Our house is officially on the market. Go ahead and gawk at the inside here.
I did a mad-dash shove-the-crap-in-the-closets 1 hour cleaning for the photos. We had been cleaning for two weeks, but I was finishing up a few bedrooms and thought I had 1 more day when the agent called and said "I'm coming to take pictures in an hour." My only regret is that my duvet for the master bedroom was wrinkled, so there's a shot of our "naked" bed with just the white duvet-less comforter. But you can't see that in the realtor.com photos. You have to go to atlrealtypro.com and search the MLS# 3247281.
To sum up the amount of work we did in 1 1/2 weeks:
- The dining room was a front living room. That furniture is now in the basement.
- The table in the dining room was in the breakfast area.
- The table in the breakfast area was on the deck.
- The kitchen backsplashes were not visible because of the clutter. All of our essentials (toaster over, blender, coffee fixings, etc.) are stashed under the counters. And the stuff that was under the counter is now either in the basement or stashed under beds.
- See the office, how everything is clustered in one little corner? The whole office was that cluttered. The right wall was lined with tables and crafty stuff, and the left wall had a giant bookshelf on it filled to overflowing with books. All of that is now in the basement. Thank God there are no pictures of the basement!
- Baby toys and books had taken over the living room. They're all up in Ben's room now, neatly stashed where they're supposed to be.
- The yard was full of last fall's leaves and the wooded area in front was pine straw-less.
- A garage door wasn't working. Had to pay a stupid amount for that to get fixed.
- We had a window and bathroom ceiling repaired, and a leaking boot in the roof replaced so as to avoid repairing the bathroom ceiling again.
After all that cleaning, the real estate agent decided to up the price of the house a wee bit. I'm glad it was worth the effort, 'cause we're beyond exhausted!
Without all the clutter, I can finally see what a fine house we have! I wish I had more than two months to enjoy it!
We'll be looking for a townhouse to rent in D.C. Clark Howard says it's one of the few markets in the country where you're better off renting.
I worry about not having a yard for my little Benjamin, but I can't think of a single time I've actually sat in our yard. This is mostly because we don't have a bench, and I haven't gotten one because I didn't want to invest in a bench then end up moving to a townhouse in D.C. In retrospect, I should've just bought a dang bench and enjoyed the yard while we had one. After all, we bought lawn equipment that will now have to be sold. Matt most certainly will not miss using the lawn equipment. Taking care of nearly an acre of rolling lawn and wooded lot sounds more romantic than it actually is. I have no qualms about hopping on the Metro to visit the many fine parks in the D.C. area, all maintenance free on my part.