Here's another installment of a series of posts by my friend and coworker, Faith Greenwell, called: Tales of a Veteran Home Buyer. This week she talked about having to start the big to-do list that goes along with listing your home.
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Posted By: Faith Greenwell, U.S. Inspect Blog
Once my husband and I made the decision to sell our house, we knew we had our work cut out for us. Our first step was to create a list so we would know exactly what needed to be done and a cost estimate for our tasks... We walked through our home, room-by-room, around the exterior, through the basement and storage rooms. We wrote down items that needed repair, areas that needed to be painted and touched up, something that needed cleaning, and some that needed to be upgraded.
The first item on our list definitely took priority over everything else. We had a raised shingle, creating a leaky roof which caused some minor drywall and ceiling damage. Trying to find a roofer (who didn’t want to charge an arm and a leg) and even a handyman to fix one shingle on a high pitched roof proved to be challenging. Gratefully, my nephew, a jack-of-all-trades with a handyman business, gave us the best bid to repair the ceiling and paint the master bedroom. A roofer he used on other jobs did the crab walk up the roof and fixed the shingle. The ceiling was patched, and our bedroom was painted the most beautiful color of blue. (This pretty shade of blue, by the way, is from a new Lowes’ Seaside Collection and is a combination of Porch Swing and Dusty Spruce.) I’ve wanted to paint our master for quite a long time, so a weird part of me was glad the leak happened in my room. I know, I know. Everything should be “neutral” colors when selling a house, but the color really makes me happy, is very soothing and reminds me of the ocean. I hope a potential buyer is a beach bum like me!
The second big job was staining the two-level deck. Let me say right here that my next house will not have a deck that needs staining. It will, however, have a covered back porch on a piece of slab. Taking care of a deck is just plain hard, boring work. And, the thing is, we never use it. We purchased the stain, again at Lowes, and hired our 17 year old neighbor to stain it. He’s done a great job and it should be finished this week.
Whew! That’s enough for now. I have to quit blogging and go take a look at that list to see what’s next. Stay tuned; we have plenty more to do.
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