One thing I have learned over these many years as a Realtor is that preparing your home for lookers, tire kickers and potentially the new owners of your home can be overwhelming.
It doesn’t take very long for things to accumulate in life, just minutes for some people! So imagine the task of clearing out your home that you have lived in with your family for the past 20 – 60 years. For some, a spouse may have passed away and all the children have moved out, leaving you with precious memories stacked on shelves in the damp basement, hanging in photo frames on every blank wall and shelf top, and photo magnets on your refrigerator. These aren’t clutter, they are your life. So, when a stager tells you to make your home Showroom ready, you may just decide to scrap the dream of moving to a warmer climate, a smaller place, or moving at all because it is just too overwhelming to think about.
Don’t throw away your dreams. You have heard the saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. Here are a few suggestions on how to eat this elephant called preparing for a move. Take a day and do one of these tasks each day.
1. There are companies who specialize in these tasks. They will do the packing, carting away, selling or taking to auction and staging the home at the end with the furniture and items you are keeping. It costs money but is such a relief! Help moving and packing.
2. If you can, call in some favors from your friends or loved ones. Tackle the basement and / or attic with many others who can lift, laugh and reminisce while helping you sort. One pile for trash, one pile for good will or gifting, the rest back in boxes, clearly labeled and put on a shelf or stacked in the corner of one space or room in your house. Try one stall of the garage or possibly rent a movable storage unit like the POD. Hopefully one of your helpers will have a truck that can immediately take the trash to the dump or to a donation center. This may take all day but others will love helping you in exchange for your renowned chicken noodle soup, banana bread, or chocolate chip cookies.
3. Pay the neighbor boy a bit for weeding your garden, mowing, or sweeping your back porch, or raking your patio, or deadheading your potted plants, put a fresh coat of paint on your front door, or clean out those exterior lights so they shine. Ask at your church or parish for some grandsons you can adopt for a day who can spread mulch on all of your flower beds.
Here are some things you can do yourself that will make you feel great and help eat that elephant:
4. Organize your linen closet. Stack the best towels and other linen in neat piles with rolled sides out. The sheets you don’t use any more and the stained ones, either throw out or use as rags. Stick in a pouch of potpourri and voila! Imagine the look of awe and respect on the face of the future homeowner when she sees your linen closet!!!
Lost in the junk drawer
5. The junk drawer. Everybody has one or two. Dump it out on the kitchen table, put a kitchen trash basket on the floor next to you, and, while sipping a cup of hot tea, start sorting the items that are in there. Broken flashlights, new or used batteries, broken Rubber bands, hair pins, toothpicks, pens that are out of ink, twist ties, coupons for local pizza shop that burned down 10 years ago….be willing to part with them!! But don’t throw out that key to the Grandfather clock that hasn’t been wound now for how many years because you “lost the door key”! When the drawer is completely empty, wash it thoroughly, then put the few items that you still want to keep back in there. You will feel so good about completing this task, you will leave it open when company comes over just so they can remark on it’s pristine condition!
6. Empty out the silverware and utensil drawers. Make sure you clean out the tray that you have had the spoons and forks stacked in – it is a mystery how it could be dirty just holding clean silverware but sure enough. Stack only your silverware back in there. If you don’t know who owns the rest and don’t want to keep them, donate them for making wind chimes or something.
7. Pots and pans drawer may take a day but feel free to weed it out. You don’t need all those pots that you used to cook for 10 people before. You don’t need 10 pie plates or bent bundt pans anymore. Just keep the few you will need in your next kitchen.
Now where is the lid to that?
8. While you are at it, empty out the Tupperware closet. Some will be greasy where the rubber has started to decay, the lids are cracked or missing completely. I’ll bet you will be amazed at how many of those nice disposable containers you stashed in there! Face it, you have just been putting foil over your dinner plate and sticking it in your refrigerator anyway.
9. Clean out under the kitchen sink. Only put the items back in there that you really need for last minute cleanup.
Yum yum, bet you can’t eat just one
10. Sort out your boxed and can goods in the pantry. Throw out the expired items and see how many of those cereals can be used in cookies to feed your helpers (see number 2 above),
11. Clean your oven and the inside of your microwave (yes, buyers will look in there, wouldn’t you?)
12. Clean out your refrigerator and freezer. Only keep one opened jar of the mustard, one jar of relish, one jar of salsa. When done with this task, have a bowl of that mint chocolate chip ice cream and put the container back in the pristine freezer. (this reward can be used for all the others tasks too)
No more lasagna stain showing
13. Your clothes closet. (Caution, This task may be the hardest). One pile trash for those shirts with the stain right where you don’t want it and can’t hide it with a carefully placed brooch, scarf or tie. One pile donations – why not let someone else wear it now? You are doing a noble thing to donate. Smile. You are a generous and good person!! Third pile is sewing or repairs needed. And the fourth pile is gone because those pieces of clothing are keepers and are neatly lined up on hangers, color coordinated, with sweaters neatly folded like the towels in the linen closet! Shoes: Donate them if they are good enough but if they are worn out, toss them out. Only keep the ones you Know you will still wear.
14. Game closet and VCR/Eight track closet: Don’t put them back once you take them out. If the only ones who ever play those games, like Flinch or dominoes, are your children or grandchildren and they won’t be over for game night until long after you have moved, pack them in a box, label it, and put this box with the other basement boxes. The game closets should be neat and clean!
Should be able to use it for something!
15. Under your bathroom sink. How many bottles of talcum powder, how many pink hospital basins, samples of shampoo, giant bottles of lotion and conditioners, face, eye, hand, feet scrubs, old nail polish, or curling irons or electric curlers do you need before you move? Keep those, placed in a basin, and set it neatly on top of the heat pad because you may just need that after doing all of these daily tasks.
16. Medicine cabinet. Throw away the expired lotions, potions and pills, ancient shavers, and morning sickness pills. Only keep one of those boxes of band-aids and the calamine lotion just in case the boys cleaning out your gardens touch the poison ivy.
whose fingerprints are those?
17. Lamps, globes, light bulbs, picture frames, fronts of wall clocks, mirrors, etc. Clean them all so they show fingerprints!
18. Take down your family photos and pack them away neatly in boxes clearly labeled. If you have some family photos that are a work of art and they go with the decorated color scheme in the room, use them. But all the others, decide which ones you want on the walls of your new place and make sure you set them aside.
19.Only you know what your time frame is and how much help you need to meet it. Please take your time preparing your self for the move. Don’t try to do it all yourself. All tasks are more fun if you have someone young there to help you do the bending over and lifting. Don’t try to do it all in one week. Space yourself and make the place sparkle. Start each morning with a moment in front of your clean bathroom mirror and smile. Breath a prayer of thankfulness for another day to be alive in this beautiful old house.
20. Then quickly walk out to your kitchen and get back to eating that elephant!!
For some more helpful hints for packing those boxes read this article: How to make the move and pack the boxes.
C
Real Estate Dirt 