get the house ready to sell

I am back from my trip to FL, came home to a spic and span house, and a fancy “for sale” sign posted in the yard. Today we have an open house….so we are FORCED to go out of the house and have some fun. I could dig this low house maintenance thing for awhile….yesterday we went out and had fun all day in order to keep the house clean. What a strategy!

House doesn’t “feel” ready, but we signed the papers tonight, and sign goes up first thing tomorrow. Very emotional… on the one hand we do still have attachments to this place, but practically speaking, this is the time to do this, and I couldn’t turn back after all the work we put into it. Rugs almost all steam cleaned, kiddo bedroom almost ready, and minor touches throughout the home. Hot tub up and running, and tiki bar decorated. Kitchen counter stripped, touchup paint done, and no space to spare in storage unit.

All in all, IT IS FINISHED! Stage II of this project starts NOW! I can’t believe we just did this. I am so wiped out I cried when we signed the papers. Any way, the investment will be worth it, even if it does not sell.

We shall see how the boys do in keeping the place clean for showing on their own….I hop a plane for Florida for a week on Friday! LOL!

We’ve got the paperwork, Realtor says it is ready to show with just a few last minute minor touches!

My son’s room exploded, however, so that needs some more purging and attention.

Today I used touch up paint on the walls, and we also got roofing estimates done, and the den is empty, the bedroom empty, the hall empty, the living room almost there, and front yard looks great!

I’m getting a little scared we are actually going through with this and will have people walking through the home as soon as Monday! Yikes! talk about a little pressure to keep it clean!

New welcome mat, fresh mulch in place!

Yesterday I finished organizing the bathroom cupboards in the master bedroom, detail cleaning in the master, purged the linens, hid extra towels, and continued to get stuff out of the house one way or another!

Today, finish back bathroom/closet, empty rest of bedroom coat closet, get more stuff out of the house.

Still to do: pantry, fridge, son’s room (again…too much stuff!), rest of kitchen, side patio, steam clean rugs, touch up paint, detail cleaning

Ceiling and tile work are done and fixed! Next to dos include:

mulch front yard flower beds
touch up paint music studio
restain back step
buy new welcome mats
detail clean
finish getting stuff out of my house
spot paint baseboards
spot paint walls
wash switchplates
shampoo rugs
fix window in hottub room
fix garage sheet rock

He will be fixing the hottub room, and we uncovered another issue….the hole in the garage wall is a bit more than anticipated….this repair session might be a big enough setback to cause us not to list…we will see. Has to be done regardless. Waaah!

Note: If you’ve been reading my other notes today, I might reassure you that this is only happening because I have the week off. Otherwise it would be impossible!

We went yesterday and got preapproved for a house loan. We found out we can afford a much bigger house than we thought, should we choose to go that route, plus our credit scores have gone up 200 points since when we first started to buy the process to buy this house back in 2001, extremely low debt to income ratio, so now we just need to sell some more junk to make that downpayment meatier!!

Still scared on how the home will show, given the amount of time we have and the amount of stuff I am trying to move…but we are moving forward in faith and see what happens. I am calling a fix-it guy today to make some minor repairs to the home since hubby is not one and neither am I.

I am also going to go out today and finish those window boxes….get some pretty plants to fill them, and touch up paint them. Son will be excited for the outing after we work on his room a bit.

Onward….CHARGE!

To haul it all away!! Making progress….just sold another item on Craigslist, and listed another item last night…what we have sold so far has paid for our storage for the month. Started in on son’s room yesterday, still 84 degrees in the house, cooler today so am trying to air things out in the meantime.

Hoping to make a goodwill run today and a trip to the dump too. Went shopping last night as it was so hot, and bought a book on “How to Stage Your Home.” We also looked at replacement curtains for our bedroom, and will buy them later today. Realitor going on vacation, so our new target looks like Sunday or Monday.

Make more loads to the storage unit, give the kitchen a nice cleaning, sort through the remaining boxes in den, run laundry, and make a trip to store to get replacement curtains for master bedroom.

Hubby just came back from the storage unit to report “we still have PLENTY of room.”

I think I will sleep well tonight now….