The adventures of home staging

So you haven't heard from me in about 2 1/2 months but I promise I have a really a good reason.  Charlie and I decided to put our house on the market.  Have you ever tried to sell a house before?  As a true HGTV junkie I consider myself an amateur professional stager (yes I realize that is an paradox but I still choose to use it) so I went into this whole ordeal with great aspirations!

We began with a VERY long list of "to do's" and knew from the beginning that we would need to hire some outside help.  We found one guy on craigslist which scared me just a little. You hear so many horror stories about people being ripped off through craigslist plus this guy was pretty rough around the edges.  During our first conversation he apologized for not being able to hear me too well but his "bird just wouldn't shut up" because "she likes to talk whenever I'm on the phone."  Randy was his name.  Randy ended up being quite the perfectionist and charged an amazingly reasonable rate although he did show up on Sunday slightly hungover and in a hurry to get home by 2:00pm for the NASCAR race.  Randy worked in our house for 2 1/2 days and charged just $200.  Would I invite Randy to join us for a family get together?  Absolutely not.  Would I hire Randy to paint another room in my house?  Without a doubt.

Then there is Bobby.  He has his own business and makes GREAT money.  He worked in our house for five full days and made $1500.00. Now Bobby's schedule stays pretty full so imagine that he makes at least that much each week.  Bobby must make about $6000.00 a month.  This just confirms it.  If I ever remarry, a prerequisite will definitely be that he must know how to fix things.  Would I invite Bobby to join us for a family get together?  Without a doubt.  Would I hire Bobby to paint another room in my house?  No...I will call Randy!

So while working full time and being essentially a single mom half of each month I somehow managed to get it all together.  My husband was a little help but...bless his heart.  I now refer to him as the Amelia Bedelia of men.  He tries to fix things; he really does but somehow he ALWAYS finds a way to make it worse.  I kept leaving task for him that would involve no power tools or innovation of any kind.  For some reason he chose to ignore my list and instead tackle the large jobs that inevitably led to more jobs for Randy or Bobby.  Living through this experience with Charlie made me realize just how much he is NOT like my dad!  I do love him dearly though.

Now we just have to keep it perfect for lord knows how many months while we wait for someone to come along and make it possible for us to find our "dream" home.  Or...our "meets the needs" home since really our dream home will probably always remain right where it is...in our dreams!  LOL  Now that my life it back to normal I can blog again. Yay!

I will keep you all updated. (although "y'all" is an official contraction in the dictionary I still can't bring myself to use it in my writing, it just feels wrong!)