Sanitation

The last time I sold a property, I was no longer living in it. In fact, it had been a rental for a couple of years and the last renter had moved out. Rather than find another one, I opted to sell since, by then, the market had recovered somewhat (this was 2002).

This time around, I'm living in the property. With the two cats.

I'm using the same realtors that I used in 2002. I liked their attitudes, and since they are a team, it's usually pretty easy to get one or the other on the phone or showing properties, etc. So when I started thinking about putting my place on the market and searching for the next home, they came over and did a walkthrough to give me some advice on pricing and staging for homebuyers.

It's a weird thing to stage the home you live in. Staging, for those of you who may not watch house-hunting shows as I do, is making your home appealing. If the home is empty, that may mean renting furniture to show what the house would look like if it weren't empty. In my case, it means de-personalizing the home. Which is just a little weird.

I rented a storage space and have moved a bunch of stuff into it. Most of my books, for example, so that the wall space can look more open (I didn't move the bookcases yet, though, so maybe that's not the ideal). I collect vases, and the realtors suggested having fewer on the shelves, so that they looked more open, too. Cleaning extra things off the kitchen counters was not a surprise. I would have done that anyway. Getting rid of some of the stuff in the closets was an interesting twist, though. Again, the idea is to make it look like there's a ton of space. If your closets are crammed, then it looks like they don't hold as much. I get the idea, but it's still a little weird.

As a result, at the moment, my house doesn't look much like my house. 10 boxes of books have been moved. That's a lot of boxes (I probably still have 4-5 boxes of books in my living room bookcase, though). I emptied a lot of the storage space under the stairs downstairs, and put those boxes in storage. I took pictures off the walls and put those in storage (but kept some up to look nice). This past weekend, I moved my humidifiers to my storage space. Didn't really want to give those looking at my home the idea that it's dry in the winter. Though it is, of course. But then aren't most homes?

The house should be listed as of Thursday. Which will mean that every day, before I leave the house, I will need to make sure it's ready to show. Clean off the kitchen counters if there's anything that has gathered on them. Clean out the cats' litter box. Make my bed (not just throw the covers up). Check that the guest room bed is still neat and tidy. Tidy up my desk downstairs. Fix the pillows on the couch. Run the vacuum quickly. Wipe down the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Whew!

What fun!?