My house smells like flowers

 

It was summertime 1986.  My children were young at the time and we often had neighbor kids over for play dates.  One of the big attractions at our house was cooking together.  We made soups, cookies, shish ka bobs and home made bread.  It's an unusual play date scenario, I know, but that is what the kids did at our house.  My house was cooking central and I loved it.

 

One beautiful afternoon, I was at a shopping mall when, unknown to me, a neighbor parked her car in the same parking lot and walked toward the mall entrance with her four year old daughter.  All of a sudden, the child stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the parking lot and said, "Mommy, it smells like Elise's house right here!".    They looked around and saw that they were standing just past my car.  All my neighbors thought the scenario was crazily unlikely and the girl was immediately pronounced psychic.  I, on the other hand, was horrified.  How could my car smell so much like my house that a four year old could identify it out without even seeing it?  Not to mention that the car was parked in open air on a sunny June day!  What did my house smell like, anyway?

 

The kitchen stove's exhaust vent discharged into the garage in that house, so it made sense that the garage, and everything in it, smelled just like whatever was cooking.  And there was ALWAYS something cooking.  It turns out; my house smelled like garlic; yeasty, sweet bread dough and salty, smoky bacon.  Yum.  I love the fragrances of rich, strong foods.  It is like my signature.

 

Our signatures on the things we own mark them as ours.  When our homes are personalized we feel comfortable and when we graciously invite our friends and family into our signature place they feel cared for and welcome.  Since all that feel good atmosphere makes for a beautiful home, it's a shock to find that the personalized home is not the house that easily sells.

 

When you sell your home, the challenge is to make it iresitable to the buyer with undeniable warmth, impeccible housekeeping and white glove cleanliness.  All this while removing your personal signature from the home's presentation.  Before listing your house, provide yourself a quiet time to walk through each room to savor the memories.  Make the decision to detach your emotional connection with the place that has held your life for the past few years.  This exercise will free you to stage your house effectively for sale and even help to justify removing some of those family photos from the walls.  The classic cinema scene is one where the family is bundled into the sedan to follow the moving van away from the family home.  The wife wistfully stares back at the empty house and blicks away a tear.  This emotional inevitability better serves you when you first decide to put your home on the market.  Detach.  Then put your house on the market.  Are you really ready to allow the next person to build their set of memories in what used to be your space?

 

The next step is to ask a trusted friend to tell you the truth about the condition of your house.  Where is the paint dingy?  Does it smell like dirty laundry, Fido's dog bed, Fluffy's litter box or (gulp!) strong cooking odors?  Is there too much clutter in the closets or basement?  If you just can't handle the frank observations of a friend, there are professional house stagers for hire and books in the library that will help you.

 

Selling a home is a practical matter and like all practical matters it can be mred and delayed by pychological components.  Staging your house includes forcing the buyer to attend to the features of the home, not the details of your personal life.  Buyers are distracted by big friendly dogs, noticable smells and family photos.  Clear your home of the items that will focus a buyer's attention on anything but how easily they can plug their future into your house.

 

A real life house is not the same as an "on the market" house.  If your house is going to be sold soon, create the mindset that your home is a nest you are preparing for someone else.  Your life will continue to unfold in your next house, so pack up this place's clutter, clean like crazy and steel yourself to accept and even appreciate the honest comments of people who will help you stage your home for sale.  Do you, like me, love fried fish dinners with garlic bread and hot shredded cabage?  THAT will have to be a meal you serve in your next house!  Make your house smell like flowers.

Originally printed in McHenry County Woman Magazine