Category: Selling a House

How we sold our house by owner.

Selling To Do List

Published on by Our Humble Abode9 Comments

Over the last week, we’ve been furiously tackling projects because our house is up for sale.  Most of the projects are small, like touch up paint, adding a few pieces of trim, and swapping out items we want to take with us to the new house. Two bigger projects lingered.  In addition to painting the living room, we had to sand, prime, and paint the kitchen ceiling.  Yes, six months of procrastinating later, we finally got ‘er done.  Actually, Ben did with a little help from his friends Orbital Sander and Shop Vac.  See, he had the genius idea to duct tape the hose of the vacuüm to the sander dust output thing.

The result?  A nearly dust-less, quick, and smoothly sanded ceiling.  A little primer and more paint and our kitchen is officially done.  {Wrap up and budget post to come in the near future}  Just in time to sell.  Ha.

In other kitchen news, I swapped out the bubble glass knobs for plain Jane brushed nickel knobs.  Ben saw me mid-knob change and asked what I was doing.  I explained I planned  to use the knobs somewhere in the new house because similar knobs aren’t easy to come by.  He shook his head while explaining I was a crazy person.

He may be right.  I may be crazy.  At least I’ll be crazy with pretty knobs.  Oh, Ben also used his ingenious sanding solution on the counters.  Then we applied another coat of Teak Oil.  It might not seem obvious in pictures, but in person, these babies shine.

Another project we’ve procrastinated on is trimming out the laundry shelves.  Well, not anymore.  Not sure if I’ll have a chance to prime and paint, but it’s a step in the right direction.

And we finally bought closet doors for the small basement bedroom.  We’re waiting for the paint to cure before install, but we’re getting there.

I also spent a little time taking down more art work.  Everything in the stair gallery wall.

And most of the art on the ledge in the small basement bedroom.

Other miscellaneous touch up paint throughout the house and swapping out my home-made light fixtures in the bedrooms and my office has happened, too.  We’re hoping the weekend weather cooperates so we can finish up a little exterior soffit and fascia work and maybe some fencing.  Not the mask wearing sport kind either.

Yep, we’re getting there.  Bring on the showings!

Have you tackled any of your lingering projects recently?  What made you get your butt in gear?

{Silver} Dropping In

Published on by Our Humble Abode24 Comments

Since we finished the sheet rock work in the kitchen, we’ve needed to paint the living room.  I procrastinated because I don’t like painting and once I started on the living room, I’d need to carry the color down the hall.  On Thursday, I picked out a paint color, Silver Drop by Behr (color matched to Glidden) and got started.  Nothing like selling a house to get your butt in gear, right?

I started by taking the pictures down and repainting the trim, just to cover any areas where the original tan color may have seeped under.

I filled about 50 nail holes at the same time.

Using Frog Tape, I taped off all the trim.  There goes a whole roll.

The boys decided to make a fort out of the rearranged furniture.

Then I started rolling.  And rolled, and rolled, and rolled.  And that’s when I remembered why I usually make Ben roll.

After doing paint related work all day, I finally finished just as Ben was getting home.  When I asked him to start peeling tape he didn’t understand.  I told him I had just finished the second coat.  He was amazed I had done it alone.

It’s lighter than I would usually go with, but I thought it might be better for resale.

The hall feels so much brighter.

I’m not going to bother hanging pictures before we move.  It’s not worth the effort.  So I’ll stare at blank walls for the next month or so.  It already feels strangely sterile.

You’ve seen our most recent painting adventure.  What is your favorite gray color?  Do you prefer light or dark colors?

This Little House Went to Market

Published on by Our Humble Abode39 Comments

Went to market implies we’ve sold our house.  Technically, this little house is on the market.

That’s right, we’re selling our humble abode.  Today is the first day it’s up as a for sale by owner.  I literally put the sign out and finished listing info an hour ago.  We’ll write another post with more house selling details once we cross that bridge.  Sadly, we won’t have any house hunting to share, but I’ll explain that in a minute.

I’m sure some of you are thinking we’re crazy, but let me explain.  Now that we’ve wrapped up the kitchen remodel, our house is nearly done.  Sure we’ve got little projects we could tackle, like the steam shower Ben dreamed about, the concrete patio we planned to do last year, and minor exterior projects.  But we’re already close to the top of what our neighborhood can handle.  But we didn’t start thinking about any of this too seriously until recently.

This whole situation is very serendipitous.  About a month ago, Ben showed Handy Sammy a piece of land he lusted after several years ago and had already mentally constructed his dream house on.  Three years ago, we weren’t in a financial position to buy that chunk of land.  While driving home, Ben and Handy Sammy saw a run down house for sale on the same street.  Ben gave me the address and I looked it up online.  The price was out of our budget and the pictures weren’t very good, but we were intrigued.  For a week, we talked about this house; what the layout might be, level of finishes, and if it had views.

If you follow us on Facebook, you might remember this post about online houses.

Well, that post was in reference to this house.

Ben decided he needed to see it with his own eyes.  He called the listing agent who said we couldn’t see the house until it had been cleaned.  So we waited.  And got impatient.  Ben talked the agent into letting us see the house.  It was full of potential, but maybe too much potential.  It needed a lot of work like a new roof, siding, windows and doors, the pool room had to be completely updated, plus all of the interior stuff we’ve done to our house.  At the list price, we couldn’t afford to make the changes we like.

True to form, Ben started calling local companies to get quotes for shingles, siding, windows, and the pool.  It turns out, it wasn’t as expensive as Ben originally thought.  Armed with new information, on February 21, we made a low offer on the house.  The next day, we received a counter offer.  We thought it was too high and pulled out of the running.

Then we had a real estate agent over to perform a CMA on our house.  She thought our house could sell very close to the counter offer we received.  Which switched us into over drive on our potential new house.  We accepted their counter offer, signing papers on Friday.  Assuming all goes according to plan, we’ll close on the new house sometime in April.   So excited to share pictures once it’s officially ours.

Over the weekend, Ben and I have diligently worked to make our to do list shorter.  We also did a few projects to get the house ready to sell.  More details on that later this week.

Most likely, there will be some overlap of ownership of the two houses, so wish us luck to get this one sold quickly!

This whole process has gone quickly, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t consider the pros and cons.  Yes, we just finished this house.  Yes, we have plenty of space here.  But we’re reaching the limit on this house.  And, the new house has everything this one does and more.  The neighborhood can also accommodate the upgrades we’re planning.  Bottom line, it was a house and a deal too good for us to pass up.  We still love this house and it will always be our first love.  It will be a sad goodbye, but we’re excited at the prospect of a new project home.  As Ben likes to say, we’re leaving this home on the top floor and entering the new home in the basement level.

That’s what we’ve been up to this weekend.  What did you do?