Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Adventures in staging

Since RW and I will be joining one-another in wedded bliss shortly, he's having to get ready to sell his place to move in with me. He's done a tonne of work already replacing flooring and repainting in an attempt to remedy the many tragic decor choices of the previous owners (blue walls, nasty carpet, stained ceilings, peeling/cracked lino, 80s lighting, etc.).

This weekend he and I spent time putting some finishing touches on his townhouse before it goes up for sale. We:
  • painted our butts off: it took 3 coats of white to cover up the grey nastiness that was the wall colour in the kitchen and bathroom from the original owners and all the trim in the house had to be redone because some bright spark had painted it all a blue-white.
  • shopped: Zellers, Ikea and Home Depot (note to self: never again the weekend before school starts)
  • drank lots of beer: sober painting is highly overrated
  • scrubbed: hey, did you know ovens need to be cleaned more than once in 3 years?
  • fobbed off the cat on an unsuspecting sibling: hope you got some sleep last night with all the kitty-love bro
  • took yet another load of stuff to the Salvation Army
  • tried to mask the gross hardwater smell-of-death which emanates from the main floor powder room with Method sweetwater aroma sticks: the aroma sticks are putting up a good fight
  • put up roman blinds in all the rooms
  • assembled Ikea furniture for the living room/dining room:

Although decorating and house cleaning have long been something I enjoyed, nay, adored (the best reality show ever in my opinion is Clean Sweep), this is the first place I've ever been able to actually participate in staging. I have to say it's been very satisfying to see the place turn from an episode of my personal suburban nightmare hell into a place that I could actually see myself living (well, the house, not Kitchener).

Now, please join us in making an appropriate sacrifice to the real estate gods for this to be a quick sale. I'd recommend burning a vanilla candle or baking some cookies.