Part 1
I have never sold
a house. I had been a renter prior to buying my first house, this house. I didn’t
really have any expectations of the whole process, but I knew it was going to
be a learning experience. In my mind, I had set a date to go to market: October
1st.
I started sorting
through my stuff in August. I contacted three realtors I knew, to come up with
market analyses. I ended up choosing my friend Julie Etter, a top selling
realtor in her company. She came to my house with a stager. I was petrified of
the word “stager” to begin with. And this one meant business. She would float
in and out of the rooms with her notepad, silent, but writing, making comments
if I uttered anything. The more she navigated through my overstuffed house, the
more uncomfortable I became. This heavy feeling doomed over my head, and I
trembled at the outcome.
At the end, she
handed me two pages of handwritten notes, room by room, task by task. I almost
fainted. My eyes homed in on the most complex of projects: she wanted me to
finish one of the rooms in the basement. It had been my intention to do that
for the past 7 years, but between the aftermath of a flood, and using my
basement as storage for 3 adults, I never got to it.
What I needed to
do, in between sorting, decluttering, donating, trashing and packing, was buy
trim for doors, windows and closets, cut it at a 45˚ angle by hand – I wasn’t planning on
purchasing an electric saw before moving, buy and install new ceiling tiles,
paint, install baseboard. The project seemed daunting and I didn’t want to
spend too much money so we decided to do it ourselves.
During breaks, I
would sort, trash, donate, pack. That seemed to be my life and by the time
October 1st rolled around, I had already warned Julie I wasn’t ready
to list the house. Not only did I have a ton more to pack, but I hadn’t crossed
off enough stuff on the stager’s list.
That list was going
to be the death of me. I am one of those people who might not be the most
organized person in the world, but if you put a list in front of me, I become
obsessed with it. And tackling the hardest project on the list had to be number
1. My other half and I work well as a team, and we took turns sawing wood (which
I do not recommend, as you may get red callouses if your hands are manicured).
So, two months
later, I had not only finished the list, but also freshly painted my bedroom, my
dining room, the entry way and part of the kitchen. Julie came over and so did her
photographer, a young woman who went throughout the house and clicked away
without a peep. After sitting down with Julie and discussing how I would be
gone for half of December, we decided to wait one more month until January 2nd.
Ominous date
indeed, as it was our anniversary. It had to bode well. So right before I left
for the holidays, I also decided to paint my second kitchen in the in-law, as
that had been the last thing I had set out to do. The list had not included
painting rooms, with the exception of the finished room in the basement.
The overachiever
in me had to do it so I could feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, knowing
that it was the best I could do for the next owners.
On January 2nd,
Julie came over and showed me the listing preview. Later that day, the listing
was live. It is a strange sensation to have the inside of your house on display
for everyone to see. This is what house hunting is: you judge the house by the
photos, then you go see it.
I knew I would have
to clean a lot more often (it seemed like every single day) and I knew I would
have to remove my two cats from the house, hide their litter boxes in the basement,
leave all the lights on.
The first time
was the first open house on the first Saturday of the year. I frantically rushed
to see if everything was perfect: all the lights on, my diffusers running throughout
the house (more later on which essential oils I used) and Julie arrived twenty minutes
earlier as I flew out with the two cat carriers in hand. The poor babies were
facing each other in the backseat of my car. My 12-year old meowed: the scared
kind of cry. In total, I was away for about 2 hours. I had booked a manicure,
so I could get my mind off of what was happening at my house. But the stress
didn’t leave me. I got back to the car and still killed some time. I felt
guilty about subjecting my pets to this, but this was all part of the process.
I wondered what came next.
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| This is a perfect blend for an open house or showing. Citrus oils both uplift and calm, aside from smelling clean and fresh, and I thought it was a great choice. |
