The New Year rang in and with it brought many new beginnings and opportunities for my family. I found myself unemployed in December. Knowing the Lord will provide, my husband accepted a position that will “provide” the missing income. This new opportunity involves a move 2 hours south of our home, the homes of our parents and siblings. It also means our son has decided to stay in the Cleveland area.
Selling a home or better yet, “staging” a home for sale is quite the task. We’ve been in this house for almost 10 years and have made it our home. Vacation photos, graduation pictures and other “junk” adorn our home. I’m not Martha Stewart, but I have good taste.
Last evening we met with the realtor. “Pat” is a pleasant, older woman with an excellent resume with many years in the business. After we covered “what she would do for us” and heard about the market in our area, we did a walk through. Now, I’ve watched all those HGTV shows regarding decorating, staging and selling your house. Looking back now on all those comments I made about how could someone collect all that junk in their house. I now cringe at all the “junk” embellishing my abode. Like the queen of decorating, Pat sashayed about my house pointing out what “had to go” and what “has to be painted.” Don’t get me wrong, I understand her mission is to sell my house, fast. It’s just hard to hear that your possessions have to disappear and a potential buyer won’t like my blue bathroom. “Pat” like the blue half bath, why not the other? They’re exactly the same.
Once the painful task was over, we sat down again to discuss “when” we would be ready to go on the market. Two weeks we said. Are you kidding me, I thought to myself, did you take note of all the stuff I have to pack up not to mention painting the bathroom. What did I just agree to?
So, today I called off (to my husband) and I’m spending the afternoon with my friend. No packing, no painting, no staging of furniture. Just a relaxing day to gather my thoughts, rest my brain and hopefully talk Laurie into helping me pack up my belongings, making my home look like a house.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
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9 comments:
If you have a garage, shove all the junk/treasures in boxes and shove the boxes in the garage. You can (but never will) sort through the boxes later. People don't care as much about the junk in the garage.
If you don't have a garage, use your best friend's garage. Or a small storage unit. Or rent a U-Haul truck and fill it up with your boxes and park it down the street while the house is on the market...
I wish you the best of everything with your house sale. I think I'm about a month behind you, but they won't unemploy me here. If they would, I'd have time to shove all my stuff in boxes...
Skye...we do have a garage, but unfortunately, it house our two Camaros. Jans' is the blue '01 and my "toy" is a red '02 Z28. I discussed with Janice last night the possibility of going to her moms garage, making room there and moving my car to her garage. Either way, we need to come up with some temporary storage!
Janice...Excellent post, as usual! I hope you enjoyed your well deserved day off!
The day was wonderful. And Laurie will be here Friday to help me stuff everything we can into the attic.
Everything's moving way to fast!
Hopefully we'll be able to buy one of the houses we see this weekend and just have to move the junk from one house to the other.
Attics are good too. And basements. I've been in California too long when I forget that there are storage sections of homes that aren't garages.
Well, we may be in a very similar position soon. Andrew is doing some job-hunting and if we had our wish, we would move about 2 hours south of where we currently are, in order to be closer to his family.
While that would be great from many standpoints, the idea of leaving our home, which is fairly new, roomy and in good shape, not to mention the idea of getting our home into "show-worthy" state and packing, is an idea that is simply beyond overwhelming right now.
So for now, I'll keep a close eye on you and how things go. Then, if and when it is my turn, I'll be here begging for tips on how to sell!
Good luck and know that at least one humble blogger understands the terror you are feeling right now about the move...even if everything about the move is positive. Change is scary.
Christina,
Rule of thumb: Absolutely no more than three items on any flat surface.
Thanks for the encouragement Christina. Change is very scary and a bit overwhelming right now.
Today I did pack up a curio cabinet, and thank goodness I saved every box that my Seraphim Angels and Snowbabies came in, it helped a great deal.
Skyepuppy,
Hahahaha! You've obviously never seen my house. There's no way....
Christina,
Read the part where you shove all the items that exceed three into boxes and shove the boxes into the attic/basement/garage, whichever comes first. You must! Your house will sell so much faster, because everybody else's house looks just like yours (and mine) does now.
Nope. Start collecting the boxes now, so you won't have to scramble when the time comes.
Now I have to start taking my own advice. It's so much easier to give it...
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