My Blogolution 2011 (Part II)

VIEWERS BE ADVISED:

The images of my home contained in this post are not pretty. Please proceed with caution.

(And be kind in your inevitable judgment of us.)

So what is my Blogolution 2011?I’m selling my house...

…to me!

And YOU are going to help me do it.

Allow me to clarify this statement for you:

Last month I read this post on Miss Mustard Seed’s blog and came away feeling so inspired. Here is this amazing woman (Miss Mustard Seed herself) showing me that even her beautiful home has a dated bathroom and walls in need of repair. Okay, maybe she only admitted to one wall - or was it just one tiny patch on one single wall? Regardless, it immediately brought to mind the four (count them: 1, 2, 3, 4!) gaping spots on four different walls in my house that remain after we had our baseboard heaters removed and our central air installed. Dare I admit how long ago that was? Yes. Because in brainstorming my Blogolution I knew I needed to be brutally honest with you about my house, otherwise the entire purpose would be lost.

Our central air was installed a whopping 16 months ago. That is plenty of time for us to install new baseboard, no? And yet, the gaping spots remain:
See, I told you I wasn’t holding back. I don’t have Photoshop (thus the stick figure drawings in the first Blogolution post) so rest assured these photos have not been doctored in any way.

YIKES!!

 

{On a side note, you should know I'm quite proud of my cute little drawings in the preceding Blogolution post, even if they aren't quite to scale.

The heads are way too big, I'm certain I was a little more busty in my pre-baby days than my stick figure actually shows, and - most notably - did you see how much hair I gave Justin?!}

But moving on...

...in a nutshell, Miss Mustard Seed’s post discussed the need to walk around your house from time to time and view it through the eyes of a potential buyer.

Let's try that, shall we? If I were to put my house on the market tomorrow, what would a potential buyer think of this?

And this?

And this?

No, this bathroom door was not damaged in someone's desperate attempt to use the facilities - or maybe it was. The door actually looked like this when we moved in. I'm not sure which is worse: the fact that the prior owners did this kind of damage to a bathroom door (makes ya wonder, doesn't it?), or the fact that we've left it this way for 4 years?

Now its not like we have sat around our house doing nothing for the last four years. But our primary home improvements have been on the larger scale - installing central air, re-doing our entire yard and installing a sprinkler system, painting the exterior of the house, and installing new rain gutters. These are all justified projects (and you couldn't pay me to live without my central air again); but as a result, a lot of little cosmetic projects have gone untouched.

Case in point: I finally got around to painting my laundry area a beautiful Sherwin Williams Dutch Tile Blue last spring, except I have yet to even finish the trim. In the grand scheme of things a little unpainted trim is no big deal; but like Miss Mustard Seed says, when you walk past these imperfections twenty times a day they can become invisible to you. Before you know it, its been a year and the painting tape is still on the wall.

Something tells me its going to be a real bugger pulling that stuff off.

Here is her advice:

"As we're approaching the new year when people want to refresh their space, a good place to start is to "put your house on the market." Walk around and look at your home the way a stager or realtor would. Don't look at the huge renovations you want to do, but look at the small things you would take care of if you were selling your home. What small repairs need to be made? What rooms need to be decluttered and organized? What furniture arrangements aren't working? How you can make your home look more inviting?

Take time to finish the projects on that list. Don't wait until you have to sell to do them. {Why does a buyer deserve a better home than you do?} Why let someone else enjoy the fruits of your labor? And why not live in a home that is living up to its fullest potential?"(emphasis added)

With Miss Mustard Seed's suggestions in mind, I really started thinking:

I like my house; I do not love my house. Why is that?

Thanks to infertility, and the economy, what we once thought was our 5 year house is destined to be more like our 10 year house, at least. Do I really want to live in a house I don't love for 10 years? No way, Jose!

SOLUTION: Find a way to start loving my house...and do it fast! (preferably before we have another kiddo underfoot)

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

I will post details/photos of my first project on Wednesday, so get ready to share your home improvement and decor advice with me. I'm all ears!