New week - new stuff to get done. After a wonderful weekend, full of this and that, it feels good to get busy again.
But I have to tell you, as we were sitting there in our seats, and Topol walked out onto the stage, and before he even opened his mouth with a single line or note, the crowd began to cheer with the anticipation of what was to come - it was magical. His Israeli accent is so thick we had trouble at times catching every line, but the richness of it was magnificent. To sit and listen to the troupe sing Matchmaker, Matchmaker or him sing If I Were a Rich Man, it felt like the hot caramel off an ice cream sundae, sliding down your throat. Watching him play the part that he's already done over 2500 times, we were able to just settle back and relax with him, because it came to him so easily. Delightful, delightful in every sense of the word. When it ended we were sad to see him take that last bow, knowing it was a once in a lifetime moment.
Pure wonderfulness, from start to finish. The man sitting next to me throughout the performance was delightful too, and I so enjoyed him breaking out in loud laughter at times, then leaning over to share it with his wife and daughters. Oh my, live entertainment - how I love it, knowing it's only there for a bit, and you have to soak it up with all you can. So, money well spent, and we'll remember it for years to come I'm sure.
Back to reality - the realtor comes this Saturday for a tour of our entire house, closets, cupboards, etc. This week I'm starting on the main floor, hopefully can get that done in three or four days, then have a day or two to address the upstairs bedrooms, which are mostly done.
Today through Wednesday - here's the list:
Clean all glass and shiny surfaces, pretending the sun will be shining here in Pittsburgh, and all that dust will show up. (Not gonna happen...)
Dust every single piece of furniture (ditto to glass)
Vacuum and clean all blinds (don't ask how many there are!)
Hide all visible signs of animals who live here (How do you hide the smell of dog breath?)
Strip down kitchen counters so anything we need is tucked away in an unhandy place. Thank you God that staged houses leave out coffee pots and cookie jars, the two main stays of any kitchen,and since the cookies are Spring Oreos, added to coffee we have a continually supplied breakfast.
Remove all signs of adorable grandchildren from fridge doors, so we look like we have a lonely, miserable life.
Get rid of TV trays, where we eat 99% of our meals. Surely leaving them out will make us look like tacky, rednecks, and who wants to buy a tacky, rednecks' house?
Take half of water out of aquarium so I can move it 6" to the left, centering it nicely under the clock on the wall. I know that it being off center would bug the realtor greatly!
Put away Landon's toys. When he comes back we'll drag them out again. We wouldn't want anyone to see that the kids who come for visits play with toys and make messes.
Put away Snow Village in spite of the fact there's snow on the ground outside and the Snow Village as decor makes a lot more sense than any signs of spring.
Clean oven because it's bad enough it's old, it doesn't have to be grimey with burned french fries stuck to the bottom of it.
Remove all signs of doing paperwork from office, so that desk resembles those fake ones in Office Depot, where nobody has bills or filing that never gets done.
Box up and ship all scrapbooking items that currently are on shelves, desktop and floor of laundry room, although I think this one item a prospective home buyer could really relate to - I mean, who isn't 30 years behind in their scrapbooking and personally I'd love buying from a kindred soul!
Cover catbox, and pray Miss Miah doesn't pick touring time to do her business, because seriously that one thing could kill the deal. Rarely do passed out people make offers....
So there you have it - chop, chop, I need to get busy. If I am a very good girl and work very hard, I can spend afternoons meeting girlfriends for coffee, one for dinner, watching the Academy Awards on Tivo even though I already know who wins, and squeezing in a few hot bubble baths with a good book, at the end of the day. Of course I'll have to pull out the remote that is stored away, use one of the real towels, rather than the staged ones, and find the bubble bath that is hidden away from sight.
And someone please tell me a male realtor would notice I hadn't cleaned those blinds in months - I need to hear that before I start vacuuming them, one at a time.
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4 comments:
Did you know, Swiffer dusters work just as well as vacuuming, on the blinds, and they're a lot quicker. I wash my blinds with Simple Green twice a year, but in between, I just Swiffer the dust right off.
Good grief, what a pain "staging" is. I know the reason behind it, that people are more likely to buy a home they can envision themselves living in and seeing too much of your life in that home makes it harder to see their own, but what a complete pain. The reality is, once the house is listed, it has to stay staged until it sells, so really, it's never going to look like you lived there, again. But maybe you can stick all the stuff back on the fridge one more time, before you move out. :-)
The other thing we have done is rent a storage building (only $45 a month and we hope it only takes a month to sell) for the odds and ends that seem to fill the nooks and crannies. Truth be told we probably could live out our lives never unpacking those boxes, but I will insist on moving them to the next house, I'm sure:-)
For the doggy breath, here's my tip, borrowed from your mint mopwater suggestion. I boil water with a few drops of peppermint oil on the stove for a few minutes, and the air is absolutely crystal clear. I started this for opening my head with a cold once, but it also makes the house feel crisp and clean- with no real cleaning!
Good luck!
I'm glad I didn't have coffee in my mouth when I read your commenting about passed out people making offers. LOL. But I know exactly what you mean.
I just take my blinds down and throw them in the shower and use my back brush on them. It's quick and simple. That is assuming we're talking about the same kind of blinds.
I was tired last week reading about all the work you've been doing. Now I'm exhausted!
You're doing a great job Bev, and I know he'll be impressed with those clean blinds.
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