OK, That Sucked

In my last post a month ago I implied that March would be spent getting the house ready to sell and would not be enjoyable. It turns out that was an understatement. It completely sucked. Every free moment was spent working on the house.

Alas, we finished on Saturday and the house gets listed today. Yeah! And the listing price is right what we were hoping for. That's great news.

When I've whined to people about the work on the house, they often ask me, "What do you have to do?" So here's a list of what we've done:

Outdoor:

• fix sagging house gutter at se corner
• fix garage man door gutter leak
• fix garage exterior lights
• clean mailbox/porch light/house numbers
• build fence at alley
• replace west gable siding
• replace south window trim x 2
• install gutters on garage north side
• clean up back yard
• extend cement block wall
• level alley & spread rock
• install fabric & river rock in water barrel area
• install water barrel & downspout
• replace kitchen door
• paint green parts of house/touch up blue everywhere
• scrape/sand/caulk/paint all exterior trim
• paint porch rail
• paint front door
• paint underside of greenhouse window
• paint whiteboard on studio east end & around garage door
• paint man doors & trim
• clean gutters
• wash all windows
• install fence post caps
• clean greenhouse window exterior
  
• fill alley potholes
• install sod patch & side sewer cleanout cover

Indoor:

• paint studio trim
• clean up studio
• clean under refrigerator
• replace master bath faucet
• replace master bath light fixture
  
• install/paint kitchen door trim
• caulk kitchen counter
• caulk/clean greenhouse window
• cover junction box above breaker panel
• fix carpet padding downstairs hall
• mount smoke detectors
• grout added kitchen tile
• clean all windows
• touch up all interior paint
• paint new bannister
• finish bannister base
• clean downstairs door
• clean studio threshold

This doesn't include the many hours Carol spent getting the house declutterred, organized, cleaned and staged. She spent many days reuniting toy parts with each other, sorting and triaging kids clothes, cleaning out closets, packing "extra" stuff for storage and many other tasks - all while wrangling two temporarily attention-starved kids.

Whoever buys our house is getting a "perfect" house with absolutely no maintenance needing immediate attention. Perhaps a lot of sellers don't do this much work, but we can't imagine listing a less-than-perfect house in this market.

We finished the last of the work on Saturday afternoon and immediately packed up the camper van and headed to the ocean. We had a wonderful time. As soon as I have some time I'll post photos and video. Now that the house is done, I need to focus on final projects for my two classes. Both are due in two weeks. After my last final exam of the semester on May 8, life should improve dramatically.

OK, I'm done whining now.