Getting the House Ready to Sell

It actually made me feel a little bad when I typed in the title for this BLOG. I've been here since 1983 when this place was in much worse shape than it is now. We had a chain link fence around the front yard and a metal shed and some lawn in the back. The previous owner had added on and created a really nice master bedroom suite including a sliding aluminum door that went out to a hot tub that he came back and got a few months after we moved in. Unfortunately he chose to put in a basement rather than a second story and the basement flooded several time every winter for a combination of reasons.

The walls were a hodge podge of patched drywall and the floors all had wall to wall shag carpet. But it was our house and we had four sons. We had rented a couple of homes and we tended to fix them up. When the landlords saw how nice we made them, they couldn't resist the temptation to sell them.

Twenty-five years later, we have replaced the chain link with a nice wooden fence that everyone loves. The floors were hardwood and when we took out the carpet and had the floors redone and extended into the master suite, the results were very encouraging. We added crown mouldings in several rooms, unique but tasteful paint colors, and redid most of the base board mouldings.

The kitchen has been remodeled and is now admired by everyone who sees it including mom and me whenever I pause to look at it which is often.

We finally solved the flooding problem by tastefully adding concrete and bricks to cover the back yard, drains were built in to carry rain to the front and rain gutters were installed for the same purpose. It has worked beautifully The basement has been dry for over five years now. This last winter was a very wet one and it held up fine.

The master suite now has a french door assembly that opens to the back patio. It's all so nice now.

But the costs were extensive. we re-financed and the ARM is going to go up in September. So rather than re-finance again, we have decided to try to sell. We have friends and interests in the eastern United States and we believe we'll try that for awhile. Despite the mortgage, we can sell this place and have enough to pay cash for a nice home in many places and the thought of entering retirement with no home loan is irresistible.

So we are fixing up some loose ends.



The living room has been torn up so the shelves and walls can be repainted.



We replaced the crown moulding in the living room, entry and front hall.

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin and Adam came home and completed a couple of really helpful projects for us.






Perhaps enough time has gone by so that these pictures will evoke fond memories. There were challenges, especially with the water heater. I really hadn't planned to replace the water heater but it had been acting up and late on Saturday afternoon, it went kaput for good.

I asked Adam to hook up a hose and drain it while went to get a new one. Shortly after I left, the #!&X* water heater began behaving even worse. Poor Adam did everything I would have done and I'm sure I wouldn't have had any different result, but it wouldn't drain through the hose. It WOULD, however leak all over the floor and tried to do that. Kevin, who had been at Lagune for a couple of hours with Dillan, arrived and he couldn't make it stop leaking either. I hurried home based on several panicked calls from mom and I couldn't stop it either. Between the three of us, we got it out of the house with most of the water still in it. An additional complication was that despite getting the tall and slender model water heater, it was still slightly too wide to get out through the water heater closet door unless we removed a strip of door moulding.

Anyway, we got it done and installing the new one went smoothely.

I've also redone the closets in the front hallway. One used to house the old furnace, and the other was just a mess because we had never done anything to improve it.




Today, I have been painting our closet. It seems to be turning out pretty well too.


And I also re-did the central hallway including adding mouldings and new hardware to the cupboard doors and I replaced the floor under the washer and dryer.




Jake has come over from time to time and been a help as well.

Well, tomorrow is Easter and mom and I and Jake and Meredith will be entertained at Karen Merrill's apartment in Pasadena. She had compassion on our disheveled state. That should be a pleasant break. I want to wrap up the remodeling such as it is for a few days on Monday, because Tuesday is arthroscopic surgery day on my left knee. I will take a few days off from all of my labors and I want to do it in a nice stress-free environment.