What do you do when someone calls out of the blue to ask if your house is for sale? If you aren’t sure why you’re hanging on to it, you say, ‘YES’!
It’s like this: during the holidays, we had someone approach us about our former home, a property we have owned for 27 years. The house wasn’t even on the market!
We raised our daughters there, and when we moved to our current home nearly 7 years ago, our oldest daughter moved in. Then she got married and moved out, and our youngest daughter and her husband moved there for a brief time. Then they bought a house and moved out, and there it sat – empty – for over a year. The only thing NOT moving was us… we couldn’t seem to get motivated to do the little fixer-upper home improvements required to put it on the market.
Enter the sweetest little lady you’ve ever met! She had her heart set on moving into that neighborhood, and had looked at some of the other homes in the area, but they were unkempt and pretty awful. So she asked to look at ours… a couple of weeks before Christmas.
We met her there and gave her the grand tour and she pretty much told us that day that she wanted the house. So we worked out all the details, signed a contract and went to work cleaning, repairing and moving out of the house we raised our children in. Y’all. We still had stuff in the attic of that little house. And in the garage!!
But, plug away we did, and a month later, on January 24th, we closed out that chapter of our lives! What a burden lifted. We have been paying 2 mortgages for 6-1/2 years, plus insurance taxes and utilities. And, after all the big and small home improvements we did, it turned out looking pretty good! We hope she’ll enjoy living there.
As the years went by, we had made some improvements that increased the look and value of our home. Some were not expensive at all. Here’s a list of some quick and inexpensive things you can do to get your home ready to sell:
7 Quick and Budget-Friendy Home Improvements
- Remove wallpaper, if any. While wallpaper is making somewhat of a comeback, it’s just not the most practical decor. New home buyers prefer paint.
- Spackle nail holes, etc. After a few years, any home gets occasional nicks or nail holes in the walls.
- Paint. Nothing beats a fresh coat of paint. You can save a lot of money by doing this yourself. If this isn’t possible, at least touch up any blemishes in the paint job.
- Caulk. A fresh bead of caulk around bathroom fixtures or cabinetry makes it look newly installed.
- Replace outlet and switch covers for any that are cracked or broken.
- Install inexpensive window coverings (blinds, curtains, etc.).
- Clean, Clean, CLEAN.
Prior to these small things, we had installed new carpet in the bedrooms, ceramic tile in bathrooms, and laminate flooring in other areas. We also had a travertine tile backsplash installed some years ago. We even installed new toilets! All of these improvements helped add to the appeal of our little home. The following photos aren’t the best quality, but they give you a good idea of the after shots of all our effort:
I painted the front door red several years ago
The walls are Sherwin William Kilim Beige
I’m looking forward to being back on the blog! Thank you for allowing me this short sabbatical!
I’m linking this post to Metamorphosis Monday!
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