Designed To Sell, Part Two

The boys were gone and now it was time to finish up the painting, cleaning, packing and staging. The snow kept falling and Sarah and I kept working. And Jo, well Jo, was just Jo.

Here is the basement before its transformation. I think she had kept every box that had ever come into her house. As my not that much younger sister is fond of saying, "Wow".




We decided to leave the color on the basement walls mainly because of time constraints. We did have Dave and Cory replace all of the outlets and covers since the previous painter had decided to paint over them rather than doing the job right. It was amazing what a difference this little change made to the overall look of the room.

The boxes were gone and we staged it as a workout room. By the time we were done Sarah was wondering why she hadn't done this makeover earlier. Me too. It looks great.




Here is a peek at her laundry room after its fresh coat of paint.




The kitchen before.




In fairness to Sarah it usually didn't look this bad. Things were all over because of the packing and moving that was going on that day.

Luckily we had done some work in the kitchen a couple of years ago. The cabinets which had been light blue were now white and also sported some new knobs. All we had to do was clean and stage.







Here is a peek at her newly staged living room.




Sarah and I had painted her bedroom yellow a couple of years ago so there really wasn't much to do in here. Just pretty it up.







I love this lamp. Target, of course.




We repainted her second bedroom. Sarah didn't want to see the orange wall painted over but it had to go. Sorry, Sarah. We can paint another orange wall in your next house. We did keep the pillows. I love those pillows. Target, of course.







A little peek of her bathroom.




Of all of the staging ideas we had I think this was the best one we had. Just lovely.




It was a lot of work crammed into one week but the final result was well worth it. It looks so nice. I hope there is a buyer out there that agrees with me.

Thanks, Sarah, for letting me move your things all over the place. It was fun and I hope you enjoyed the end result.

Designed To Sell, Part One

As many of you know, after all of the Christmas festivities in the middle of the Mitten (blog postings to come) Dave and I headed to the cold, snowy wrist of St Joe to help Sarah move. Crazy girl decided that Christmas time was the perfect time to move halfway across the country. Who raised that girl? Her dad was staying on for a couple of days and I was staying on for the better part of a week. He had won the coin flip.

We had two items on our agenda. One, get her condo ready to sell. Second, pack up most of her stuff in a U-Haul so Cory could drive it over to Philadelphia.

Everybody got in on the act.

Some caulked,




some wound cords,




some painted,




some farmed,




and some, well, some just tried to look busy.




All in all things went really well. Things went so well that we decided to celebrate New Year's Day by packing the trailer. Even though there was a lot of packing and moving of boxes that day we still found time for football,




hockey,




and, of course, farming.

While we were busy, Mother Nature was busy too.

By the end of the day we were making paths with shovels,




with feet,




and with fully loaded trailers.




We had backed the U-Haul in the garage which made for a handy staging and loading area. After the trailer was loaded Cory parked the truck in the parking lot and Sarah brought her car back in the garage. That could only mean one thing. Her father's work still wasn't done.




And neither was mine. Cory and Dave left the next day and I stayed on to finish up the painting, cleaning, packing and staging.

to be continued.....