of the deal. But it is possible to take certain beloved pieces with you. The most important thing is to be clear about your intentions from the outset, said Brendan Aguayo, a real estate agent and developer with Aguayo Realty Group, in Brooklyn.

“If the seller and their broker are upfront about it, it shouldn’t be a surprise,” Mr. Aguayo said, noting that details on the light fixtures you intend to keep can be written into the contract. “But it could certainly be a point of contention or negotiation.”

As an example, Mr. Aguayo cited the elaborate chandeliers created by the New York designer Lindsey Adelman, which sell for thousands of dollars. (The custom-made chandelier pictured here cost $14,700.) “Her fixtures really create an environment,” he said. “And that can certainly increase the value of an apartment.” Potential buyers might be put off if told that the fixtures were not part of the deal.

To avoid potentially troublesome negotiations over a favorite chandelier, you might want to take it down before listing the property, Mr. Aguayo said. (He also pointed out that Ms. Adelman offers do-it-yourself instructions for creating a “Lindsey Adelman-like light fixture” on her Web site, lindseyadelman.com, which could serve as a replacement.)

Neal Beckstedt, an architect and interior designer in New York who has worked on model apartments and private residences, offered similar advice. “The last thing you want to do is list your apartment with your fixtures, and then change them after everyone’s seen it,” he said, because that could alter a buyer’s perception of the space.

“You have to weigh the benefits,” he added. “If it’s an amazing chandelier and it showcases the room better than other things, it might be a wise investment just to leave it. It’s a small price to pay to get that apartment sold.”

For sellers looking for affordable replacements, Mr. Beckstedt offered several ideas. Circa Lighting (877-762-2323 or circalighting.com) “has inexpensive lighting that looks more expensive than it is,” he said. “They’re my bread and butter, and I think that’s the case for a lot of designers.”

But “a paper globe is the easiest, cheapest thing to do, which always looks good,” he said, noting that paper fixtures are sold at Pearl River Mart (800-878-2446 orpearlriver.com). “You can do a single one, or a number of them grouped as a cluster.”

Mr. Beckstedt has even used utilitarian porcelain lamp holders in some homes, pairing with bare silver-tipped or Edison-style bulbs to add some style. “It wouldn’t work in every environment,” he said. “I wouldn’t recommend it to my client on the Upper East Side with a five-bedroom apartment, but it would be good in a casual SoHo loft.”

Q. I have an oil furnace. Is it worth converting to natural gas to make my house more appealing to buyers?

A. There are many reasons to convert to natural gas, but it may not make sense as a sales tactic.

“If you do convert your home from fuel oil to natural gas, there is a carbon footprint improvement of around 20 percent,” said Joe Rende, vice president for community and customer management at National Grid, the electricity and gas company. “There’s no soot buildup, and there’s no need to have an oil tank in the basement.”

Natural gas is a versatile fuel and can be used not only for heating your home, but also for cooking, drying clothes, heating water and in fireplaces. Sometimes it also provides cost savings, as it did last winter, when oil prices jumped but natural gas prices remained steady.

Fran Ehrlich, a real estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty in Greenwich, Conn., noted, “In a perfect world, buyers are happier when they walk into a house that’s on gas than a house that’s on oil.” But usually it isn’t a top concern, she said, and it likely wouldn’t have a significant impact on the sale price.

Especially “if you’re in a low-priced house,” she added. “You don’t want to spend those dollars, as long as the tank is inside.”

If you have an underground storage tank that could potentially leak and require an expensive cleanup, however, converting to natural gas might be a good idea. “Lenders typically will not finance if there’s a buried oil tank because it’s an inherent risk,” Ms. Ehrlich said. “We tell our sellers that if they have a buried oil tank, they should take it out” before listing the property, she added. If they don’t, “99 percent of the time” buyers will stipulate that it be removed be as part of the offer.

In that case, if you’re paying a contractor to remove the old tank and install a new one indoors, Ms. Ehrlich said, you might as well convert to natural gas.

But first, make sure there’s a gas main near your property, Mr. Rende said. “In New York State, we have a law: we have to bring 100 feet of main and 100 feet of service free” to connect a home to an existing main. If your property is farther than that from existing services, converting to natural gas could be expensive.

Conversion also requires installing some new heating equipment, and that means hiring a contractor to do the installation. Costs can vary widely, depending on the size of the house and the intricacies of the existing heating system. But “almost every utility has energy efficiency programs,” Mr. Rende said, and they may offer rebates for installing high-efficiency equipment. Ms. Ehrlich concluded, “you have to look at the dollars” required in your particular case, as it might be difficult to recoup the costs.

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. Our old apartment is sitting empty, and not selling. Is it worth the money to hire someone to stage it?
 

 

A. Staging an apartment — adding furniture and accessories to make it look lived in — can be expensive. But you may be able to cover your costs, and then some, by creating a more appealing environment.

“I won’t let people come on the market empty if I can help it,” said Deanna Kory, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group, who has used staging to help sell apartments for more than a decade.

Ms. Kory, who has staged apartments on her own and worked with professional staging companies, said renting a hand-picked selection of furniture and arranging it with accessories will often speed up a sale and generate a higher selling price. Generally, she has found that sellers with empty apartments can increase their selling price by “at least 5 to 10 times the investment you’re going to make” in staging, she said.

For instance, if you put in $10,000, it should yield between $50,000 and $100,000 more in profit than an apartment sold empty, she said.

But, she added, “There are good stagers and not-so-great stagers.”

“You have to get recommendations,” Ms. Kory said. “If they have a good track record, they should be able to tell you stories and show you some photos.”

One stager she has worked with is Sid Pinkerton, who runs a company called From Drab to Fab. Mr. Pinkerton has been in business since 2003, and he estimates that he has staged over a thousand apartments in New York City during that time.

One of the primary reasons for staging, he said, is that potential buyers often have difficulty understanding the proportions of empty rooms.

“Most Americans are what I call ‘visually challenged,’ ” Mr. Pinkerton said. “When rooms have no furniture in them, you have no size spec. It raises the question, ‘Will my furniture fit in here?’ The whole point of staging is to answer those questions before they even arise.”

This is especially true, he noted, when it comes to bedrooms. “They might feel small when they’re empty, when in fact they will very easily hold a queen-size bed, nightstand and dresser.”

While every job is different, Mr. Pinkerton said his services for staging an empty apartment “can be as little as $5,000, but up to $15,000 and more,” depending on factors like size and layout. Those figures include furniture rental; if you add some of your own furniture to the mix, the fee would be lower.

The other option, if you’re confident in your design skills, is to do it yourself. Companies like CORT (888-360-2678 or cort.com) and Churchill Furniture Rental (800-941-7458 or furniturerent.com) carry a range of pieces catering to different tastes, available for short-term rental.

Just remember the goal. “You’re trying to appeal to the baseline needs of the general public,” Mr. Pinkerton said, not create a space that reflects your personal style. “Staging is the complete counterbalance to interior design.”

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

This is the first in a regular series of articles on strategic home repairs and redecorating that can be done to prepare a home for sale.

Q. My living room has red walls. Do I really need to repaint them before putting my apartment on the market?

 

A. Although red walls can look chic, and a bright color may express your personal style, it might pay to repaint your walls in a tamer color. Not only will a new coat of paint cover scuffs and scratches, but a more relaxed color could help potential buyers visualize their own ideas for the space.

Laurie Silverman, an executive vice president at Halstead Property, said she recently dealt with a similar issue. “I had an apartment on the market for a while, where the walls were pink,” she said. “It was really well done, but it was a very specific taste, so nobody could understand the proportions of the room, or the details of this gorgeous prewar apartment.”

Her remedy was to have the walls painted white. The apartment had received little interest for months, but “it sold within a week” of getting its new paint job, she said.

Ms. Silverman advised using “very, very neutral colors” when repainting — hues that are “soothing and calm.”

Laura Kirar, a New York interior and product designer who sometimes uses bold colors in her work, agreed. “When people are shopping, sometimes color can distract them from the architecture or the lines of the space,” she said. “Everybody likes to see a blank slate or white canvas.”

She was quick to point out, however, that there are many shades of white and neutral colors. “A bright white can be shocking,” she said, if you choose the wrong shade. “It can be very much in your face.”

To find a pleasing neutral color, Ms. Kirar said, begin with “an assessment of what kind of light you have in your space.” For a room with lots of sunlight, she recommended a color with warmth, like Pratt & Lambert’s Swiss Coffee. “It has a little bit of yellow and olive in it,” she said, “but comes off as a white.”

In a room with lower light levels, a color like Pratt & Lambert’s Off White would be better, she said, because it “has just a hint of blush” mixed in. “It really looks great on all flesh tones. It reflects and makes everyone look healthy.”

For those who prefer a subtle khaki color, she recommended Pratt & Lambert’s Brierwood. “It’s so neutral that it just complements anything you put next to it,” she said.

Before breaking out the paint rollers, though, you should be aware that red paint can be difficult to cover with a lighter color. One shortcut is to begin with a primer tinted a neutral gray, said Carl Minchew, director of product development for Benjamin Moore. “Tinting the primer to a neutral gray does two things,” he said. “It kills that redness so you don’t get a pink undertone to everything. It also makes the primer have much better hiding” capability.

After that, Mr. Minchew said: “You’re at the mercy of the paint. If you buy a better paint, you’ll have a better shot at doing this with fewer coats.”

Q. I have old almond-colored kitchen appliances. Will buyers actually care if I replace them?

A. First things first: your appliances should at least be in working order. “A dishwasher can cost $400, and that’s money well spent if something is completely falling apart,” said Jacky Teplitzky, a managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

If the appliances are in relatively good shape, and it’s only a question of color and style, the answer isn’t quite so clear cut. It may seem counterintuitive, but Ms. Teplitzky said that replacing appliances makes the most sense in apartments that will sell at lower price points.

“If it is a $300,000 apartment, people are actually a little bit more picky, because they have less money to spend on a renovation,” she said. “So if you can spend $500 on a refrigerator, then go for it.”

On the other hand, she noted, many people shopping for multimillion-dollar homes plan to renovate, and that usually means putting in an entirely new kitchen. “If it’s a $5 million apartment that needs a renovation, whoever buys it is going to do a gut renovation,” she said, and choose exactly the appliances they want.

If you decide to replace an appliance, and your budget allows for only one, it’s a toss-up between the range and refrigerator, said Susan Serra, a kitchen designer who founded Bornholm Kitchen in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and writes a blog called the Kitchen Designer. “Some stoves can really look worn, even get a little rusty, and look horrible,” she said. If that’s the case, the stove is what you should replace.

“But the refrigerator is the largest appliance,” she said. “So if the range is in decent condition, then replace the refrigerator, because it will make the largest visual impact.”

In terms of finishes, “the darling of appliances is stainless steel,” Ms. Serra said. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. The finish has become so popular that “affordable stainless steel appliances are very common and attainable.”

Replacement isn’t the only option, though. If your refrigerator and dishwasher were originally higher end purchases and are still going strong, but look outdated, you can add panels to freshen up their appearance.

One company that makes these products — which Ms. Serra referred to as her “secret weapon” — is Frigo Design (800-836-8746 or frigodesign.com). “It’s a great resource for affordable face-lifts,” she said.

The company sells trim kits and panels (in finishes like stainless steel, wood and blackboard) that can be mounted onto existing refrigerators and dishwashers to make them look like new.

Whichever route you choose, Ms. Serra pointed out that “the kitchen is an emotional place” where people like to gather. Replacing or re-facing appliances isn’t the same as a full renovation, she said, but “it might be worth spending that $1,500 to get those emotions going” when potential buyers visit.

Questions about home repairs or redecorating in preparation for selling a home may be sent by e-mail to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. We have cheap temporary blinds. Is it worth investing in better window coverings before selling?

A. Unattractive window coverings do little to create a positive impression of your home, and may actually do more harm than good when it’s time to sell.

“If you have something that looks kind of tacky and cheap, well, it’s funny the little things that can steer buyers away from feeling comfortable in a home,” said Jennifer Ferland, a real estate agent with A. C. Lawrence & Company in New York.

If your blinds are lackluster, “You should absolutely invest in new window shades,” she said. Adding upgraded window coverings would help it show better.

“But it’s an investment,” said Celerie Kemble, a Manhattan interior designer. “To elevate a space, you obviously need to pick something that’s a step up, which usually means that you’re going to be contributing a significant amount of money even if you’re buying ready-made curtains.”

For most apartments, Ms. Kemble estimated that such an upgrade would cost more than $1,000.

If you don’t want to make the outlay, she recommended at least removing the existing blinds. “You don’t want to be selling flimsy, junky anything,” she said. If you leave them up, “You’re just advertising that the place is only worth halfhearted practicalities.”

Should you decide to replace them, Ms. Kemble said, something as simple as quality roller shades, roman shades or wooden blinds from a source like the Shade Store, Smith & Noble or Janovic would help, especially in a home with a modern design.

The next step up would be full-length curtains, which she said have a more traditional look but also offer opportunities for visual tricks that can significantly improve a room’s appearance. For instance, “You can create artificial symmetry if you have a window that’s a little bit off-center,” Ms. Kemble said. “You can use fabric to direct the eye to a new center.”

Another trick is to make a window appear larger than it is by extending curtains out from both sides, over the wall.

If you have a particularly nice view, drapery treatments can act “like a lens,” Ms. Kemble said, and draw attention to it, while simpler sheer curtains can help hide less desirable views, like an air shaft or an adjacent building.

Although high-end custom drapery can be expensive, Ms. Kemble said, stores like Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn and Anthropologie sell prefabricated drapery panels that can create these effects at lower prices.

But whether you upgrade with new blinds, shades or curtains, she said, replacing window coverings can go “a long way to changing how a space feels, which might move a prospective buyer emotionally into thinking something just feels better.”

Questions about repairs or redecorating done in preparation for putting a home on the market may be sent to marketready@nytimes.com. Unpublished questions cannot be answered individually.

Q. Is it worth renting art to give our home a high-end look?

A. “Art completes a property,” said Vicki Negron, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group. “It’s always a good idea to borrow it or rent it,” she said, before you put a home on the market, if you don’t already have attractive pieces on the walls.

There are two main advantages to this, she said. First, art is like “beautiful makeup” that can put the finishing touches on interior design. No matter how nice the house or apartment, she said, “I’ve never seen an empty room look spectacular.”

The second is that distinctive art “helps in terms of remembering places,” on days when potential buyers might be viewing multiple properties. Eye-catching artwork could make buyers recall your home as “the place with the great red piece on the wall,” she said.

Ms. Negron, who said she has “the blessing of having good connections with a couple of dealers in Manhattan,” has even borrowed pieces by blue-chip artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring to pump up the appeal of properties she represents.

“Not everyone has that connection, but somebody always knows someone else with a great piece of art,” she said. “You can probably borrow in lieu of renting.”

In fact, she added, “I’ve moved some of my own art into properties.”

Barbara Brock, owner of the home-staging company A Proper Place, agrees that art can help complete a desired look. But she suggests limiting additions to one or two key pieces, so as not to overwhelm the space or make it look cluttered.

In terms of placement, “The key locations are in the entryway and in the living room, over the mantel or over the sofa,” Ms. Brock said. “Unless it’s a very large piece of art, it does look best hanging over a piece of furniture.”

The exception, she said, is when the art is “poster-size or larger,” in which case it can hang alone.

Also, not all art is equally effective. For staging a home, she said, “contemporary art, which is based on line, space, color, form — not representational art — has a wider appeal.”

Homeowners should also avoid anything too dark and gloomy, or with a religious or ethnic theme, she said, “because you want to appeal to a large market.” Pieces should be “more monochromatic and simple,” she said, and “less gilt and Old Masters.”

To find art to rent, Ms. Brock suggests asking individual galleries and artists, or using an online service like Artsicle (artsicle.com), which sells and rents art, starting at $25 a month.

It’s a small investment that could pay big dividends. As Ms. Negron said: “Color on a wall speaks volumes. I think it’s almost essential.”