Like everything else in life it's a question of degree.

If the only "fault" in a home was that one smaller bedroom has a darling bit like that wallpaper in it... then don't fret. Don't expect anyone else to love it though; not even another family with an appropriate age child. ;)

As to the rest... the presumption is that the buyer will be looking for the steak and not the sizzle. Anything that distracts their attention from the steak aspects of a room or the house as a whole... is a distraction; even pretty sizzle.

Buyers have enough distractions to wade through without adding to that by not removing the easy stuff. Not removing things and not doing that neutralizing sets a tone of the passive aggressive... of not really committing to even the idea of leaving (selling) which will translate into how they'll be perceived to be when it comes time to negotiate price. Next!

That's a good point about passive aggressiveness, MrRational.

I much preferred to see some personality when I was looking at homes, but my boyfriend had a hard time projecting himself into very personalized spaces. My personal taste means any place that had the contractor touch did not appeal to me, and by that I mean renovated spaces that had all the character wiped right out of them. We saw some intelligent renovations and then we saw a lot of cookie cutter work, and there there was the work that made me wonder what faults were being hidden under carpet and paint.

I do always wonder about wall colors though. My friends moved into a house with lovely paint colors in most rooms, and didn't have to change a thing. I moved into a blank slate, and had to do it all myself.

I'm jealous every time I go there - I would've LOVED to move into a place that was already painted nicely.

I think that it is a question of targeting your market. First time home buyers may not be able to visualize how a room will look if the paint is changed or the wallpaper is removed. Experienced home owners have a different perspective. When we moved to Maryland, we were buying our fifth house. I was looking at room size, number of beds and baths, lot size location and price. The house we bought was a rental with three bachelors as tenants. While it was reasonable clean, it was clearly a bachelor pad. Adding paint and decorating did wonders. We paid about 95% of asking, in part, because it needed a major kitchen remodel.

I myself live in a house that i intend to live in for many years.So maybe its easy for me to say this.But i honestly cant understand the atitude that many people have towards thier house.

If someone is buying a house in Baltimore to work on a 2-4 year work project and plans to sell after 2-4 years, then i can understand the emphasis on resell value.

But i have seen many friends buy a house and spend 10 years fixing it up in the tastes of whatever complete straanger is going to buy thier house 10-20 years down the road.They readily admit that they arent fixing up thier house to suit thier own tastes.

My humble opinion is that unless someone is only going to live in a house for 2-5 years, they should remodel and/or decorate thier house for thier own taste and convenience. .

Millionsof Americans spend countless money and hours trying to decorate and/or remodel thier house for someone [a future buyer] who they dont know and will never meet.

Its great to sell a house for more than you originally paid for it.But for many people in the past 20 years , it has become an obsession.Thier house has become like a 4H project.A beast that needs to be fed 24/7 in order to sell it one day

BTW, for what its worth, i personally like the jungle wall paper that your husband put up.

If the workmanship is good, then I usually will like it. Too often tho, the work is substandard, sloppy, and cheap.

Great discussion, folks!

I've been looking at numerous houses over the past few months. I find that having a unique feature can be seen as a negotiating point for the final cost, but it is also helpful to identify a home when I've seen many that are structurally similar. This is especially useful when discussing properties with my family members that may not be familiar with a street and house number but will certainly recall a wallpaper menagerie.

Great colors on the wall: a definite plus, at least for me. (I bought a house with some.) On the other hand, when I saw the house I now own, the owner had just replastered a chunk of wall, and had started painting it a color I loathed. (Also a pretty non-standard color. With, gulp, stripes.) Since I hadn't made an offer, let alone bought the house, I didn't feel I could say: look, why not just leave it? But I wish she had. Hard to paint over.

Anything like paint or wallpaper that's easy to undo, I overlook, unless I like it in which case it's a real plus. Something that would require construction workers to get rid of -- a large fountain in the living room, say -- is obviously a big negative.

As with everything else, it depends. I personally find the pictured wallpaper on this post to be gorgeous. Great for a child's room. Be realistic, though--in 10 yrs, that wall might look tattered and worn down. At that point, if you wanted to sell, you need to remove the wallpaper.

Everything ages. Neutral or traditional tends to age better, as well as things that are done with high quality. DIY stuff ages quickly, for the most part. Do it because you like it, but don't expect the next person to be in love with it.

I like the jungle wallpaper. In 10 yrs, then it might not look so great (worn down, faded, outdated).

People who want to have "interesting" walls or DIY projects in the house should plan to live there for 10+ years (like Pete from H'town says).

Such people should not plan on profiting from these decoration ideas, though. Unless something is truly worthy of being called "historic" or "art", you need to stay neutral to attract multiple bids and get a good price. The idea that someone will fall in love with your DIY project is perpetrated by bad TV shows rooted in the housing bubble mindset.

chappy, I'm guessing you meant only one of these comments to go up -- maybe the first one looked like it didn't go through? -- but they're different enough that I didn't want to delete one.

Thanks for your thoughts! I agree that this wallpaper has a shelf life, just like the paint on the other walls.

I see homes that are very well staged with paint and furniture, and I say wow, this looks great, i'd love to live here... except it's not my furniture or furnishings that i'm seeing. That color looked great with the sellers stuff, but may look terrible against my things. Not to say all personal touches are bad, but I think in general it's 'safer' to start with neutrals and let the new homeowner decide how to decorate the space.

Jamie,
Yes I only meant to comment once. For some reason the first did not go through.

For what it's worth, I like the jungle art a lot. Would look great in a child's room. The thing is, I've seen DIY projects like that in houses for sale. Usually they're well past their shelf life and don't particularly fit the house as a whole.

My favorite type of house to see when we were out house-hunting was an empty house. It's easy to see the floor and wall conditions and pay attention to the fixtures and other selling points of the house. Kind of gets everything out in the open; neutral, recently-painted walls are good for the same reason. Makes the space look bigger, too, which is key in the city and close-in suburbs.

One benefit of a limited "feature wall" like your wallpaper is that I can remember your house at the end of the day, after seeing 5-6 places that blend together. What you should do, though, is just state up front you will paint or remove the unusual feature if the buyer does not want to keep it. That said, it _does_ make it harder to see the room as anything other than a kid's room, e.g., as a home office.

LOL Jamie, I'm sorry... I actually like the wallpaper more than the white bookshelf with the toys(?) on it or the blue wall.

The wallpaper by itself is beautiful, I think. But it doesn't really go with the other items in the room. Although it's a child's room, I would probably do a more sophisticated decor (natural/stained wood etc) since I have to live in the house, too! We obviously have different taste. :D

To answer your question, all else being equal, I would pick the house without wallpaper. Normally the wallpaper patterns I have seen are not to my taste. And as someone mentioned...DIY jobs may not look so great quality-wise. I don't relish the thought of soaking or steaming off wallpaper, prepping the wall and repainting. Ugh

When I was house-hunting, I passed up a house partially because it had wallpaper and plastic paneling and a bunch of other hideous DIY garbage.

But somebody bought it, so wallpaper isn't a turnoff or all prospective buyers.

The conventional wisdom and marginal analysis from a pure numbers game dictate that you de-personalize your home prior to sale.

That is unless you have some totally awesome safari wallpaper as in your case.