Are You Bored?
Ok, I’m bored. And in my boredom, I wanted to do something fun, but be able to ‘see’ my results. So what did I do? I decided to clean and declutter my house. And right now our homes need to be cleaned to help keep the virus away right? So how about cleaning like you are selling your home? Sounds like fun right? I know, I have a twisted sense of fun.
I am obsessed with looking at homes for sale. Especially when they have big beautiful barns. But every time I find a home I like, it is either way out of my price range of affordability, or it has a lot of work that would need to be done to make it what we want it to be.
I found A Cool Home
For example, I got this home sent to my inbox:
And the price is within our budget, it has almost 11 acres of land, 2 barns, and is actually closer to work.
It’s also a ranch floor plan with a basement and has main level laundry room, which is really cool.
It has two barns, which is amazing.
And did I mention the 10 acres of land? That is beyond awesome, along with the price tag. This is an excellent deal for our area.
There is also no HOA. So we could do whatever we wanted, we could have goats, pigs, or even a cow. Which would be really awesome.
The Downside
But, there are a few things that the home doesn’t have. Such as no central air. I really like my air conditioning. No wood stove, I waited over 10 years to get a wood stove put in.
And there isn’t a coat closet by the front door.
The kitchen isn’t the stuff that dreams are made of. If this were my kitchen I would be painting the cabinets white, adding some crown molding to the top of the cabinets and replacing the floor. As well as a few other things, but I think you get the idea.
Cleaning Like You Are Selling Your Home
The ceiling seems low, and it feels really boxy. And that’s something a coat of paint can’t really change. But maybe adding some crown molding, a wood stove and wood floors would be an improvement.
No wood floors, and the windows, well the windows aren’t the windows we have. We have Renewal by Anderson windows, and I love them.
The backyard isn’t fenced, and there is no pond, or trees like we have right now. I can’t get over the lack of trees. I love the trees on our property. You can’t add 20 foot trees very affordably.
There is only one picture of a bathroom, and it looks really small. And blue. I’m not a fan of blue walls with oak. As well as the dated glass shower doors. Those would definitely need to go.
So this house is close, but not close enough to make me want to put an offer on it. Nor is it a home I can picture myself living in for the rest of my life, but it’s close.
And finally, with the price tag of $538,000, I am sure it will go fast. Believe it or not, that’s a really good price for a property of this size where we live. And we don’t have $6,000 in earnest money to put down on it at the moment
Planning For the Future
But that got me thinking. What if our dream home did become available? Would we be ready to jump on it? At this moment, no, we wouldn’t. But I have time right now, so why not clean like we were going to list our home for sale tomorrow? And while I’m at it, why not take pictures along the way?
Motivation to Clean
Not only does that motivate me to really clean my home, but it also shows me how awesome our property really is. And it reaffirms the fact that we don’t really need to go anywhere. Because I already have almost everything we need here.
It also helps me to practice some real estate photography.
I love playing with my camera and editing software to make a really cool presentation of marketing a home for sale. I like to dabble.
Cleaning Out the Clutter
Cleaning and decluttering is fun. Maybe not so much during the process, but afterward, it’s awesome. And let’s face it, we all have clutter. Well, maybe no everyone. But I would venture to guess 99% of us have cluttered homes.
And by taking extra time to declutter as you clean will make each room more enjoyable.
Staging Each Room – Sort Of
And while your cleaning, you can stage the room to show it’s purpose. If you have a bedroom (like we do) that is a clutter catch all, why not get it in shape for what it’s meant to be?
This is a bedroom. It was my daughter’s bedroom.
But now it’s a catch all room that we close the door too.
But after a little bit of cleaning, and getting rid of the clutter, it’s a bedroom again.
And setting up little mementos from her graduation, and recent wedding make my heart happy. And they make cool staging props too.
Cleaning the Living Areas
Not that we get a lot of visitors, but I want to keep the main area of our home extra clean, just in case. And this is where the clutter REALLY happens fast. Because this is where we do most of the living in our home.
So staying ahead of the clutter is important, especially on the main level of our home.
And stepping that up by making sure all of the windows are clean, inside and out helps to bring in a little more light.
Extra Time on the Outside
And because I am ‘acting’ like we are getting ready to sell our home (we’re not) I can’t forget the outside spaces.
So first things first, getting rid of the clutter. It’s funny how the outside can get just as cluttered as the inside. Mowing the grass, filling the flower beds with pretty flowers, and just tidying up.
I even spent a little extra time outside and made my barn’s matchy matchy by painting the little red barn, and making it match the horse barn. No more little red barn!
And that pretty much took up about 3 very long days to really clean and declutter everything.
Taking Photos and Editing
And while I was cleaning, I was taking pictures, as you can tell by this blog post.
I just used my iPhone because I can actually get wider shots with my phone than I can with the lenses I have for my camera. But I also have Lightroom Mobile, so I can edit photos on my phone.
Cool right?
Cleaning Like You Are Selling Your Home
And after I pick out my favorite photos, then I put them together as if I were creating an MLS listing of our home. For me, this is just fun! It also shows me how awesome our home really is, and I have the pictures to prove it to myself.
If My House Were For Sale Right Now
So if we were to put our house up for sale right now, the MLS would looks something like this:
Ok, it’s still really cluttered. And if we were to list our home for sale, we would have LOTS of decluttering to do. I get that. But not only did I motivate myself to clean my entire home, inside and out, but I also got some practice taking pictures, like a real estate photographer would do. Now I know this isn’t anywhere ‘staged’ like a home would be when it’s for sale. But let’s face it, you live in a home differently then when it’s staged for sale.
I also did not have time to think about being bored. It took a lot of time to clean everything. And I mean really clean. I think before I decide to do any more shopping, I should make myself clean the entire house first to realize I don’t need anything else! It also made me really appreciate the real art of real estate photography. I am no where even close to being able to take photos like a pro. But it was a lot of fun.
Cleaning Like You Are Selling Your Home
But having a nice clean home makes me happy. And it may not be perfect, but it’s perfectly home for me. I did something a little similar last year when I did a summertime home tour. But I think this one is better! I think this must be the time of year when I get my big time cleaning done. It seems I have created a habit!
Oh, and as a side note, the house that I showed in the beginning of this blog post…..well it’s already under contract. Crazy right?
I knew it wouldn’t last for long. But if the day comes that if we do find a replacement home, our everything we want home, hopefully getting this home for sale would be a little bit easier! But after doing all of this cleaning, and reorganizing, I really do love my home. It has just about everything I could ever need, and want. (Except I really want an indoor arena.) So my boredom buster really helped me to see what I have, and be grateful for it too!
