Pflugerville · Pre-listing prep

2409 Dunes Drive

One owner, thirty years, and a house that needed to sell without swallowing the proceeds. Paint, light, and a lot of hours. Nothing structural.

Kitchen and dining after painting, with white cabinets and granite counters

The brief

Spend where it comes back. Nowhere else.

The seller had lived here since the mid-nineties. The house was sound — good bones, good light, granite already in the kitchen — but it read like 2003. Honey oak cabinets everywhere. A maroon dining room. A pink ceiling in the breakfast nook.

The wrong answer was a renovation. She was moving out; every dollar spent on new counters or new floors would have walked out the door with the buyer. The right answer was paint, light, and photography — the three things that change how a house shows without changing what it is.

Five thousand dollars in materials and fixtures. New lighting throughout, fresh paint everywhere, the cabinets taken to white, walls patched properly, then styled and shot. The labor was ours — this one was family, and we did the work ourselves.

$5,000

Materials & fixtures

Days to contract

Walls moved

Before & after

Two rooms did most of the work

Befores are phone shots from the day we started — groceries on the counter, ladder still out. Afters were shot after styling.

Kitchen before, honey oak cabinets around the sink and oven wall — Kitchen — sink and ovens

Same cabinets, same granite, same appliances. The honey oak was the single biggest thing dating the house, and paint was the only thing that changed.

The same corner after, cabinets painted white with black hardware — Kitchen — sink and ovens

Same cabinets, same granite, same appliances. The honey oak was the single biggest thing dating the house, and paint was the only thing that changed.

Kitchen before, cooktop wall with bay window and a patterned valance — Kitchen — cooktop wall

The bay window was the best thing in the room and nobody could see it. Losing the valance and lightening the cabinets turned it into the focal point.

The same cooktop wall after, white cabinets and plants in the bay window — Kitchen — cooktop wall

The bay window was the best thing in the room and nobody could see it. Losing the valance and lightening the cabinets turned it into the focal point.

Dining room before, painted maroon with blue painter's tape applied — Dining room

Maroon walls under a vaulted ceiling made a bright room feel like a cave. We taped out the wainscoting, took it all to white, and gave the arched window something to work with.

The same dining room after, white with wainscoting — Dining room

Maroon walls under a vaulted ceiling made a bright room feel like a cave. We taped out the wainscoting, took it all to white, and gave the arched window something to work with.

Hall bathroom before, sage walls with a red plaid shower curtain — Hall bath

Sage walls, plaid curtain, red rug. Nothing wrong with it, and nothing a buyer could see past. White paint, one piece of art, folded towels.

The same bathroom after, white walls with simple black and white art — Hall bath

Sage walls, plaid curtain, red rug. Nothing wrong with it, and nothing a buyer could see past. White paint, one piece of art, folded towels.

The part nobody photographs

Paint is the easy half

Thirty years of a house means anchor holes, hairline cracks, and texture that stopped matching a long time ago. Most of the labor here was repair, not color.