Pack ’em up, Move ’em out!

Well we did it. We took a deep breath, closed our eyes and stepped off the cliff.

And thank God our realtors were there to catch us.

I’ve been talking for months about needing to call our real estate agents to begin talks of selling our house. We finally called them and set an appointment for last night. I have never sold a house before and had all kinds of questions about how it would work, what we need to do to get the house prepared and when we should aim to have it ready. I feel very dumb when it comes to this kind of thing.

Our realtors, Michael and Kristin, are the ones who sold us our current house. That was a little over 5 years ago. We were so impressed with how they treated us and handled the process that we knew we wouldn’t want anyone else but them helping this time around.

They came over and walked through each room of the house and told us what needed to be done to get it ready. Mostly it’s just cleaning, decluttering and staging.

It’s a very personal thing to have someone analyze your home and tell you what makes it “unappealing” (which, they totally did NOT say, it’s just how I felt. They were super nice about it and had great suggestions). I understand they were looking at it with a critical eye, and from the perspective of a potential buyer, and that it wasn’t a personal reflection on us. But it’s hard not to feel that way. The knick-knacks I think are cute have to go. The photos that I love to look at every day must be taken down. We have to re-arrange some furniture so that it looks more inviting.

All of that to say that we really don’t have to do too much to the house.

We don’t have to repaint or fix anything broken or redo entire rooms. I guess that means we’ve done a pretty good job of maintaining it over the years. And they said our style is tasteful and will go a long ways. All good things.

You wanna know the best part? They suggested we get cracking and have it ready to go by the end of April.

I’ll give you a minute to look at the calendar. Ready? Ok. Yeah. That gives us 4 weeks to do the following:

Get a storage unit rented
Clean every room from top to bottom with a fine-tooth comb
Clean out all closets, drawers, cabinets to just the essentials
Pack up all knick knacks and “personal” family type items (photos, etc)
Re-arrange furniture in a few of the rooms
Take all boxes and various extra furniture to storage
Replace a sink or 2 and possibly a bathroom countertop
Clean up the yard and plant flowers, lay down mulch, etc
Put away all of Isabella’s toys and only keep out those that can fit in to a rubbermaid container
Paint or restain all baseboards and woodwork
Meet with a mortgage lender to see how much we can afford and how much of a loan we’ll get approved for
Start looking for a new house