One More Time With Feeling!

Well, we are putting our feet back into the home selling pool.

HHBL and I have been thinking about it for a while now. Contemplating the timing. Girding our loins for the fight. Steeling ourselves for the inconvenience and emotional toll that selling a home takes out on all who participate in the ritual. At least on the sellers side.

There were a number of things on the “realtor would like you to do this” list that we hadn’t gotten to the last time that Chez Knit was on the market. Those things are now done. Darn it the shutters really do look nice. In the last 18 months or so we have continued to clean out and pair down. Everything is clean and picked up and in place. Heck even the unfinished side of the basement is clean. Of course, if you know me at all then you aren’t surprised at this.

It is often said that a man’s job defines him. I am not sure if that is totally true but I do think that a woman’s home, or at least what people think and say about it, can define how she feels about herself in her daily life. And if you are a type “A”, over achiever, highly organized, perfectionist like I sometimes am, having your house on the market can be….difficult.

In the past I would worry as soon as the sign went up in the yard. I would worry that “they”, whoever they are, would not like my house. That they would be hyper-critical. And if they didn’t like Chez Knit then by extension they did not like me. I felt like I was in Jr. High again. Only with a big financial component to it.

I never said that my thought processes are always rational.

But this time around I am not feeling quite like that and I am thankful. And for some reason I am feeling hopeful. It may be because the neighbors down the street have sold their house. It may be because the agent thinks that now is the time to put the house on the market and that it is priced correctly for the market. It may just be that one of the first things that we told Rick and Donna (the agents) was WE ARE NOT STAGING A DARN THING.

Personally, the last time we had Chez Knit on the market I was afraid to live in my own house. Afraid to move any of the things that the stager had put up. Hated the art work. Thought the way that she re-arranged my furniture didn’t look right at all. Didn’t think that it looked like a “home” at all but just a builders model. Afraid all the time that things were not going to measure up to some unseen yardstick that kept moving. A target that could never be “hit”. It was a terrible and unsettling feeling and a terrible year.

However this time around my thought is……

My house is clean and bright. It is well organized and everything works. It looks good. The landscaping, especially the back garden, is looking lovely at the moment. It is my house and I love it, we just want something smaller and in a better location for us. If you don’t like it that is fine with me, your perfect house is not this one. If you like Chez Knit then please make an offer and we would be glad to sell it to you. But I am not going to get my panties in a twist about it if you don’t. I know that we have done everything that needed to be done before putting the house on the market.

And I am going on with my daily routine and my job and my cooking and my blogging. I am not going to stress out (much) when I have a showing. I am going to have my glass of wine in the evening and sit out on the deck with HHBL and enjoy the quiet. I am going to enjoy with all I have in me this stage of life that I am in and I am not going to let a little thing like a For Sale sign in the front yard make my blood pressure go up with angst and anticipation and fear.

At least I am going to try to.