Caution: It’s A Doozey!

As you all may have heard (or previously read), Chris and I are planning on putting our house on the market sometime in the next week. So we met with our realtor last week to go over specifics- why we were selling, how much, where we were looking to buy, etc. Afterwards, the realtor did a walk through to give us some ideas on making the house “show” ready. He mentioned that for the most part the house looked very well taken care of and that he noticed a lot of upgrades. He also said we were in a great area-high demand- and that we should have no problem selling. He did however ask if we had considered replacing the flooring (carpet and linoleum). He said he could definitely tell there was a lot of wearing on the floors. Chris and I had discussed this very subject a few weeks before hand and had decided that we were not going to go that route. We wanted to basically sell the house as is and give a carpet allowance. The realtor said whatever we chose to do was fine with him-BUT- said that if we did decide to get new floors it would definitely help sell the house. He put it like this. “When a potential home buyer walks into a house and finds something wrong, or something that he may have to possibly replace, he then starts picking the house apart by all the things he may have to do. Whereas the fewer things he can find wrong with the house, the better chance you have to sell.” To be honest, we felt very discouraged. We had just managed to get ourselves out of debt and are so proud of ourselves. Who wants to go into debt for a house we are selling? Not me! But after a long discussion, we decided that maybe replacing the floors was our best option. We’ve been wanting to redo the floors before we even talked about moving, so we thought, even if the house doesn’t sell right away, we’re the ones that get to enjoy the new floors. Plus it gives us a “one up” on the buyer, because then they wouldn’t get a carpet allowance-which means more money goes into our pocket when it does sell. And also, if and when the house sells, we could use a little bit of the profit to pay off the carpet. So it seemed like it was a practical and efficient expense. We picked out darker carpet and linoleum, hoping the colors would hide dirt and animal hair, better than what we had. We did have white carpet and white linoleum (yes I said white- but none of you would have guessed that-seeing that it had been worn down to a dingy dirty brown…but only in certain spots.) It was a nightmare! I could mop and vacuum every 5 minutes and it still showed every little grain of dirt. Anyways, after picking out what we wanted, we decided that the sooner we got it installed, the sooner we could get our house up for sale…little did we know what we were getting into…… Friday, March 19- Chris and his brothers Brian, and Jerad moved all of our furniture into the basement and the garage. Then they proceeded to pulled up all the carpet from the upstairs (We don’t have any carpet downstairs, except for a coat closet). It didn’t take very long, and if you ask me they looked like they really enjoyed cutting the carpet with their knives and box cutters. All the while, I was hunched over pulling out each individual staple that the carpet left on the floor. The amount of dirt under the carpet was mind blowing and disgusting! That night, the boys started pulling up the linoleum. (we were told you could lay linoleum twice but after that you have to pull it up and start over- turns out, we already had two layers in our bathrooms and kitchen, so we had to pull it up). Ugh! This is before the carpet and linoleum was ripped up.... our dirty, dirty stairs...Yuck! Saturday, March 20- All the carpet is up. I taped off the base boards (except for the ones in our kitchen bathroom and laundry room- we had to pull those ones off)and the French doors and started to give them a fresh coat of white paint. The boys are still scraping the linoleum in the kitchen and getting nowhere fast! Sunday, March 21-The baseboards are painted. I start to pull off the tape only to find out that the paint leaked through the tape. Darn it! Now whatever the furniture doesn’t cover, I have to go around and fix. Let me tell you, of all the things I HATE, HATE, HATE doing… it’s dusting and painting!!! Moving on. The boys are STILL scraping the linoleum in the kitchen. My father in law comes over mid day to see the progress we’re making…which with the linoleum was none. Chris and Dad decide to pull up the whole sub flooring and replace it instead of scraping. And they’re off to home depot for the 7th time in 2 days. (yes they know Chris by name now). They come home with a saw that will cut around the cabinets and within a couple hours they have all the sub flooring from the kitchen, and bathrooms pulled up. Finally! The old linoleum is gone. Monday, March 22- I go to work. Chris and Dad stay at home to lay the new sub flooring down. I come home from work and they are still working-bless their hearts! They miraculously finish right before midnight. (I say “miraculously”, bc the new carpet and linoleum was scheduled to be laid Tuesday morning.) And we celebrated. Tuesday, March 23- The carpet guys come and lay everything down. It looks GORGEOUS! They get ready to leave and Chris and I decide we wanted a section of carpet pulled up in front of the french doors and replace it with linoleum. (this will help when the dogs come in from outside). They are coming back on Friday to redo that little piece, for a small fee of course. So that’s where we are at now. We are just trying to get our house back in order. It’s very hard though because all the doors need a new coat of paint and we still have to put up the new base boards in the kitchen and bathrooms. We are so happy with our new purchase! It made all the work and hassel SOOO worth it. We might just have to stay where we are for a little bit…. (sorry it was so long)