Week Two ... 13 May - 19 May 2012, Preparing Old House

Happily mostly-settled into the new place we now had the challenge of getting Heather's "old" house ready to put on the market.  She and Loren met with several realtors and found one that really impressed them. They deduced that because this realtor was so good at selling his services to them, he would be great at using those same skills to sell their house.  They met with the realtor a few days later and signed a contract with him.  By then Heather was getting tired and a bit stressed out so much had been going on. I told her I would take over everything else for her and that her only concern was growing the baby.  If anyone called she was to give the phone to me and let everyone know that I was the main contact.  And so, happily, she did.

At first, Niels and I thought we would do all the work ourselves. The realtor's plan however was to have the house on the market by the following week and have it sold within four weeks. We knew we couldn't do everything that needed to be done in one weeks time. The realtor suggested that we arrange for a painter to spruce up the interior and some of the exterior as needed, a gardener to work on the yard and to wash the exterior, some trash haulers to take away everything that had not been included in the move, a handyman  to repair a few windows and someone to shampoo the carpets.The realtor gave me some names of people he works with on a regular basis that know exactly what he wants done to get houses ready for sell.  I called them all, met them, individually, at the house so they could assess their particular task, gathered their quotes, then hired them all immediately. Fortunately, they were all available that week and by weeks end their work was done. In additional to all that, on Thursday and Friday Niels and I did all the interior cleaning of the house ourselves. By time the week was out the place was looking absolutely beautiful....

        

 

The following week the house was on the market and that Sunday was the first open house...which was well-attended. The hope is that by the end of June the house will be sold!  

This week was also spent gathering a few furnishings needed for the new house. Of particular interest to all of us was a couch and a couple of comfortable chairs for the living room. Although Loren and Heather already had a couch, with four of us now living together there weren't enough places to sit when we wanted to watch a little TV or a movie in the evening ... especially when Heather wanted to lie down after a long day of carrying the baby weight around! We ended up buying a couch and two rocker/recliner type chairs. Having a rocker was especially important, I felt, with a baby on the way. We moved the older couch to the dining room and the new stuff into the living room and we are all very happy with the choices. In fact, the rocker/recliners have become the favorites...and the baby is not even here yet! You just never know!