Recently, I attended a local apple festival and got a little crazy buying apples. When I was done, I walked away with over 30 lbs of apples! At 99 cents a pound, I couldn’t resist some of the cheapest prices of the year. But as I started to wash the apples, I started to think….WHAT WAS I THINKING BUYING THIS MANY!!?!?
So check out some of the below ideas for things to do with an abundance of apples. And now I’m kind of wishing I bought more!
A clean house is a happy house. And if you’re like most of America you don’t have time to do the cleaning the way it should be done.
Right before the first Open House, the day before your house goes on the market clean it from top to bottom. We chose to have a trusted cleaning lady do it for us. If you have another person do it, you’ll walk in and everything will just magically be clean. She was in our house fixing budget at $80 for a total clean. I knew if I’d do it, I might still be there with a toothbrush. I’m a little bit OCD about cleaning. I wouldn’t have been able to stop. I’d still be scrubbing windows and floors and everywhere else.
I knew this person would do an excellent job. I also left her a list of things to focus on. Even better after we left I left a key for her in the garage to get back into the house and do one more cleaning. The place sparkled!
So unless you can do a great job cleaning in a short period of time without going overboard I suggest hiring someone. You can ask at your church, your work or your friends if they know anyone that is reasonably priced and will do an excellent job. These folks sure fit the bill!
You need to be able to look at your house like a buyer and if you can’t, find an honest friend that will serve it to you straight.
Once you’ve gone through the list and completed, have a friend or coworker come over and again, give it to you straight. Sometimes people are in denial about their own house. Sometimes people don’t even have a clue.
We visited a house while we were considering buying that from the road looked okay. As we got closer we found a lot of clutter outside, but still everything from the outside wasn’t too bad. Then we had a little surprise, the homeowner was still home. See typically when you are looking at someone’s house as a potential purchase they aren’t home. That way you can go through it and really look at it instead of worrying if you were going to offend someone. Well this lady was still home and her main concern was her dog would jump. We assured her a dog jumping wasn’t a problem. And it was a Boston Terrier so that small dog jumping certainly wasn’t a problem. I mean come on, I owned Great Danes for many years and have been a dog trainer even longer!
So Doug is holding Isaac and we enter the house…HOLY CATS….HOLY CLUTTER. This lady might have been on an episode of that show hoarders…animal or possession hoarders because either fit. See there was STUFF E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E! The tops of her cupboards were packed, the floor was packed. There was a small path throughout the house. The worst part, was the floor, the CARPET was slick with cat urine. It was so pungent I think I lost some nose hairs that day and sometimes I feel I can still smell it. But again, the lady’s main concern was the dog jumping….Oblivious much?
I sent Doug to the car proclaiming that Isaac looked fussy (thank God for babies!) and I did the tour. As we passed one door the lady said “That’s the cat room, I haven’t had a chance to clean it.” I wanted to say lady the whole house is the cat room! But I had to see these cats. So I asked if I could peak in and as I did, 5 cats came running out. But as I looked back in the room I saw that the cats had been eatin
g the drywall!! I mean she had plenty of food available, but there were holes and chew marks all over the walls.
The sad thing about that house was that she was renting it. She had completely destroyed someone’s property and wasn’t even aware of it. And not only that, but gave pet owners that want to rent a bad name.
So take the time to enlist a friend so you aren’t the crazy cat lady. Have them go through the entire house like they were interested in buying. If you can’t handle the truth upfront (grow a backbone!) or have them write it down. It might mean more work for you, but you get to choose what you will fix and what you won’t fix. Some of their points will be valid, some will be insignificant. But take the time to know them so you can decide if they should be eliminated or not.
In the end this step is essential to selling your house quickly. Otherwise you may have just been looking at your house through rose colored glasses (or in the case of the cat lady, smelled through cat urine burnt nostrils)!
When was the last time you heard someone say, “Oh my gosh honey THIS HOUSE HAS WALLPAPER…I LOVE IT!” Ummm…NEVER.
Remember when I talked about neutralizing coloring in one of my previous post? Well along with that is getting rid of tacky wallpaper. And I’ve found that in order to determine if wallpaper is tacky or not, you need to ask an honest friend. Preferably a hip one that will give it to you straight.
In our house we had three rooms with wallpaper. We had our master bedroom which we had taken care of the wallpaper issue before I had the baby, the master bath and the hall bath. The master bath and the hall bath weren’t something we wanted to tackle and at first thought we’d just leave alone. But the more we looked at it and the more we considered we opted to change it. See when we first bought the house the wallpaper in the master bath struck us as horrid. Nothing changed other than we got used to it. And in a market where people can’t see past horrid, we opted to get rid of it. In the hall bath, the wallpaper was actually cute, but it had started to separate and peel.
We found that the person that painted also removed wallpaper! So for less than $500 we had the wallpaper removed and the rooms painted. A true bargain for us we decided. Some people find wallpaper removal soothing…I find it wildly infuriating. You decide which you are and if you find that you’re in the infuriated camp with me post on Facebook and see if any of your friends are the insane ones that think its soothing. Or maybe they know someone.
Some of the other special touches that we removed was stenciling and odd curtains. The person that owned the home before us was apparently the STENCIL QUEEN! So we took some time to paint over and rid the house of any of the stencils. Though they were once the rage “back in the day” you probably should get rid of anything that can use the statement “back in the day”.
You know what I’m talking about. Those things you said you were going to do when you move in. Or maybe that nick you put in the front door when you moved in.
We had a few little projects to take care of. Doug’s dog took a small nibble out of the baseboard while Doug was studying, the stone border in the backyard had to be straightened up and we had a light that definitely need replaced (I can’t believe we lived with the ugly thing for 2 years).
Just start to go back and look through each and every room. Make a list of to do items or if you’re like me you’ve been toting one around for months. And then start one by one. If you need help, hire a handyman to do it. The list is going to be your best friend and your worst enemy until it’s all done.
UGLY light! At first glance it has some appeal, but as you live with it, it certainly doesn’t grow on you. It become a thorn in your side or as one friend put it, it really “photo bombs” on your pictures. And it forever had one light that would go out.Look at that nice light all flush to the ceiling. Honestly, it changed the look and feel of the whole room. Kicking ourselves for not doing it earlier! And that change only cost $40. Peanuts really compared to what other home improvements could cost.
The first thing people see when they browse through 100’s of houses online is the front of your house. And what’s the first thing they see when the cruise up with the Realtor or are patiently waiting for the realtor to unlock the door? Curb appeal!
Curb appeal can be a tough one depending on the current condition of your front yard. A front yard and the front stoop are where potential buyers will wait while the realtor fiddles with all of the keys or with the “supra” (that funny coded lock box thing) at the door. So you need to make sure people have someone wonderful to look at.
Stand back and take a gander at the land. Do you have flower beds? Do you need them? Depending on how much you want to spend it may be beneficial to hire a professional landscaper to put in some small tasteful flowerbeds. If you’re on a tight budget like we were (hello student loan debt!) then you’ll work with what you have.
For us, we had some nice looking flowerbeds already thanks to the previous owner. But some of the bushes were out of control, the mulch needed refreshed and the weeds were aplenty. We also needed something a little more that would make the front of the house POP.
Trim those bushes and trees! The year before we purchased some Toro trimmers at one of my favorite stores, Menards, for under $70 with their rebates. I pulled those out and my hand trimmers and went to town like a modified Edward Scissor Hands (modified only because I couldn’t figure out how to lash the trimmer to my arms J). I took a good 6 inches off of all of the bushes and thought ahead this time and make sure I had my drop cloth surrounding each bush making the cleanup as easy as possible. Make sure step back from time to time and aren’t cutting holes into bushes. Remember, you can always take off more, but you can’t put back what you already took off…a lesson I should have taught Doug when I let him “trim” ¼ inch off of my hair. That turned into 4 inches of unevenness just in time for my first Mother’s Day! Yowza!
Weed, weed, weed. The neighborhood children definitely come in handy here…no not the ones that smoke weed, but the entrepreneurial ones that are looking for extra money for upcoming amusement park trips or that new Xbox game. So I asked a coworker if their son would be interested and he said absolutely. Now the key here is you need to make sure they are first capable of the task and have some attention to detail. They need to be taught what they are pulling is indeed a weed and not a beautiful plant just not in bloom at the time and they need to be shown how to get the roots. If you don’t get the roots, they’ll be back the next day.
You might be asking why we just don’t use chemicals to kill the existing weeds and that would be a great question. First we have pets and a young baby. Though the labels says it’s safe after it’s dried, we’d prefer to limit that use as much as possible. I’m not opposed to it, but would rather use it in moderation. Second though, we had tons of little growth and really wanted to get at the root of the problem (ha,ha) and then do follow ups with a little chemical action. We knew we were moving early September and in the event the house didn’t sell before then, we didn’t want to have someone come over daily to spray them down.
It’s amazing what a difference mulch can make. We chose to buy it by the bag load because that was what was easiest for us. If you choose to get it in bulk delivered just make sure you protect your driveway where they drop it off. Otherwise you’ll also be scrubbing the driveway of mulch.
We chose to do a dark colored mulch after seeing our light colored mulch of last year. That meant that we also had to collect all of last year’s mulch and dispose of it. The light colored mulch looked cheap to me and reminded me of straw. A dark mulch (chocolate or black) gives it a rich look and really makes the plants stand out. Just make sure you’re tidy as you put it down and that you completely cover the area. We found that we needed way more mulch than we had calculated and ended up with 30 bags total! But in the end I think it was worth it!
What about that front stoop? The front stoop is where people are really going to be hanging out. I spent some time making up very large and nice pots of plants with bright colors and we bought a new doormat that looked thick, elegant and expensive (on sale at Lowes for $16!!!). Then we visited a local nursery that had beautiful hanging baskets and bought 6 to hang as accents in the front yard and at that front door. We worked together with the owner and explained our needs. We needed a plant that would thrive in the Saint Louis heat, not need a lot of water since we’d be moving and would continue to look beautiful. We opted for some Portulaca (succulent type plants that were GORGEOUS) and some Vinca (looked like Impatients to me). By far to do it again, I’d get the Portulaca. Their only downside is that the flowers do close in the evening so if you have late visitors they don’t look at bright.
We also spent time scrubbing the house at the front door and making sure the front door looked spotless. I’d have loved to have put a wreath up, but the way the door is the wreath would have just gotten in the way.
Each day, you need to again assess your front yard and stoop. Does the stoop need swept? Plants and recently cut bushes need watered? We found that in the heat they needed watered every day. If your yard is browning maybe set up a sprinkler to run for a bit in the early morning. What about those weeds? If you do decide to use chemicals on them remember to clean up their dead wilted leaves from the mulch. They’ll really show up if you don’t catch them early. Make sure you bag your grass when you mow or they might track it in and make sure you edge every time. It’s the details that make your house memorable.
Notice how the mulch really accentuates the plants and the house
If you love bright bold colors, good for you, so do I. But, that doesn’t mean everyone does and some people have a hard time getting over it and seeing past the bold. Bright bold colors can really bring a room to life, but often the people buying the home can’t imagine their stuff in the house if they’re looking at colors that are drastically different than their own existing home or apartment.
Painting is inexpensive compared to other updates you can do and can really change the atmosphere of a house. A light colored room can open it up and make it seem much bigger than it actually is, whereas a dark colored room can give it a closed, dark look. Try to choose very light tans and off whites. They will match with almost everything, won’t show smudges as easily and allow potential buyers to view a clean slate.
Do you hate painting? Try posting on Facebook to see if any of your friends are looking to make some extra money or if they know anyone that does. Post an ad on Craigslist for a painter or look for painters in your area and let them know your budget. Don’t be bashful about letting people know exactly what you’re willing to pay. I’ve found when I’m upfront from the beginning both parties end up happier. I walk away feeling like I got a deal and just maybe someone was able to pay their electric bill that month! Also make sure to discuss whether the price will include the supplies (paint, rollers, caulking, drop clothes) or not. Also make sure you assess what things you can do to help such as remove light switches, shift furniture, wipe down walls or if you want the person you hire to do this.
If you have any outlandish bright items in your home such as a bright throw rugs roll it up and store it until you sell. You can also try adding a live plant or two to your living room to give everything a more natural feel. Also, if you have bright or heavily patterned curtains, it might be time to invest in some lightly colored ones. Consider sheer curtains that can allow the light in to maximize the appearance of space.
In total, our 1800 square foot house was neutralized for under $500. That included Doug and I painting the easy rooms (bedrooms) and hiring someone to remove wallpaper and paint the bathrooms. Luckily most curtains were already pretty neutral but you can’t go wrong with cheapies from big box stores or hit up a thrift store or Craigslist and buy used. Then you can leave them behind when you go!
See how clean the walls look after?The floral wallpaper from before we had it redone
For those that don’t know, a Shih Tzu is a super cute, fluffy little dog. They come in many different colors, but this particular one, the one that ruined my day, was black and white and more than likely went by the name “Oreo” or “Patches” (no offense if this describes your dog!). Anyway, Shih Tzu is correctly pronounced “She-Zu”, but most people think it’s pronounced SHIT ZOO. Well for today, I’m going with Shit Zoo, because that more accurately describes the day.
So how exactly did a 15 lb dog, one that I don’t even own ruin my day? Well I’m convinced he was the start of a downward spiral that ended with me rolling around on the floor in front of a small audience. But let’s back up a little.
So this morning at 6:45 am I’m driving out of my housing development when low and behold what’s sitting in the middle of the road but “Oreo” the Shit Zoo. So being the crazy dog lady, I slam on my brakes and throw the car into park. I try to get “Oreo” into the car, but he starts to run down the road. So I get out of the car and try to flag him to his yard with the opened gate. Unfortunately, Oreo isn’t having it and instead runs to his front door. I think, “Awesome, I’ll ring the bell, the people will be thankful Oreo is safe and I’ll have saved the day.” Well as I ring the bell Oreo starts to look like a runner again. So I ever so gently reach down to restrain Oreo and he starts to scream and yelp like I kicked him with my plant issued steel toed boots. And of course, as he’s screaming the owner opens the door and gives me the “did you just kick my dog” look. Great. So after telling the owner the dog was sitting in the middle of the street he looks perplexed and says, “Oh yeah, I took the trash out this morning and left the gate open for him, he doesn’t usually go far!” What the HECK!? Seriously? He doesn’t go far?! Well doesn’t going far is an easy way for him to be squished. So defeated, I get back in my car and drive in to work.
I’m later than usual due to my failed “Save the Oreo” mission, but that’s okay, I’ll get back on track. The day starts with dilemma after dilemma at work. Departments blaming other departments for errors, employees asking questions about my departure, trying to pass my work on to others and finally an investigation into a results that we found that wasn’t typical, but after daggering deeper into it, the error was identified. It only took a week and required a lot of paperwork.
Now I’m usually fine with days like this. They go fast. But on top of these things, we had vendors coming in, my HR departments asking for Exit Interviews, Doug texting my pictures of shoes (brown slip on or brown with laces?!?) and I received phone calls about health insurance after corporate and phone calls about moving trucks. Then to top it all off my breast pump BIT THE DUST leaving me stranded to make no lunch for my baby! From there I took my son to the doctor and then to Sam’s Club to pick up my new tire was available. See just two days ago we hit a nail in the neighborhood and it destroyed my $250 tire. Luckily we had road hazard insurance on them and it was replaced for a prorated price of $78. But Sam’s Club had more great news (heavy on the sarcasm) they also tested my battery and found that it was at the end of its life. They didn’t think it would even make it through the next few days of 100 degree temperature in Missouri. Thanks, but no thanks Sam’s. We’re going to drive this battery until we have to use jumper cables to get her going!
GET RID OF FLUFFY-Okay, so you don’t actually have to get rid of Fluffy, but some people love the discovery of pet hair in a house (OH LOOK HONEY, BY THE COLOR OF THE HAIR THEY MUST HAVE A GOLDEN RETRIEVER!), but most people DON’T.
Getting rid of the pet “signs” has become sort of a specialty for me in the past 10 years. You see, I enjoying owning and showing dogs in dog shows but I’m also a little OCD in my cleaning. So my husband and I own 4 dogs and we have two cats. Luckily 3 of our 4 dogs don’t shed hardly at all, but the one that does, the Sheltie, sheds A LOT! The cats also shed profusely.
This hair is interwoven EVERYWHERE in your home!
For any non-pet person or even some pet people, when they enter a home with pets they automatically start making assumptions and looking at everything with scrutiny. Did the pet damage the home in any way, did the pet have accidents in the house, do they clean up after their pets? There needs to be hardly any signs of there ever being a pet in this home. So find that friend of yours that isn’t fond of pets and have them do a walkthrough of your home “post” cleaning! Tell them they HAVE to be honest with you.
So let’s start with our hard surface flooring. We have Pergo and linoleum. These floors make the cleanup super easy for house showings. Before the showing and the Open House we vacuum the floor and then run over it a second time with a Swiffer or Swiffer Duster to get in the corners. Then once a week we’d mop the floor with a diluted vinegar and water solution. We use ½ cup vinegar in a gallon of water. This keeps the floors looking their best.
Though they peacefully sleep, hair collects around them.
For our basement our entire floor is carpet. Luckily the basement carpeting is like new so we didn’t have to do much. For this showing we vacuumed the carpet and used an edging tool to make sure any trace of Sheltie and the cats was gone. Now the cats like to sit at the top of the stairs in our basement. The cats are excellent about using the litterbox, but still the top of the stairs had a general “cat” odor. To eliminate this I purchased Arm and Hammer carpet refresher. I chose a more neutral scent and sprinkled at the top of the stairs for an hour then vacuumed up. It’s a perfumed baking soda. This completely eliminated the odor and left behind a light scent that was perfect for when potential buyers entered the basement. Not overwhelming, not horribly floral.
Next we needed to make sure the room we keep the litterbox in was fresh smelling. We took our two litterboxes down to one, and removed all soft items from the floor. From there we bleached the floor with a diluted water and bleach mixture and put a high powered dryer in the room to completely dry the concrete floor. We then made sure the litterbox was cleaned every day instead of every other day and we purchased carbon filters for the top of the litterbox. If you have a little time before the house showings begin I suggest trying out a non-scented litter. Often time people have a negative reaction to the scented litter not just the cats. The other option is to remove the litterbox with each showing or put it in a tied trash bag with each showing.
For the carpets upstairs in our bedrooms, we used a carpet scrubber to do a second round on the carpets after they were vacuumed. Though the carpets were in mint shape, the carpet scrubber gave them an extra cleaning and helped to “fluff” them giving them a new look.
Next we took time to clean all of the walls. Dogs just love to drink water and shake their heads sending little rivulets of spittle all over the place. We first used a bucket of water with a squirt of dish detergent to wipe down all of the walls. Then we bought a box of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and went to town scrubbing all of the scuffs, marks and remaining spit off the walls. We had originally thought we would paint the walls again, but after the “Magic Eraser” did its magic, there wasn’t a need!
For your dog and cat beds, they need to be washed routinely (every 3 days) and removed from the house for each showing. The same goes with dog and cat toys. These cloth items can easily sabotage your cleaning efforts with their unpleasant odor. Wash often and even better, pack them up and remove them from the house. Your pet will make it for a few weeks with a few select hard toys like a Nylabone and try a smaller easy to wash bed. You can even use old towels in their crates for them to cuddle with. It can be washed with each showing. Also, if you have hard surfaced floors (Pergo, laminate, tile, wood, etc) and have a throw rug remove them. They hold hair and odor and will do more harm than good.
Finally, change your air filters in your furnace before you start showing your home then do it once a month. Look for filters that help to remove odor and dander. Also take your pets to be groomed. This will help so less hair is shed in your house and your pets will have less odor to waft in the air. With each showing have a plan to get the pets contained or out of the house. Barking dogs or cats that are begging for attention are annoying for potential buyers. They distract people so think of possibly having a friend take them for showings or take them for a day to Doggie Daycare for the day. For the cats, try putting them in a large crate with a blanket over it and a sign that says they are there for their safety. Your cats will appreciate the privacy and your buyers will appreciate being able to focus!
That means taking down the knickknacks, picking up the toys and hiding away all of your other home accessories that aren’t a necessity. This also means that some of your family photos may need to make the move to the moving box for a bit.
What is clutter? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as: to fill or cover (something) with many things. Yes, that about describes our home. Surprisingly clutter was harder to get rid of than it was to minimize. Clutter for us wasn’t about knickknacks though there certainly were a couple of those. It was more about getting rid of all of the little catch all containers around the house. You know, the little container that collects mail, or the one for coins, or the one with little things you don’t want to lose, but only ever look at once a year. I found with clutter, I needed to be honest with myself—would I or would I not ever use this item again. Clutter in your kitchen could be all of the little “tools” you bought and they sit on your counter. You know, the coffee grinder, the Keurig coffee maker, the coffee scoop, that utensil container, and every other thing that started to become a permanent resident.
Some people love family pictures everywhere. Unfortunately, other people, potential house buyers will love looking at your family too. They’re curious about the family they’re potentially buying the house from. So what you run the risk of is people becoming gawkers of your family instead of shoppers from your house.
From personal experience, I think this is one of the most important steps, but hardest. Recently Doug and I did a little house shopping. One of the houses had so much stuff (knickknacks, pictures, magazines, trinkets, refrigerator magnets, etc) that I couldn’t tell you what one of the rooms looked like. Not one and I’m the kind of person that prides myself in remembering details.
Take this opportunity to organize those trinkets and give the others a chance to live elsewhere through charitable giving to Goodwill. All of those papers you were looking to organize, do it.
When you are done de-cluttering you should be able to see every surface. You should be able to see your entire counter, your entire table, your entire computer desk and your entire dresser. Have loads of shampoo in your shower? Pick one shampoo and conditioner.
