Jul
28
Thank you, thank you for all the suggestions and comments on the house-staging photos. Lots of stuff I hadn’t even noticed, like the deadly pirate flag in Riley’s room. (I retook that one.)
It’s hard not to get hung up on the idea of improving every single potential issue, but I’ve been reminding myself that 1) this stuff is subjective, and 2) our photos already look better than 90% of the crap on the MLS in our area. I’m not saying our house does, I’m saying people are posting some ugly-ass photos. Much of the actual listing info is poorly written, too, which kind of blows my mind. You’ve got, what, 500 characters to sell the shit out of your house? Lose the jargon and turn on spellcheck, at the very least. 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.
JB spent his entire evening painting trim last night and I got myself into some spiraling situation where I washed off a dirty spot on a wall only to discover I’d made a huge clean spot and now I had to wash the whole wall oh my fucking hell, while all the while the children ran around us like tiny savages, hooting and beating their chests and knocking over cleaning supplies.
I’ve had the exact same headache for 9 days now and I haven’t had any time to exercise and dudes, I’m ready for a break. I think the hard part is still to come, though. Here goes everything.
Jul
27
Yesterday I borrowed a Canon 5D with a wide-angle lens (and briefly considered faking my own death so I’d never have to give it back) and took the MLS photos for our house. It was a sweaty and near-impossible task, trying to keep surfaces clean and child-free for long enough to snap the photo, and I am officially in a state of anticipatory despair over the idea of keeping the house in show-ready condition with two small kids in the house and a husband who apparently believes all cereal bowls and shoes are continually sucked into another dimension by invisible dimension-sucking fairies and a dog who sheds giant haybales of fur every five minutes and the toys and the dirt and the mess, oh god.
Here’s what the pictures look like:
(I’m not sure about using this photo. On the one hand, I should show more than one bedroom, right? On the other, it’s nearly impossible to photograph well and is so Kid-Decorated which might be a turnoff.)
If you have any thoughts on house staging, I’d love to hear them. I’ve de-cluttered the closets and cleaned our windows and we’re about to touch up some trim and remove 90% of our family photos, what else should I be thinking of? Oh and also, hey, just how the shit am I going to manage this whole thing without losing my mind?
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