This house-selling business feels a little familiar. Getting the house ready for potential showings is a lot like getting ready for a party, and God knows I've thrown my share of those. I spend my days making sure the house is spotless and that the "stage" is set. I put fresh fruit in the pottery bowl on our kitchen island. I pick fresh flowers from the garden and put them in vases throughout the house. I make sure all the coffee and tea spots that we slosh on the floors every damn morning are wiped up. I cover the piles of laundry in their baskets with attractive--though dirty--tea towels so no potentially fastidious house-shopping stranger has to gaze on our dirty socks and napkins. The clutter gets stashed, even if it's clutter we use everyday--contact lens cases, toothpaste, eyeglasses, water glasses, tea pots, coffee grinders, slippers, notebooks, all of it gets hidden. The house has never been so clean, even before the cleaning service arrived this morning to really scrub it down.
A lot like preparing for a party. Except that I have to do this every.single.day.
It's tiring, and I'm driving myself nuts trying to keep the baby from trashing the whole house on the off chance that some agent will call and ask to come over RIGHT NOW to show the place. But at least I don't have to cook for all these people! And no one's expecting cocktails except me--earlier each evening than usual--and Husband--perhaps one more each evening than usual.
I just hope that we can get it under contract soon so I don't have to keep up with this cleaning charade. We've had 2 showings so far, another scheduled for this afternoon, and that couple in Boston still wants to see it next week when they're down, if it's still on the market. (An aside: for some reason I think this couple expected that we would keep it off the market for them until they could make it down here. We've never even met them! But their emails got all chilly suddenly once they found out we were trying to--gasp!--sell our house as soon as we could. These people were friends of friends of a neighbor. What were they thinking?!) Both showings have gone well. The first couple to see it took their time, and then spent 15 minutes right out front talking with their agent. The showing last night was to a young, agent-less couple who spent an hour going around with Husband, even going so far as to check the attic and wiggle around in the crawlspace in the evening dark. They want to see the inspection report we had done when we first bought the house, so it appears that they are seriously contemplating it.
Anyhow, once again I go into detail that is only going to interest those who know me well and haven't talked to me on the phone recently. Sorry to the rest of you. There's not much going on here otherwise. Hopefully the rest of you are having a nicer and more interesting summer than I am! Once I drop Sister off at overnight Brownie camp this afternoon, I might actually have time to catch up on my blog reading and find out for myself.
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2 comments:
Is it weird I find your house selling adventure interesting? If I was looking at your house I'd definately be impressed. I also heard that the smell of freshly baked good and soft jazz playing during a showing works well too!
I hope you sell soon too. It must be exhausting to try to maintain a perpetual state of immaculateness.
Oh - all that cleaning is such a chore!! I was so glad when we finally had an accepted offer and I didn't have to clean house every morning before we went to work!! Hang in there!
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