Fabric Wall Art

My laundry room was looking a bit too plain after I stripped the wall paper and took down all my greenery and bird houses.  I needed to put something up but didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Red seemed to be the right choice in my mind that would add a pop of color against the sea of beige and brown. I dropped by my local fabric store in search of the perfect red fabric and found three coordinating fabrics that would work perfectly.  Then I went to Michaels to try to find something inexpensive to attach it to and ended up with 12” X 28” Styrofoam sheets for about $3 each.  Back to the fabric store, (since I didn’t know my end product dimensions) to buy a half yard of fabric at $6 each. I ironed each piece while the glue gun warmed up and this is what the final product turned into.

 

Where is the third panel, you might ask? Had I made it, it would look something like this.

I didn’t take into account that it had a very specific direction to the print (and I kind of thought that the the flowers looked a little funny laying sideways.)  I would have had to buy another yard of fabric to have them lay vertically and I didn’t want to spend that much money so I settled on two panels. 

Maybe this fabric will end up as a pillow someday.

Laundry Room Re-do

I’m going to do the forbidden and use a cliché. I think you’ll understand when you see the pictures. See if you can guess what it is from the before and after pictures?

Laundry Room -Before

Laundry Room After

 

“Less is more!” Don’t you agree?  For years I have been obsessed with making sure every ledge in my house was filled to capacity. I felt that the look was homey and if the ledges weren’t packed with accessories and greenery then something just wasn’t right, so I would add and add until it was full.  I also adored wallpaper and multi-colored painting techniques. The bright green walls and purple counter top had to go. I was really stepping out of my comfort zone in order get our house ready to sale. I knew the laundry room needed attention.  My bright color scheme had run its course and it was time to tone down the laundry room.

My hubby even got in on the action.  He decided that the light fixtures and tops of the cabinets needed to be cleaned so he got out the vacuum and started to work. It is always much more enjoyable when he jumps in and helps me with a project.

 

Two days later the wallpaper was stripped. What a project!  I knew that neutral colors would appeal to the most buyers so I picked out what I thought was a perfect color.  When I got it home and started painting, it turned YELLOW! And I do mean yellow. I did NOT pick out yellow.   It looked horrible next to the cabinets and floors.  I really didn’t want to spend more money on paint so I started mixing it with some other beiges that I already had. I figured, “What do I have to lose?”  I created my own custom color and I love it.  It matches the cabinets perfectly. (I even fixed a couple of nicks on the cabinets and you can’t even tell!) I couldn’t have matched this well if I tried on purpose. 

When I finished with the walls I began work on the countertops (see previous post).  I painted all my brass hardware with Oil Rubbed Bronze paint.  Now for just a touch of accessorizing-curtains from Lowe’s, rug from Menards, fabric prints from a DIY project to come in my next post. A repotted plant and a red tray and orbs add the finishing touches.   It took a bit of getting used to, but I do really like the simple look of the laundry room now. If we weren’t selling our house, I might add a few more items-but not many. It is taking some getting used to, but I may be converting to a more simplistic decorating style.  The added perk is a whole lot less to keep clean! What do you think of the transformation?

How to Organize Digital Photos

I admit it, my computer photos are a mess. I didn’t intend it to be this way, it just crept up on me. Now the question is how do I fix this mess that has become so overwhelming? I didn’t feel like my last two posts on photo organization would be complete until I addressed the pictures on my computer. I don’t have much time to devote to this project right now, (being in the middle of a move and all) but it is something that I can tackle for a few minutes a few times a week. I realized how out of control they were when I began looking for old pictures of projects I had done so I could do future blogs about them. I spent waaaayyy too much time looking. 

How am I supposed to know that DSC05918 was a wonderful picture of my daughter or that 732644-R1-23 was a picture of my boys with their favorite college coach, Bill Snyder? The numbering system makes sense to my camera but it is meaningless to me. Having all these pictures on my computer in a way that no one can enjoy them, is as bad as having them in a box and not in albums. It would sure be nice to have the pictures in an enjoyable layout so we could watch a slide show of them if we wanted to. 

Here is a screen shot of our recent family vacation

These pictures are fairly fresh in my mind but a couple of years from now, I may struggle to find the picture I am looking for. My mind works well chronologically, but I struggle a bit to use other types of categories. I am discovering that I need to stretch myself and use a combination of both. Not everything works well by date. This is what I have come up with that works for me.

Pictures involving people and events are best sorted chronologically. I’ve made folders for each year and then have sub-folders for each month.  If there was a major event during the year, like a vacation, it has it’s own folder inside the year folder. Then I am naming each picture (see below). I found that if I hover over a picture, the date it was taken will pop up, (unless my camera’s date feature was messed up in which case I have to guess).

I name the picture by year, month and day, followed by people, then event if applicable, as well as the number of the picture.  The computer will do a sort numerically with digits, so using this format will keep my pictures in order.  If I don’t know the month or day, I just leave that off. 

This picture is named “2003.06.15 Tim Taylor-Arkansas-2”  This is the second picture of Tim and Taylor  taken on June 15, 2003 on our trip to Arkansas.

Pictures that involve projects are best with a category and not a date. Our house has its own folder, but has sub-folders with the rooms.  My DIY projects have earned their own folder, with sub-folders based on the projects. I have a “Caprice” folder for pictures of the car my son has been having restored over the last few years. You get the idea.  Create folders that are meaningful to you.  

In trying to come up with a system that works for me, I’ve run across several who rave about free programs, such as Picasa, to sort pictures that have face recognition (there are others, but this is the one I tried). It does a pretty good job, so if I wanted a picture of Taylor, it would pull up all pictures of Taylor. That was overwhelming to me, so I ditched it. Part of my problem is that I had done back ups over the years and when I upgraded my computer last year, I went to put my pictures back on my computer, and I had multiple back ups of the same picture. 

Another important thing I am doing is using the “delete” button. There are so many pictures that are just not flattering.  I also have so many duplicates that are very similar. AND I HAVE DUPLICATES OF MY MULTIPLE BACK UPS!  It gets monotonous looking at similar pictures. It is much more enjoyable to pick out the favorites and reflect on a pared down quantity of pictures.

So this is the system I am working on converting to. It is a work in progress and I am sure it will be very slow.  I have created my year files and tried to get my back up photos in the right year at least. I will continue to work on deleting and renaming as time allows. The good thing is that I have a system in place so that 2011 is organized how I want it and I can move on to future years.

You probably figured that I have pretty much given up scrapbooking from my previous post, but there is something about having a book in my hands.  I’ve started ,very slowly, to turn some of my pictures into coffee table books. Who knows, I might be motivated to turn each year into a book. If I am able to hit the “delete” button enough, it will be a very easy task.

Photo Organization (Part 2)

I worked away at this process-not for two days-but for TWO WEEKS!  While I was at it I tackled all those important keepsake papers and photos that might work in a scrapbook but will not work in a photo album.  You know-the 8X10 and 5X7 photos, the master pieces that your children created over the years, the certificates they received, newspaper clippings, Christmas photo cards from friends.  I had saved all of that-but it had gotten out of control. Well I ended up with several barely filled scrap book albums-I had started a scrap book for each child, plus a couple of different scrap books, but I didn’t ever get very far on any of them. I was able to pull out the completed pages and combine them into two scrap books that actually have the wonderful embellishments that I love. That left me with 5 empty ones. I used them and purchased a couple of more. Here’s a breakdown of how I used them.

• Each child got their own-it contains the larger photos. I also added sports pictures and team pictures to these albums.
• I created a “family” album-It contained all the larger pictures that contained more than one family member. I also added the “action” vacation photos we couldn’t resist  buying, like screaming on a roller coaster, or getting splashed on a white water rafting trip.

• Lastly, I created an extended family and friend album.  This is where I put all the pictures I got from my siblings and  nieces and nephews.  I also saved some of the pictures from Christmas cards from family and my closest friends. 

All these albums are arranged somewhat chronologically and I added several blank pages to the end of each so I can continue adding.

Next up was tackling the keepsake items I really didn’t want to add to an album. I actually have two systems for these just because I had started this a few years ago, but never kept up with it. My problem wasn’t the system, it was having easy access to the system.  I put them on the top shelf of a rarely used closet.  I never felt like pulling them down to add new items to them. (I plan on finding a more easily accessible space in our new house.)

For my kids, I used a cardboard accordion file box. I put a year on each tab. This pretty much took me through their high school graduation.

For everything not kid related I have a plastic file box. I had two, but they became over crowded so I purchased a third one as I was organizing everything.

I have a section for Tim for items he had before we were married and a section for me before we were married. Then I started using a year in 1979, after we met. I went ahead and made folders for several years out so I am ready!  

I feel totally good about what I accomplished and I feel confident that now that I am caught up with everything, I will be more motivated to keep it that way. Oh-I almost forgot to mention-I set aside an old, now empty, photo box that I plan to keep in a handy location to corral items I want to add to my system. That way I can sit down and update as I see things starting to build up. (The box is fairly small so it can’t get too out of hand.)

This is what my finished project looked like before I started putting them in boxes.

Photo Organization (Part 1)

When I thought we had 90 days move, I didn’t quite know what to do with my time. It was pointless to do a project around the house. I couldn’t do anything to the house we are buying except day dream. It felt too soon to pack much of anything, but I did think I could begin tackling some closets that we didn’t frequently use.

First on the agenda was my scrapbook/craft closet. I love looking at pictures that are in scrapbooks and had grand plans to put all of my photos in these albums. Unfortunately, life gets busy and although I like scrap booking, I don’t love it. I decided it was time to face the reality that I was probably not going to get my pictures in these wonderful books and embellish them so that each page was a piece of art. So, I decided I needed to organize my photos a little differently by getting them out of the neatly arranged envelopes and boxes and put them in standard photo albums so we could ACTUALLY look at them.

We had also inherited many more pictures that were never organized to any degree at all. My goal was to merge the ones that were organized with the ones that were not. Many of these photos had not seen the light of day for years. This is what I started with.

I figured I could conquer this monstrosity in a couple of days. (Laugh!)

I began by using sticky notes marked with a year and putting the piles of pictures by these sticky notes. Much of my scrapbook organization was theme based rather than chronologically based so I had to rethink how I wanted to re-organize these. I decided to go strictly chronological. I figure it is easier to maintain that way. Some of the older pictures I had to guess at a date. In trying to let go of my perfectionism a little bit, I convinced myself that close was good enough.

My table looked like this during the process.

Here’s the breakdown of standard sized photo albums I used.

• Tim-birth until we met (this actually took 1 ½ albums)
• Maureen-birth until we met (I fit all mine in one album-Tim did a lot of traveling after college and had many more pictures. Plus he is a little older than me and had a few more years to document.)
• The other half of Tim’s second album started pictures of us dating and moved forward.
• Several albums that are chronological. I just filled each album and then put a label with the years included when I was done.
• Then the kids came along-I continued with our chronological albums plus I started an album for each child using the same system. (This is a good way to use “doubles” if you can’t bring yourself to throw them out.) 
• In 2001, we went digital so what I put in photo albums was greatly reduced. 

Through this process-I purged and purged some more.  It was hard, but I couldn’t see keeping several similar pictures of the same shot. I would pull out my favorite pictures and throw out the rest. (Did I mention this was hard?) It sure makes looking at the completed albums much more enjoyable when there are not a lot of repeats.

Another tip I discovered is to leave an occasional blank sleeve and skip an entire couple of pages a time or two in each album. This will give you space to add more pictures should you inherit some or stumble across some more (which I have as I continued packing.)

Next post-what to do with larger pictures and keep sakes.

We Sold Our House

I have a confession to make. We actually got a contract on our house A FEW WEEKS ago. It was completely unexpected and I WAS NOT ready for it. I had several ideas I wanted to blog about and we were very surprised at how quickly it happened. We didn’t even get the house on the market and we definitely weren’t ready to show it. I was in the middle of removing wallpaper from the master bathroom, and had an extreme mess on my hands when the buyers first wanted to see it.

I was personally ready to sell our house three or four years ago.Tim, on the other hand, was not. I prayed that God would change his mind. It has been too much to upkeep and I really was growing tired of the homeowner’s association. When we calculated how much money it cost to maintain the house, we knew a smaller house would be a much better use of our money. We loved the lake though, and that was what was keeping us here.

When my youngest son, Jordan, had the opportunity to play basketball with the number one high school basketball team in the state, Tim was getting excited. The coach had seen Jordan play over the summer and liked what he saw.  

(Isn’t this an amazing action shot? My cousin, Bob, took it. Thanks, Bob.)

I still home school Jordan, but we found that if we live in a particular school district and he takes ONE class on campus, he is eligible to play sports for the school. The only problem was we were in the wrong district. Tim was finally on board with a mission to find a home in our desired school district, and hopefully one that had a lake.

We decided to sell our home the first part of July. We knew we had some delayed maintenance items to deal with so we started working away at them. A few weeks later, Tim mentioned to one of the neighbors that we were going to put our house on the market and if he knew of anyone, to let us know. The next day, we got a call about an interested party. We stalled for a week while I finished the bathroom.

  

I was thinking that this was God’s way of helping me prioritize what really needed to be done because I have a tendency, (and so does Tim) to get bogged down with details that really won’t affect the end result. I took this scheduled showing as an answer to prayer; that we would know when the house was “good enough” to show. THAT WAS THE EXTENT OF MY EXPECTATIONS!

They liked the house and we were able to come to agreeable terms. The only catch was they wanted 90 days before closing so they could have a better chance of selling their home. We weren’t sure how this would affect Jordan and school.

At the same time, an acquaintance of Tim’s decided he was ready to sell his house. I wasn’t too crazy about the house but Tim loved the fact that it had a decent sized lake. I had my Realtor friend, Paula, try to find something different, but Tim was set on this house and it was in the right school district. We ended up signing a contract on it a few days after we sold ours.

Since we were now under contract in the right school district, Jordan was able to start his one class at school 2 days later.

Talk about perfect timing. God definitely had His hand on this and has continued to open doors that we haven’t expected to be opened.

On a side note-we just found out that our buyers sold their house and want to move up the closing by 30 days. That means we only have a few weeks to pack. I better get busy!

Outdoor Canvas Curtains

I love curtains gently swaying in the breeze. There is something so calming about them. It makes me want to grab a glass of iced tea and pick up a good book and just sit. Don’t you just love this picture? I could relax out here all day. (This is not my deck, but I wish!)

We have 4 pillars on our deck and I hung curtains over them shortly after we moved in and have had them there ever since. Unfortunately, the fabric fades and deteriorates so every couple of years I need to re-make them. I had been noticing a lot of canvas being used and thought that it might be a little more durable than the thin cotton I had been using. From past experience, I knew I needed 10 feet of fabric for each panel. I decided to pre-wash the canvas before I sewed the casing and hem and am I sure glad I did. Canvas shrinks like crazy! I expected a little shrinkage, but 12 inches? Wow! My 10 feet turned into about 9 feet. What was I going to do?

Canvas is relatively inexpensive, but still, I didn’t want it to go to waste. After a little contemplation and asking for opinions, I decided to add a band of matching fabric from some of the pillows I made for the deck furniture. It kind of reminded me of when my mom would sew funky ribbon on the bottom of my “too short” bell bottom jeans, just to make them last a little longer. I wasn’t very sure if I would like it or not because I DID NOT like those jeans. (Sorry, mom!) I couldn’t think of any other suitable alternatives so I went for it. I absolutely love the results. I would do it again on purpose. What do you think?

Keeping Up with the Jones’s

We live in the kind of neighborhood where everyone’s yard is nicely manicured, their houses have just the right color of paint, the plants are well trimmed, the cars are parked in the garage and not in the street; you get the idea. Frankly, it is exhausting to “keep up with the Jones’s.” Unfortunately, if we don’t, we get a “diplomatic” letter in the mail letting us know about our violations with the threat of a fine. Upon reflecting about our move, the thought occurred to me that my “obsessive” desire to have everything-even the inside of my house- look “just so” has come from the neighborhood we live in. I am really looking forward to selling our house and moving. My hope is that instead of trying to make everything pristine, I will learn to relax a little more and enjoy each moment a little more. It doesn’t matter that there might be a weed or two (or three or four) in the gardens and yard. The cars are out and the trash is at the end of the drive rather than concealed. I don’t think I have it in me to be the kind of person to let everything go, but having the pressure off a little bit would sure be refreshing.

We have been eyeing a potential property that does not have a homeowner’s association and the yard is shielded by overgrowth on the property. At first when my husband found this home, I was resistant. You have to understand, I have been blessed with a nice large home in a pristine neighborhood that does have the magazine kind of look. It is a struggle for me to give it up, so I have been fault finding everything we look at, but deep down I am ready to move. I am trying to find the positive and I may have stumbled on to something. At least we wouldn’t have to “keep up with the Jones’s.” A little overgrowth might be a good thing. Maybe the perfect spot for a secret garden some day! Here are a few that inspire me.

 

Sheet Curtains for a Theater Style Look

Dilemma-how do you span a 29 foot wall with curtains- cheaply?   The most logical place for our big screen TV was on the wall that had the windows.  Every other place caused glare from those windows. The TV looked strange blocking the windows, plus there was a strange area of the room that turned back away from the wall.  As we were sprucing up our house, I was trying to figure out how to overcome the awkward look.  I knew I wanted curtains and my thought was to go for a theater style look but all the curtains I was finding that were even reasonable in price would have cost several hundred dollars.   Then we needed to find a rod to hang them on.  I have never seen a 29 foot rod.  I don’t think they exist unless you have them custom made.  As many DIYers do, I turned to sheets.  I found a beautiful green sheet on clearance at Wal-mart that would go wonderfully with our family room.  The cost was only about $7 per sheet.   The problem was that I needed eight of them.  Wal-mart only had three.  Thankfully, Wichita and the surrounding suburbs have multiple Wal-marts.  I  went around town from store to store to store and finally gathered the eight I needed.  I also picked up the clip on  curtain rings in oil rubbed bronze (ORB) to hang said sheets,  Next was figuring out an inexpensive pole.  I was thinking a wood pole, but I sent my husband to Lowe’s with the instructions that I needed a pole of approximately one inch diameter that can be joined together to make one long pole.  He came home with electrical conduit and couplings. Brilliant!  This was much cheaper and lighter than wood.  We picked up a couple packages of wooden drapery brackets meant to hold a one inch pole and we were good to go.  Next, we painted everything to match the curtain rings with ORB spray paint.  I ironed every one of the sheets –I think the ironing  took longer than the rest of the project.  I played with the distance that looked best to place the clip on rings.  My dear hubby, hung the brackets and helped me hang the curtains.  I couldn’t be more thrilled with how they turned out.   Total  price for entire project spanning over 29 feet was just a little over $100.  

 

 

On a side note, my ceiling height matched the curtain length exactly if I hung my rod tight to the ceiling.  You could adjust your rod up or down to fit your needs and fold the top of the sheet over how ever much you need to get the length needed. 

Does Murphy Live Here?

You can probably tell by the title that I recently had one of those Murphy’s Law sort of days. It all began because I decided to power wash around the pool area. It was looking a little dingy and I thought it would be good to spruce it up since we were showing the house that evening.

I pulled out the power washer and found that it was out of gas. I asked my dear hubby, Tim, if he knew if we had any. Every container  he checked was empty. I volunteered to go get gas while Tim finished lunch.

Charlie, my standard poodle, loves to go for car rides. When the temperature is much more than 70 degrees, I don’t generally take him because it is too hot and I don’t want him sitting in the car while I am running my errands.  Since I was only going to get gas, I invited Charlie to go with me and he gladly ran to the garage. I arrived at the gas station and filled my containers with gas and then decided to go in and buy a fountain drink. I didn’t want Charlie to overheat so I decided to leave the car running. I conscientiously took the remote opener with me but left the key in the ignition and locked the doors. When I got back out, the remote would not open the car doors. My purse was in the car. The hidden key was no where to be found and I did not have my cell phone with me. I went back inside and used the phone to call Tim. He and my son scoured the house for a spare key but could not find one. Our options were to call a locksmith or take the title to the dealership and have a key made. Tim decided the dealership option was the way to go. I stood outside the car to make sure Charlie was OK while he comfortably slept inside. An hour and a half later, Tim arrived back with the new key. It opened the lock, but felt funny. Charlie was perfectly fine and was very comfortable.

I was able to drive home and then decided to “test” the new key in the ignition. The car wouldn’t shut off. We could not get the key out of the ignition and we couldn’t turn it to get the car to shut off. The dealership had just closed since it was the weekend. Tim tried everything he could think of to get the car to shut off and finally had to resort to pulling various connections under the hood, before he succeeded.

Two hours after I set off to get gas, I began power washing. A short time later, one of my kids informs me that my other dog, a fifteen year old Cocker Spaniel named Maggie,

had done her “business” on the kitchen floor and according to my son, it was gross. I shut off the power washer to go clean up the nice “treasure” that Maggie left. When the mess was cleaned up, the power washer would not start back up. In frustration, I decided to take a break and get on the computer. Wouldn’t you know, my computer had frozen up and would not work.  I was at my wits end. Murphy was getting the best of me. My son suggested that I take a break, which I thought I was doing, but I decided to lay down for a few minutes. 

Several hours later, the power washing was done and the back yard looks great. We showed our house again for the second time to the same people and a lot of their family.  (It looks promising.) By the end of the day, Murphy had moved on.  He only tried to “move in” for a short period of time.

Buffet Table Hide Away

Since I’ve homeschooled my kids, the best place I have found to do school with them has been the dining room table.  The problem is that I like my dining room to look like a dining room since it is right inside the front door.  I’ve never been one to hang posters and charts on the walls so my main issue was how to deal with the volume of books and papers that pile up daily.  I needed a quick hide away, yet I needed to have easy access to all these school necessities.  I came up with a somewhat formal looking buffet table to accommodate my needs.

I first found two sets of plastic box drawers that were large enough to hold books, pencils, paper, and other school supplies.  They were a little on the short side, so my hubby, Tim, lovingly built a wooden box frame that they could set on to give me the height I wanted and additional storage underneath. We screwed the frame of the drawer sets to the wood box. Tim cut a piece of wood to set on top of the plastic boxes. I covered it with quilt batting and fabric, attaching with a staple gun on the underside.  I ordered a piece of glass to fit on top for protection.

I attached Velcro with a staple gun, and sewed a hem in some fabric that would cover the front and sides.  I added a decorative swag of fabric and some tassels to dress up the storage unit.  It has taken abuse over the years, but has held up exceptionally well.  If I keep it after we move, I plan on updating the swag and tassels with something a little more contemporary. 

   

Buffet Storage Hide Away- Closed and open   This is a very versatile piece and can easily accommodate any normal dining room storage needs such as special dishes or linens. 

DIY Color Paint Fan Deck

A few years back, I had a painter friend give me a couple of color paint fan decks; one from Sherwin Williams, the other from Porter Paints.  Just about any specialty paint store has these available. 

One thing I have found is that colors seem to change in popularity about as quickly as the seasons change.  I wasn’t always able to find the color that I was really wanting with either of my fan decks.  As I visited my local Sherwin Williams store, I noticed that there were new colors with a new fan deck available for purchase.  Although $10 isn’t a totally unreasonable price, (Martha Stewart has one for $40), I  couldn’t quite bring myself to pay the money they wanted, especially for such a tiny swatch, so I made my own.  I was really only looking at the beige and green family, so I proceeded to grab a free swatch of the colors in those families that I was interested in.  I used a hole punch and arranged them in numerical order. I now have every new color available in the color families I am most interested in.  I tied them together with a really long plastic coated tie.  I can easily add more colors or make separate decks for differing color families as the need arises.  The thing I like most about doing it this way, is the large sample size I now have.   It is much easier to tell if the color will work for my decorating project. 

Tips for Selling your Home-Part 4

Now the exciting part-showing our house. It is a wonderful feeling knowing that someone is interested. Here are a final few tips that I’ve used to help through this last phase of home preparation. 

Have a pre-established plan to leave the house with pets and children, especially if you are selling your home without a Realtor. 

Hide all evidences of pets in your home. We stick the dog kennel in the garage and put the dog bowls in the kennel.   

Try not to cook smelly food that linger.  Remember the old  “Fried fish last night dear?” commercials.  There is some truth to those commercials. 

Here’s another “learn from my mistake” tip. Don’t do the self-clean mode on your oven the day you are showing the house.  I did that already and tried to cover up the burnt oven smell with a perfumy room deodorizer. The combination of the two smells was not very pleasant.  A better alternative would have been to make cookies or home made dinner rolls or some other yummy smelling food, which is a good idea even without the burnt oven smell.  Wish I would have baked some of these instead! (Recipe to follow in a future post.)

Grandma’s Homemade Icebox Rolls

Keep televisions and radios off.

Open all draperies, curtains and blinds.  You want as much light flooding your home as possible.  It makes the rooms look larger and more cheerful.   

Turn on SOME lights in rooms that tend to be a little dark or on dreary days. Notice I highlighted the word SOME?  I turned on most all the lights when we showed our house recently.  We showed the main floor, then we went to the back yard.  When we came back in, all the electricity was off in the house and it was beginning to get dark.  We finished the tour, but the mechanical and storage rooms were too dark to see.   Come to find out, a transformer blew right in front of our house and we were without electricity for several hours while half a dozen utility trucks were parked out front.  My hubby teases me that it was because I had so many lights on.  I think it was strain from the multiple 100 degree plus days we had been having, but I can’t say for sure.  I will be a little more frugal with lights in the future.

Never apologize for your homes appearance.

Think of your homes assets and be prepared to tell them to your Realtor or if you are selling the home yourself, tell them to the potential buyer.

Most of all, enjoy your home.  Hopefully, you won’t be living in it much longer, so savor this last bit of time where you have built many memories. 

Pregnancy Crisis Center

Thought I would make an interruption from my “Tips for Selling your Home” series.

Life is bigger than just me and my family and our home.  Homes come in a variety of shapes and sizes and  I recently had the privilege of working with my “sisters” to help provide the opportunity for a home for unborn babies.  There is a ministry here in Wichita called Pregnancy Crisis Center.  This organization provides a wealth of information and support  for those with an unplanned pregnancy.   PCC is a donation and volunteer based organization so our ladies small group volunteered to paint a couple of rooms.  We had so much fun being together knowing that we were in a small way helping unborn babies.  Here are a few highlights from our time together.     

 

Thanks PCC for your wonderful service to our community.  We are so thankful we were able to help in this small way.

Tips for Selling your Home-Part 3

Although not ideal, occasionally you may get a potential buyer who wants to see your house within an hour or so of a phone call.  I learned the hard way to keep my house ready to show when we were preparing to sell  our old house several years ago.  My youngest was still in diapers when someone came to the door one morning. I didn’t want to show the house but my hubby didn’t want to turn down a potential buyer.  They got to see our home in all its lived in glory; even down to the dirty diaper sitting in the middle of a room from a quick change earlier in the morning.  I was so embarrassed.  I quickly established a routine from that point on.  (FYI-that person was not the one who ended up buying that house.) 

I’ve learned from my mistakes and am trying to be ready to show our home on short notice.  I established a daily  routine to do just that.  I figured that the end result of a missed showing could be a missed sale, and showing an unprepared home could prove to be a distraction to the potential buyer.   

These are the things I am doing to be ready.

Every morning, I make sure all the beds are made shortly after we are up and I make my kids do the same.  Here’s a picture of my messy bedroom.Five minutes later it looks like this-ready to show. 

I put away the clean laundry and dirty laundry is put in baskets in the closets. 

I do a quick clean of the bathrooms with Windex and paper towels.

All my dishes are done and put away and my kitchen sink is scoured, counter tops are wiped and the floor is swept.

Windex and paper towels are my best friend.  I look for smudges on windows, mirrors and appliances.   

I go around the house (and have my kids do the same) to make sure that everything is in its place.

Through out the day, I try to pick up as I go along. 

For those with young kids, this is a lot more of a challenge, but only allowing them to have one or two things out at a time and having baskets or other places for them to store their toys will be very handy. Although my kids are pretty much grown, I can sympathize since we have done this before with small children several years ago.    Consider packing away or at least drastically reducing the quantity of  larger items until after you move, and keeping closet space available for the few items your kids currently are playing with.  If your house is on the market for very long, you can rotate out the toys and the kids will think it is Christmas all over again.  

I go to the back yard and dispose of the doggy “treasures”  on a daily basis.  Most people do walk around the back yard.

I very deliberately go through the house after lunch, looking for anything that might need attention and repeat the whole process  again before bed.

This whole routine only takes about 15 minutes two or three times a day. 

Every day, I do a little bit of dusting, vacuuming or more thorough bathroom and kitchen cleaning.   

I am making  sure to pay special attention to your yard and front entry way on a regular basis while our house in on the market.

I’m hoping that doing these things will insure that we will be ready to show our house with little notice and a side benefit for all my hard work is that I get to enjoy a clean house every day.  How often does that happen?  Hardly ever!