Last weekend was our first on the market. We had two showings on Saturday and our public open house on Sunday. The open house had six parties, one of which was very interested. I love the thought of this house going to another family.
Every update/repair we've done has been to make it more family-friendly -- the half bath downstairs, done just in time to start potty-training for #2. Fencing in the backyard (with extra gates added so our wonderful neighbors have a special door to visit!) so I can make dinner with the door open and not worry about the kids running into traffic. Rebuilding the front porch and screening it in so we can set out there in summer evenings under the ceiling fan, and chat with the neighbors out walking dogs. Even something so pedestrian as adding a grounded outlet with its own fuse to the master for a hefty A/C unit, so the boys could be cool and not blow out everything else on that circut.
We used to joke (okay, I used to joke -- Evan doesn't joke about having more kids) that we needed to keep going until we filled up all those bedrooms. I'd love to see a family fill up this house, with a master suite upstairs (turning the unfinished room into a bath) and an office, and then the kids could take over the second floor, maybe even making the absurdly large bathroom into a Jack-and-Jill, which we had in our condo in Mt. Kisco.
Some friends have been asking me for advice on clearing stuff out, and staging, and life in general. So I decided to do a quick post on getting ready for the big move, or putting the house on the market, or just clearing stuff out.
A good friend is an organization consultant, and I highly suggest her services. Michelle gave me the best advice possible -- schedule a pickup from the Vets every single week, no matter what. I kept an extra laundry basket in our room, and every time I folded up laundry, anything even on the verge of being too small or seasonally inappropriate went in that basket. I also methodically cleaned out the linen closet and tossed all the extra sheets and blankets we never used. We went through our copious bookshelves and filled up a bag of books every week (the Vets only take one bag of books per pickup). The night before the pickup, we would sweep through the house for stuff to put out. Bonus! These donations are tax-deductible.
We got rid of lots of stuff on the freecycle thread on Maplewood Online. Even if you aren't local, there's bound to be a freecycle group near you. Someone will take that furniture, those posters, those curtains, whatever. Some of the stuff we gave away could certainly be sold on eBay, but the pain of dealing with it and the joy with which it was accepted outweighed the small amount of money that we would have made.
We did get rid of a lot of stuff on eBay, however. We aren't allowed to sell stuff from Evan's job, due to tax reasons and bad karma. But Evan is selling his Fangoria collection on eBay in 12-issue chunks and we've sold other collectible type things with great success.
We did have a couple things that were worth some dough that were too big a pain and too random to sell on eBay. I found a seller there that sold similar items, contacted him online, and we are selling them directly to him at 20% of what he sells them for. That sounds like a bum deal, but we'll be making enough to pay for our trip to Legoland!
Also: finally, we gave our garbage guys $60 instead of $20 at Christmas. That has paid us back many, many times.
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