Today we had…

Today we had a realtor walk through the house today. He is one that is trying to get our business in the end. We need to sell this house after all.

We are still working on the house, trying to get it ready to put on the market. He called the house and Ben decided that it was time to take the free advice and let the guy work for his “opportunity” to sell our house. The good news is that we “passed” our test.

We are on the right track to get the house ready for selling and we are doing all the right things. That is the good news. The not so great news is that we still have a few things to do. The good news is that we were mostly able to point these things out to the realtor and we know what we need to do. That is the not so great part of this exercise is that these are “time limiting” elements. They take time. We know that. When he did point out a couple of things, we were able to say, “we have this already planned out…” and could explain our plan of execution for it. In so many ways though, it is sweet validation that I am not completely crazy in the head. I know what it takes to sell a house.

We do have a goal to get the house on the market by the end of January. The question is, are we going to make it? I am tired. I am tired of this whole process already. I will not lie about it. I am tired. I am flat out exhausted. It does not help that I am sick and I have a new health diagnosis to deal with. I dislike this whole process. I will be honest about it.

I will be honest with you, I am not sure we will at this point. We might make it though. We will see.

What do we have left to do at this point?

Today we are going to prime and hopefully paint the kitchen and breakfast nook. We all have a touch of this respiratory bug that is going around however, so this is going slower than expected. We did get the ceiling painted white. We had to wait for the ceiling to dry. That is the one draw back to painting ceilings white. It is the one really not so nice thing about them. They look nice – really nice – but there is an extra step and extra wait time involved in them.

After this…we have left…

• Game room
• Upstairs bathroom
• Master bedroom
• Master bathroom
• Master closet
• Laundry room

The upstairs bathroom involves painting the walls, tiling the floor, fixing the insides of the toilet, replacing the light fixture, replacing the exhaust vent, new sink faucet, and painting the vanity cabinet (the laminate is coming off the doors and drawers). It is a time lengthy project.

The laundry room is getting paint and a tile floor. This involves moving appliances out of it, of course.

The master bathroom is getting a new shower tiling and surround glass unit, new light fixtures, new faucets, and paint.

The master bedroom, master closet, and game room are just getting paint.

Then we get someone in here to paint doors and trim as well as all the closets that are painted in the trim paint (ie the linen closets and the pantry). We have someone in here to do the carpet. The same crew doing the carpet will also be the crew that does the tiling on the floors that need it. We will do those then. 

There is still a lot to do.

That being said, there is a lot done. I have to remember that. I think Ben likes to overlook that as well. We have done this ourselves. We have not hired out. We have done this. We have gone room by room mostly and we have already mostly done the bulk of the house. It may seem like a lot left, but when you live in a house for 14 years with boys and you truly live in the house…there is a lot of wear and tear that just comes with the territory.

For us, this was a move that was NOT planned. This move was NO WHERE ON THE RADAR and so we had not prepared for moving in anyway.

I think about this when we are looking at houses online. We are looking at houses that are roughly the same age as what we are living in. We are looking at houses that are 10-15 years old give or take. I ask myself repeatedly, what do I expect to be fixed when I move into the house? What can I fix myself?

A lot of this is a reflection of what is wrong with my own house. The same design of shower is something we’ll have to fix somewhere else…yes, it is something I can pick out in a picture for the most part. It is a very tell tale problem in most showers now that I know what I am looking for (I’ve physically seen it in more than one shower stall now). I have to ask myself, how much do I care about that? How fast do I want to sink quite a bit of money into a project fixing it if it isn’t done already?

We have found one house online that says it “needs a little TLC.” When I first saw it, the first question that came to my mind was, “just how much is a little TLC?” Really, how do you rate a little? Our house just needed a little TLC. That is all. Every house that is a few years old needs a little TLC especially if your house is almost as old as at least 2 of your kids. I should point out that I have a kid in college and another in high school. I have all boys. Yes. It needs a little TLC. Boys rough house. I did not raise pansies. I also choose not to live in a museum. I live in a house…a home. We live here. We do not live under glass and locked away where people can’t touch. We LIVE here. This house, however, was more than that. It was just bad taste in my opinion. It was not even the decor or the paint selection, it was the amount of clutter. We fortunately have gotten rid of most of it at this point. Moved it out of the house and into storage.

So…we are just moving forward.

The realtor while not hired at this point, has approved of what we are doing. He said we are ahead of the game at this point and thinks we are doing great things.

Maybe our “changes” or “upgrades” in this house are not what your typical homeowner are looking for, but by golly they are what everyone typically overlooks because they are easy to ignore. Every single one of our smoke detectors work and are brand new now. Why? Because that is something that I do think about. My lighting is comfortable and it works when we turn on the light switch. Why? Because that is something that I do think about. Is it going to make me hurt and can I see when I flip the switch? No my baseboards may not be 4″ wide or brand new and my door knobs may not be new or fancy, but my AC vent covers are new and clean because yellow ones look gross against a white ceiling. We took the time to pay attention to that detail. That small detail. In exchange you will get a house that is used. You will get a house that will have plenty of room for you to add your own upgrades….