You can do it.
Take a deep breath, take some advil and off you go, into your new adventure.
Gives me shivers, putting a house on the market with 2 small kids and some animals. I couldn’t do it.

I hear you on the dirty wall spot. I did the same thing with some touch-up paint that Home Depot was SUPPOSED to have matched to my sample exactly – except it looked like ‘homeowner painted a brown splotch on her beige wall’. Instead of painting a two story stairwell, I hung up a picture in the most awkward spot instead. It ain’t fun – but think of WHY you are doing it. It will be SO FREAKING WORTH IT! -Molly

Aw man, when we moved our twins were 2 1/2 and I was nearly foaming with HIVES at the thought of showing our house while living there with them. BUT THEN. We found a house the day before we were set to list ours, and due to some really fucking awesome and lucky cosmic realtor magic, the guy who owned our current home was a realtor himself and offered to SWAP HOMES with us.

No shit, we didn’t do a single showing, and he bought our place sight unseen. We closed 2 1/2 weeks later, both on the sale of our old house and buying this one.

SO. Here I am, sending YOU some crazy awesome freaky realtor magic. Hope it works!

Sounds like a trip to BlogHer will do you good.

If you want to wash walls, the very best way is to use a sponge mop. You can make it look like you just repainted the room in 15-30 minutes.

Seeing as how you have kids, you will probably want to wash the walls.

hehe ….speak ‘n spell

good luck with the sell process! what listing service are you using?

I wish you much luck! Selling a house (and buying at the same time) is the single-most stressful thing I’ve ever done. Parenting included.

As for the keeping the house clean during showings… HA HA HA HA yes, good luck! (and I hope you don’t have to do it for long! We had to do it for 4 weeks and THAT WAS ENOUGH.)

HUGS!

Good luck! I lasted exactly 2 weeks living in a house we were trying to sell when I decided, fuck it! And we moved anyway without selling first. It was much easier to clean the house after we moved out and have it STAY clean with no one living there. The bad news is, the house never did sell, but we ended up renting it out, which seems to be working out, our hope is to have the renter pay our mortgage until the market is better, at which point we’ll sell and maybe make money on it instead of lose. Of course, we’re renting now ourselves, which kinda sucks, but, we’re in Oregon and love it. So, worth it :)

brain damaged shetland pony stamped it out on speak and spell: Utterly awesome!

I know your pain! I tried washing a spot off the living room wall where our wood stove is and ended up having to wash the entire room! Sucks.

I was away on vacation and must have missed the post…are you finally moving closer to work or closer to family?

Best of luck to you! Moving and selling are two of the hardest things any can do (aside from childbirth and stabbing unicorns). But it’ll be worth it in the end! I promise!

Don’t even start me on the wall thing! So true. Hope the headache wasn’t made worse by the cleaning products.

Wishing you the very best of luck with it – will be thinking of you all!

Oh God, the wall cleaning.
I had a 196 pound Neapolitan Mastiff and I was always cleaning drool off the walls, which left a huge clean spot. UGH.

Good Luck!

Buying a house, moving and then selling our old house was the suckiest thing ever. Worse than having 2 kids under 2.

Good luck! I hope you find some space for Linda-time soon.

Brain damaged Shetland pony! HA! When we were buying a house the worst picture I saw on MLS was of a blurry pit bull running at the camera in front of a dilapidated house. You def need some time to just “do you”.

I think there’s much to be said for the quality of the pictures themselves. When we listed our house (then subsequently took it off the market when the California housing market came crashing down) the realtor came by to take photos when just my husband was home with a friend. On our coffee table were two disposable, red, plastic cups. They left them there for the photo, so my MLS listing looked like someone had forgotten to finish cleaning up from a frat party.

My favorite quotes that have held me steady through some scary choices:

Following your dreams is not for the timid or faint of heart. Dreams cost money, sweat, frustration, tears, courage, choices, perserverance, love and extraordinary patience……Sometimes all at once; Acknowledge it and continue to move forward- your life is waiting for you….

That which you seek; is also looking for you. (Translation: You only have to be willing to go half way! Yippee!)

Supporting you Linda from afar. Congratulations on your newest adventure.

Go for a run tonight.

I should know better than to read your blog in a quite public space. The whole Shetland pony/Speak and Spell garnered me some interesting looks! Hope all goes well with the house! As cheesy and canned as this will sound, when you look back, it’ll be a blip on your radar.

Side note: I’ve hit backspace far too often because apparently I spell like said Shetland pony. Better check to see if this computer is made by Speak and Spell…

You are following your DREAMS! It’s awesome, it’s inspirational! And soon, this will all be behind you and you can proceed to the future!

Go You!

Do not judge my overuse of the exclamation mark…I’m hiding my envy.

There are lots of crazy MLS postings out there. Check out this blog: http://lovelylisting.com/ for some.

My favourites are the ones with the strange people lurking in them.

Best of luck!

Take aleve. It lasts longer.

“…it reads like a brain-damaged Shetland pony stamped it out on a Speak & Spell with its hoof.”

This made me almost spray Slushee all over my computer.

SPASHOUS MASTR STE W/BRT.NAT.LITE!! might save you some space but it reads like a brain-damaged Shetland pony stamped it out on a Speak & Spell with its hoof.

you KILL me. this? this is comedic genius.

The Shetland pony line had me rolling as well.

As for your photos, those things are fantastic-pirate flag and all! (Then again, I have a four-year-old, too. So, uh, I’d probably be thinking that room was just calling out for him.)

I’m sorry I giggled at your wall-cleaning-spiral ;)

Good luck! I’ll be over here in the corner laughing until I cry at “it reads like a brain-damaged Shetland pony stamped it out on a Speak & Spell with its hoof”.

I can’t figure out why people can’t clean off their kitchen counters for real estate pics – a new pet peeve. But there is one MLS here where the person patently took the pictures while hosting a large barbeque – all these surprised looking people in the common rooms. So weird.

We moved when my youngest was 2 years old and my older three were between 12 and 7. My best advice is to keep a laundry basket by the door and when they call for a last minute showing you can grab all the toys and miscellaneous crap laying around and put in the back of your car as you leave.

Remember to have fun! This won’t last long and soon you’ll be in that beautiful house!

I can’t decide which made me laugh harder — the pony with the speak and spell or the blurry pitbull picture. Oh my hell. Either way, good luck with the house! I wish I could loan you our realtor, for lo, she is awesome. (But alas, not licensed in Washington)

“it reads like a brain-damaged Shetland pony stamped it out on a Speak & Spell with its hoof.”

This just made me snort-laugh.

I think its fabulous that you are taking steps to be closer to your dream. Yes, it is scary. Yes, it is hard work. But it will be soooo worth it in the end. Good luck.
and I have no suggestions for how to keep a house clean for weeks on end with a dog and small children. I have trouble keeping my dishes done!

Nine-day Headache….Stress Im guessing, but be wary & take care of yourself!!!

Wait, you took down the pirate flag?

That was my favorite part! No crow’s nest, no plank and now no pirate flag? How can you possibly hope to appeal to the Seafair Pirate market now??

I LOVE your house, it’s absolutely beautiful. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me what you did to get that stainless frigde to shine like that and not have one single smudge. I use lots of “elbow grease”, but still doesn’t work (though you have much stronger elbows than I do!). Any special product or technique?

I am totally addicted to that show ‘Sell This House’ – and your place looks just as good as anything they have on that show – minus the uplights.

Good Job

I know you’re really stressed – but seriously – a Shetland pony and a speak n spell? One of the funniest freakin’ things I’ve ever read.

DO NOT paint that ceiling! What we’re they thinking? It’s gorgeous.

I feel your pain on the wall-cleaning. I just gave up on the cleaning and painted the whole freaking thing (we had leftover paint, so it matched).

Even though keeping the house in show condition IS a complete pain in the tuchis, I found it was somewhat easier than I had anticipated after we did a major “declutter” of all the surfaces, drawers, and closets in our house (we rented a storage space for the duration). For some reason, clutter tends to attract clutter, building more clutter, and, well, you get the picture.

Good luck!!!!

Oh god, that Shetline pony line? THE. BEST. EVER. Thank you for the much needed laugh (been dealing with a shitload of stress myself). I wish you and your family the best of luck in selling the house but I have a good feeling things will work out in your favor.

I hear you on the continuous headache. My sinuses have only just stopped yelling at me after 3 weeks of sudafed, claritin, and neti pot. Hang in there!

too funny….I was checking out the listing for Dennis Hopper’s house, (because I have 6.5 mil to blow and was thinking of picking it up) and one of the pictures has some pillows on the floor and there is a big rip in one with this bright pink lining hanging out. Really?? For 6.5 mil someone didn’t notice that???

Again with the being inspiring stuff. You are working towards your dreams. Keep on!

Speak and Spell – hahahaha

As an avid reader for such a long time, I enjoyed seeing your family photos and I just absolutely loved how your house looked like. In my head I saw Riley and Dylan growing up in that house, hanging in the kitchen as teens and eating waffles while you still posted pictures for us.
Sad to see you guys putting the house for sale, but I am sure whatever your reasons are, they are well thought out and whatever your new path is – you guys will make it on top and be very happy.
All the best and hopefully you get the price you’re asking for!

We’ve had our house on the market for about 2 months now, and my sons are almost 5 and 1. (My oldest is about a week younger than Riley.) I thought it was going to be a nightmare to keep the house ready for showings, but once we got it ready, keeping it that way has been pretty easy. We now stay about 15 minutes away from clean even in the midst of playing, and it’s do-able. We just can’t have a day where we feel lazy and don’t pick up before bed.

Keep your chin up. It IS possible, and you CAN do it.

To Miss Virginia: Try the stainless steel cleaning wipes. They get my appliances completely spotless and shiny. Every time I use them, I’m shocked by how incredibly clean they get everything.

We just sold our house and bought a new one in the Detroit metro area. So, if we could do it here, in the recession ground freaking zero, you can do it too. Try not to take pricing and viewing feedback personally. The market has changed and house values are down. We had to remember that although we were taking it up the ass on the house we were selling, we were going to be making it up on the house we were buying. And we did. We wrote a huge check to sell our house, but got an amazing new house in a fantastic neighborhood with great schools for a great price.

Yo, anyone ever hear about that electrician in Tribeca called New York Electrician, 94 Chambers St, New York, NY 10007 (646) 415-6723