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| Our sky....for days on end...but not as bad as some skies. |
Before we left for San Diego in February, we began a project that we've resumed since our return...a project meant to get us unstuck from our rut of living in a house we no longer want, too far from our loved ones...a project meant to further our goal of selling this house and moving forward into Our Real Life...a project that I now, in middlespect, have dubbed The BFI (Bad _______ Idea).
We've hardly left the house for two weeks except for groceries and my trips to physical therapy, which have been largely necessitated by The BFI. At the end of the day, we are too tired and dull and sore to do much more than watch Chris Matthews' "Hardball" in horror, followed by two streamed episodes of Glenn Close's "Damages," also in horror, and then drag ourselves to bed with our books and our fudgesicles. During the day, we stare at the walls.
It all started when the first realtor to list our house walked into it the first time and said, "All the wallpaper has got to go. Nobody likes wallpaper anymore." Gee whiz, Batman, in the early nineties, when I last gave a rat's tushy about home decor for this place, wallpaper was the cat's pajamas! Was he calling our castle outdated just because we had wallpaper in every room? How quickly with it becomes out of it. All we did was work and raise kids through high school and college and beyond and weddings and next thing you know, we're so shamefully outré we should be happy to give someone a big chunk of our home sale price just to clue us in.
Mr. Real Estate Million Dollar Producer: "It's a buyer's market now. Watch a little HGTV. You'll see."
So we priced getting the job done and discovered that we could barely afford to get only the most individualistic papers removed and repainted (approximately half the walls; I was a big fan of toile), which left us with what seemed like acres and acres of this...
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| White on white French damask wallpaper. |
Now, two realtors and two six-month stints on the market later, we're steaming and scraping white-on-white wallpaper one square inch at a time. Then patching, sanding, prepping and painting those halls and stairwells, up cathedral ceilings and down to the baseboards. One and a half achy old farts balanced equidistant on either side of sixty-five. I only count as half because I'm in PT a quarter of the time and the other quarter is spent strapped to a TENS unit under the influence of muscle relaxants.
We're DIY-ing and it's killing us.
I realized today that, in trying to do this job ourselves, we have taken a job. If you'd asked us if we wanted to start a paper-stripping and painting business, we'd have pushed you off the porch, but that's what we've got. And we're about to add a new service as soon as this wall job is done: cabinet re-finishing.
And all for what, this BFI? You will never convince me that the difference we're making with this project is the make-or-break point for selling a house.
Pottery Barn may call it "Powell Bluff"; Farrow and Ball may fancy it as "Archive"; and Martha Stewart may imagine it as "Ash Bark", but the color of our world these days is...
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| Greige. Dammit. |
Greige.Dammit. Like, that's the whole name, both words and the periods together, right?
ReplyDeleteOf course, when the buyers are looking at it, tell them it's Huntington's Atrium Sky White. Or, Steely Cascade Eggshell. How 'bout Analytical Greige Harbor...
Also, you should look into painting some
concrete somewhere, HGTV LOVES to paint them up some concrete.
That's it; you've grokked my world. I think I have to change the title of this post, too. I realized that, when we're done, we'll have the walls matching the hardwoods, which'll match the trim. I'm thinking of changing the carpet; any color recommendations?
DeleteHGTV is de debil, sweet daughter.
Rent the place and rent a place in California until the market comes back. There. Glad I could help.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to send Mr. Mature to read this comment right away. He's opposed to renting, doesn't want to fool with being a landlord from the other side of the continent, but I'm feeling a teensy bit desperate. Renters like greige, right?
DeleteGuys do tend to look ahead and see long-distance-repairs while we wives see cash flow, don't they?
Deletea/b
Was sort of kidding, however you wouldn't be the first to do it. Usually ends up with a real estate agent to look after the place for a fee and they may be able to work it into a sale. Maybe not the best scenario but in your circumstance... you aren't getting any younger and your kids and grandkids are growing like weeds. If you want to be there to see it, you have to be there.
DeleteWishing you many comforting books and fudgecicles until the home decor matter is resolved.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet wish! Just finished Game Change and started Empire of The Summer Moon (history of the Comanche tribe).
DeleteOh god, poor you!!!! Stripping wallpaper SUCKS!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYep! I felt your pain when you said you hated that striped stuff at your house. I could feel my traps seizing up on me just thinking about it.
DeleteReal estate agents are notorious for telling people how to spend their money. Ignore them. You might have to take a little less but you're not spending money on redecorating (and killing yourself in the process) that most people are just going to redo anyway. I've bought and sold a lot of houses and cosmetics were never in the equation. Location, location, location. Floor plan and setting. Screw them.
ReplyDeleteLease to buy is an option. Also, hiring a property manager is an option. Getting out is the main goal before you get totally stressed out.
Leslie is right. We sold our first place with moving boxes everywhere and a broken basement window. The buyers liked the location and the size of the rooms. Sold our 2nd place with Hanukah and Xmas competing for center stage - so much for the realtor's advice to "keep it neutral - remove personal items. Sold our Marin manse once again with "sending the kid to college" boxes and detritus everywhere.
DeleteCome down 5K and rest your joints. TNS machines have a psychological cost which you should figure in as well.
Life's too short; are you spending it doing what you want to be doing?
a/b
How clear-thinking of you both! We Matures have very strong rut-creation tendencies.
DeleteActually, we DO keep coming down 5K. And, as soon as we do, the market comes down 10K. We can't seem to think small enough, fast enough. We're thinking of advertising it for Best Offer.
And, no, A/B, we are most certainly not spending it doing what we want to be doing. Far, far from it.
While i don't mind the painting, I hate the scraping and sanding part of preparing to paint. I have no style sense. When it is time to sell our house, it will need a major makeover. I hope all your hard work pays off in a quick sale!
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear. I prefer to think that I have exquisitely refined tastes and those HGTV folk have whittled everyone down to a lower common decor denominator, in that way that teevee tends to do...huff, huff.
DeleteI couldn't be arsed to do all that stuff that the realtors wanted. E'en so, the place sold in record time and pretty much how it wasl And for astonishingly close to the sky-high price we wanted. As long as you've got location,location,location, the rest of it can go hang.
ReplyDeleteOh, dear. I'm starting to think that everyone's house sold fast for the asking price and we've got a dark cloud hovering over our hovel. That can't be the case, surely.
DeleteActually, we've bought and sold four houses previously, all easily and within six weeks of putting them on the market...but that was prior to this recession. Right now, there are thirty-some homes for sale in our development alone, some as foreclosures, and new lots being prepped for building...a perfect storm of real-estate stuckness.
I sold my place in 2008--not quite four years ago, and that was before it all went to hell. The market in DC has been MUCH better than in the rest of the country. Condos, which is what I had, are still a seller's market here. What's moving much more slowly here are single-family homes in the higher brackets and further away from town. The DC condo market has been blessed by a lack of stock....so when they do go on the market, they get snapped up fast. That is about to change, though, because of all the condo developments being built next to the various metro stations. Soon the market will be flooded with condos having easy access to public transportation, and the big fat free-standing houses in the suburbs will be even less marketable. But that's here in DC. Don't know what it's like elsewhere in the country, especially in your neck of the woods. I'd try tapping (EFT), if i were you, but that's me--totally hatched on a branch.
DeleteOh, Nance, that Griege does look awfully familiar. In 2010, when we were getting ready to sell our California home of 29 years into which we put much love and $$$ over that time, a clipboard-toting realtor came to see us. We asked how we could make the house most marketable. She looked around, came back and said "Clear everything out! Your furniture is old. Get everything out! I want to sell it totally vacant." We ended up moving all our furniture to our new home in Arizona three months before our planned move and then camped out at an L.A. area rental house my brother owns. It all worked out -- with our newly painted Greige walls -- with a contract in two weeks and a four week escrow with a cash buyer. So we decided it was worth all the hassle.
ReplyDeleteOur worst real estate horror story I know you'll appreciate in light of your BFI is our experience selling my Aunt Molly's house after her death. After a disastrous open house where would-be buyers hated the built in bookcases in the living room and the Monterey Bay mural in the den, the realtor instructed my husband and me to drive out there (100 miles each way) for the weekend and tear out the bookcases, spackle the wall and repaint it as well as painting over the mural. When we were in the process of that, she called and said she had a prospect coming back who was concerned about some cat pee smell he had noted and wondered if it was just the carpet or if the foundation had been fouled. He was coming for another look that Monday -- so she needed us to rip out the carpet (which we were going to replace anyway) and swab the foundation of the house with bleach. After hanging up the phone, we realized that, in order to do that, we had to take every stick of furniture out of the house. The two of us did everything she instructed -- but it was, hands down, the worst day of our long marriage. We cried and screamed and cursed -- but we did it. And the SOB didn't buy it. I ended up finding a buyer at -- of all things -- a garage sale we held a month later!
So far, Kathy, we haven't wanted to move out of our house to sell it. We're chronically tidy and clean, so the house shows well with us in residence, we're told. But we may have to resort to something drastic.
DeleteBless you, I do believe you smell what we're stepping in here. We keep wondering if we've shot past our window for being able to make the move physically.
I've always felt like a bit of a failure, because I never bought a house. I now see what a huge bullet I dodged. Missed you!
ReplyDeleteOwn your own home...that is so eighties, baby! Forget it. Not only does one size not fit all, but also, we've suffered in so many ways in America because we all bought the same shouldas: buy a house, have a "balanced portfolio," get a liberal arts degree, et cetera.
DeleteGlad to help!
Is it too late for you to sell a house in Washington, D.C.? I hear the market's hopping there.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant.
DeleteYou goof :-)
Yeah, I feel your pain. When my family and I moved into our current house back in 2000 my wife could not get new wallpaper up in the kitchen and dining room fast enough. Not a year after the new wallpaper was up my wife decided she hated it and has spent the years since then arguing with herself as to whether tear it down, just paint over it, or leave it alone.
ReplyDeleteI could spend hours sitting here at the computer trying to figure out a way to describe but it is beyond me. My wife calls it "busy" while I don't care one way or the other.
In short, I have long come to believe home ownership ain't worth the hassle.
Yep, and I feel your wife's pain. To think, I once worked and had income. And, to think, I once squandered some of it having a pro put up wallpaper in my kitchen only to have him come back the next day, take it down, and put up something different. The Dragon Wife and I are suffering Wallpaper Karma...the worst kind.
Delete"Game Change" was a good read, a good laugh if we can forget about the fact that an alarming portion of the population would seriously have elected a moron as VP in 2008. Ai. Reminds me of the billboard I saw a few months after Obama took office. It was a goofy pic of Dubya and the caption read, "Miss me yet?" ::shudder::
ReplyDeleteMy best wishes that you sell your home soon and move closer to your loved ones, away from those turbulent churning skies. Come to the west. We have earthquakes but rarely tornadoes.
I'd be hard pressed to say which I fear more, quakes or tornadoes, but recent images from the damage in Indiana surpass my worst nightmares, so perhaps I shall head west, after all. Thanks for your good wishes. We don't have HBO, so I'm begging friends to record the Game Change movie for me.
DeleteI mostly agree with Leslie Parsley -- the real-estate agents want you to do a huge amount of work in order to make their job slightly easier. Sure, take their advice; do the most "important" things; but don't kill yourself. From my experience, half the time the new owners will redo what you've just done anyway.
ReplyDeleteOr, in other words, be careful of HGTV. It can be dangerous to your health. Good luck, and may we soon be writing to you in Calif!
As of today, we're DONE, WE'RE DONE! There's no more wallpaper in my house except in a tiny bathroom (where, for some reason, paper is allowed...go figure.) And Mr. Mature is my hero, one more time, for all his hard work.
DeleteYou're done? Well that must be the biggest relief - congratulations.
DeleteHave you tried raffling it? That's all I can think of that hasn't been said. Don't watch so much HGTV. Look at what it is doing to your health and well-being.
ReplyDeleteHealth? Well-being? The Real Estate Nazi had me convinced those things came only with the Sold sign!
DeleteI've come to hate HGTV. We are preparing to move and sell our house, and the idiot TV tells us that we are doing everything wrong. Now we are supposed to 'stage' the house. My wife believes it. I think it is a conspiracy!
ReplyDeleteIt's transparently a conspiracy. It's all about cross-marketing and we, poor schlumpfs, we all buy it hook/line/sinker. America is entirely shaped by marketing and, with Super PAC's, there's now not even the pretense that it's otherwise.
DeleteOh, poo. I've managed to upset myself. May you have better luck with it all than we've found so far.
I'm relieved that greige is a color. Like Gomez Addams, albeit for different reasons, I tend to be unnerved by women speaking what seems to be French. (In my case, the assumption is that my ignorance of French prevents me from knowing what they're really talking about.)
ReplyDeleteNo words of wisdom to offer you on the real-estate dilemma, I'm afraid. (If I knew how to solve it, I would be packing up our house right now instead of blogrolling.)
We had company this weekend, in the person of The Missus's youngest sister -- the one with the dazzling design/decor sense. (Well, it dazzles us.) She and The Missus spent many hours identifying things we can (fighting the air quotes around that word) do to snazzy up the place: window treatments, paint colors, ceiling fans, etc. If subtracting the furnishings and possessions which make for a happy everyday life are part of the requirement for a sale, though, I'd fight like crazy.
(When we were looking for a house ten-plus years ago, I never liked visiting homes with just a little furniture, spotless floors and walls, etc. -- mostly because I wanted to picture us living in a house, and I used the current owners as my placeholder mannequins, so to speak. In the immaculate homes I'd think, like, Jeez -- will we be this uninteresting after we've lived here long enough?!?
Have been watching an old(ish) Ken Burns documentary, The West, which (in part) covers all the reasons Americans had for moving from the East to the West, and the extent to which those aspirations were satisfied -- or frustrated -- by the move. But you do know (don't you?) that when and if you and Mr. Mature vacate thataway, the East will bob up and down like a cork with the sudden absence of your common sense, good humor, and decency. For your sakes, I'll light candles for the gods, but it won't be my fault if the gesture is regarded as ambiguous.
P.S. I can't help noticing, just now, that the timestamp on the posts and comments here uses Pacific time... :)
DeleteYou'd be just the kind of buyer we'd love to have look us over, I'm sure of it. Barring that, we'll settle for having you as a treasured blogging friend.
DeleteA word of caution. I've decided there's life or there's decor; you can't pursue both at the same time.
And, we recently watched that Ken Burns special series, too. In fact, the opening sound track is my current earworm, which guaranteed that, when it came time to choose a new e-book, I'd go for Empire of The Summer Moon. Our lovely Paula's husband is Comanche (which is what the book is about) and I'm more than a little Cherokee, so the Native American parts of "The West" gripped me, as usual. I was also fascinated by the entrepreneurial minds that grasped that the real money in the West was made not on gold, but on picks, shovels, and gear for the miners.
And I have no idea why I'm on Pacific Time, but I'll fix that between bouts of paper peeling.
I have off-white walls and love them but then I also have lots of art on them. I hate real estate agents. When the ex and I were house-hunting, we were thoroughly disgusted when they called with "the perfect house for you" which usually was far from it. Be glad you're not in Ohio -- the market here is horribly awful. I hope you find a buyer soon!
ReplyDeleteI like layers of texture and pattern, a richness...does anyone still remember Mario Buatta, The Prince of Chintz? But a Shabby Chic version of it. That was my style. Then, when we rented a condo in San Diego for a year, I went the opposite direction, toward clean Mid-Century Modern, but in bright tomato, eggplant, and avocado.
DeleteThank you for the good wishes. I think we're partly stalled out here because this is where Ohio (and New York, Jersey, PA, etc.) likes to retire; if they aren't moving here, we're not moving, either.
I don't know Nance, it looks an awful lot like a lighter shade of clunch to me. You know hubby is in the RE business, and I've dabbled in it, too. In this market, though, it's impossible to know what will sell a house other than a REALLY good deal. And most sellers, understandably, don't (or can't) want to offer that. A buyer's market doesn't help. But, clunch, er, greige, does tend to soften the look, offering a neutral canvas against which a home's jewels will sparkle. Some folks can't look beyond toile (which I love, love, and for which I shall cry, cry when I remove such paper from my daughter's room [for her 13th birthday room redo--why did I promise that?] for lots of garish colors that most certainly wouldn't help sell a house).
ReplyDeleteWhen you've completed your project, it will sell. That's my prediction. (Don't forget to put some cinnamon and vanilla--or heck, an apple pie--in the oven before you go out for your open house.) ;)
Clunch...that haunting word!
DeleteOh, gawd, do I know this one! We were given exactly the same counsel about our house. Then, when we went to take the wallpaper off the kitchen wall, there underneath, was a hand-scrawled and dated message: "So, you didn't like the wallpaper." I kid you not. The ghosts of wallpaper past!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! I wish I hadn't already told Mr. Mature to shoot me if I ever suggested wallpapering a room again; I'd really like to use that one!
DeleteThat's an hilarious realistic depiction of DIYing a house in which you've raised the kids & forgotten, neglected or not cared to update. It's what all parents do for 20 years. We didn't have new furniture for 20 years. It was brand new & gorgeous & color coordinated & even decorator picked. By the time they were grown, the cat, the dogs (4 in succession), two boys & all their boy friends had ruined every upholstered piece in the house. We were into those cheap ass slipcovers. The Berber carpet, a lovely light oatmeal color at purchase, was alternately stained with spilled drinks, food, cat vomit, dog pee & poop & God knows what all. Our custom cabinetry, antique dining furniture etc were coming apart at the seams thanks to forced air heating & kid stress. The best my home ever looked was after they'd moved out & we began to fix it up for sale. We sold it in one day and I never was able to enjoy all the changes. We were very fortunate and I wouldn't change things but I'll always miss that place. http://emptynestevolution.blogspot.com/2009/11/truly-empty-nest-part-1.html
ReplyDeleteDon't give up. Think of it as a job with a deferred paycheque, and an addition to your already considerable skill set. How do I know this? Well, anybody who can make me feel sorry for them while also making me laugh and provoking my envy for being able to pull that off in such fine fashion has more than a few arrows in their quiver.
ReplyDeleteI do feel your pain. I resent having to think of future buyers when I decorate my house, so I generally don't. But having seen more than a few French houses wrapped up tight in wallpaper, I can see that that era is done. For a while anyway. Maybe if you wait twenty years to sell, you won't have to do all that peeling??
The very best of luck to you. I look forward to reading the post about the Done Deal.
I actually enjoy DIY projects, though painting and wall paper are not among them. My wife and I wince each time we watch those real estate shows on HGTV, we want to reach through the screen and choke those idiot prospective buyers.
ReplyDeleteOoooo that carpet is too shaggy, don't like that yellow in the bathroom... RECARPET AND REPAINT, YOU STUPID YUPPIE MORONS!!
sheesh - I have to stop watching, it is almost as bad for my health as watching the latest GOP polls and prognostications we now call laughingly refer to as journalism.
And you know what, probably a week after someone buys your home, they will change the paint and they MIGHT even wall paper!
But stupid buyers make smart deals for my wife and me. We just put down an OBSCENELY low-ball offer on a bank short sale condo in Portland. All the other prospective buyers walked in, saw the tenant damage, turned heel and walked out. But we see the deal hidden under the old carpet and faded paint. Having been accepted, we will go in and have it ready to rent in a week. The renter will then pay the mortgage payment on our investment for us and we will then flip it in a year and make likely a 6o% to 75% profit. All because too many people looking to buy houses are stuck watching HGTV.
Hang in there, Nance... I'm guessing you are going to have a polished jewel there.
I'm strangely encouraged that someone is still flipping condos. A "polished jewel"; that's truly encouraging, too. But don't you think I ought to have my buyer sign a no-wallpaper clause? It's for their own good, after all.
DeleteOnce again, you outdo yourself. A gem, Nance.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was considering a move from a house in NYS a while back, like you, I realized I needed to not only fix what was damaged but upgrade the roof, driveway, doors, windows, wall colors, tile, flooring, vanities, appliances and just about everything but the air within my quaint white cottage in the woods. A daunting task, but necessary. I'd say I spent two years planning the attack, laboring over color, texture and durability of materials, and then another two living in the mess while contractors deconstructed the building around me. At one point, I moved out and my son took over supervision of the work while he lived in whatever room wasn't upside down. We both agreed the end product was beautiful. Was it worth it? Well, the years of work, inconvenience and gigantic expense probably helped me sell it in a relatively short time it to a nice young couple with two young kids. Within weeks, they tore down the house to its foundation and used that footprint for the entrance foyer to their 4,000 square foot McMansion.
Ooooh, ouch, that hurts! Bet that one left a helluva scar.
DeleteI feel your pain, Nance. Been there, done that. There is no easy way to get rid of wallpaper; I don't care what Home Depot says.
ReplyDeleteHomey D's sells wallpaper, wallpaper paste, wallpapering tools, wallpaper steamer/removal systems, spackle, and rope for frustrated homeowners to hang themselves from; I think they are in league with HGTV.
DeleteAfter reading all these comments I can't remember what blog I came over from..Ha! whatever...don't believe all that crap those realters tell you...decide what your absolute bottom dollar is ..stick a for sale sign in the yard and go from there! But if you do continue to strip wallpaper buy a Wagnor(sp?) wallpaper steamer...
ReplyDeleteOur little steamer has been our best friend/most dreaded tool. Come back in June; that's how we'll be feeling about our electric hedge clippers by then.
DeleteYou gotta do what you gotta do! Even with all this primping and updating, the prospective buyers will complain about something because, right now, there is a glut of available foreclosed homes, all going way below market.
ReplyDeleteCan you just rent your place, and move on?
People will still need housing, yes?
That's what we plan to do if we ever have to move again, for whatever reason.
I'm sure renting is the answer in most circumstances and it may be we'll resort to it (pun intended), but this is a tourist haven and rental property is subject to those shorter-term trends and problems. We'd have to set some severe restrictions on tenancy, which might mean we sit empty for periods of time. Not insoluble problems; in fact, we may find ourselves only too glad to be working on them, down the road.
DeleteWhen and if we ever sell our house it will be a take or leave it for the potential buyer. Fortunately, the housing bubble has not affected the value of our property. In fact, our property taxes were recently increased based on a rising value of the land itself. The house is peanuts, the land is valuable. As for wall paper. Someone else can do it. Not my problem. Dianne
ReplyDeleteNow there's attitude I wish I could emulate!
DeleteIt IS a lovely color!
ReplyDeleteBut it sounds fairly miserable. I don't mind painting... lovely smooth walls that need some love. But removing wallpaper? NOT MY BAG!
Good luck!
Hi, LLL! Long time, no see. So glad you popped up.
DeleteNever fear; I have signed Grover Norquist's NO WALLPAPER pledge, which includes a clause that says I will never rent or purchase a new dwelling that requires wallpaper removal, so, even if the rest of the planet decides that wallpaper is all that stands between it and Planetary Destruction, I'm good to go.
Nance, one thing I learned from HGTV is that buyers are spoiled brats. They expect the house they buy to mirror their taste, the floors to be pristine, and the wall colors to be the latest in color swatches. When we bought our current house it had been renovated completely on the inside, but not the exterior. I think we were the only couple that had a vision that painters could transform the exterior, and our hard work could transform the yard into many gardens. I'm making a short story long, but I bet your hard work will result in people looking at your house differently.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of sad no one is enthusiastic about saying "hey, we can make this house ours with a little DIY and some elbow grease!"
May you stay healthy and get through your project swiftly!
Ain't you the sweetest thang, Meg.
DeleteSorry Nance, I have news for you. The minute any purchaser moves into a new house, they redecorate! Absolute truth. They rip out your kitchen and bathrooms, they repaint inside and out and they tell all and sundry : you should have seen the place when we bought it. It was a complete mess. They (the previous owners) didn't have a clue and the worst taste ever.
ReplyDeleteFolks move a lot in the UK.
They can cover the walls with purple velvet and paint Elvis-in-bondage murals on 'em for all I care, as long as I get a buyer at a price I can live with. Meanwhile, we're erasing as much of our personality from the place as possible, the better to allow their perverted little imaginations to run away with them. Shhh. Don't tell anybody.
DeleteWell, this has been an education, since I have a momentous interior refurbishing that's been awaiting my initiation since my husband died the night the painters finished the house exterior. Our home's interior was our long overdue, much needed, next project. I got side-tracked and have been off the rails on this activity ever since. Maybe after I finish my taxes this year I'll finally get in gear.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes to you on selling your home. FWIW in the early '70s when we moved from AZ to So. Cal. (northeast L.A. County) the bottom had dropped out of AZ real estate housing market in Phoenix/Scottsdale area. (Of course, not here, where we were moving.) But in AZ definitely a buyer's market and nobody was buying. We took care to have neutral off white painted walls; didn't put down new carpet though it certainly could have used it. I did the cinnamon/sugar in the oven bit for the R.E. Open House and the aroma smelled so great I wanted to buy the house. Well, by some fluke our house wasn't on the market long. A couple from NYC offered cash -- but an amount that allowed us to only break even. They, or their agent, had done their homework and knew exactly what the property+house was worth, coupled with the cost of a couple additional improvements we had made -- that was their offer. They wouldn't negotiate. Reluctantly, we finally concluded to take the offer since houses weren't selling anywhere in that AZ market. We learned later from neighbors there, they totally redid the inside -- imported tile from Italy and I don't know what all. I didn't want to hear.
Mr. Mature reminded me last night of his father's sentiments on The Sold House: "Son, you just sold your house. They handed you a check. If they want to burn the place down, you hand them a match."
DeleteThat's very Left Brain; my Right Brain would entirely agree with you: if the new owners aren't going to make the place a shrine to my values and taste, I don't want to know it.