Meet Lavender

I'd like you to meet Lavender and her little sister Lavender Jr. These two brick columns are some of the first things you see when you walk into our house. And they're lavender. With hunter green carpet underneath. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's one of the things that, when we looked at the house, was on the short "There's Not a CHANCE That's Staying" list.


And now here it is, more than six years later, and Lavender and Lavender Jr. are still, well, lavender. I blame this on my circular thinking. You see, "someday" we are going to redo this whole area. I don't want to paint the columns because most likely I'll just have to repaint them to match whatever color scheme we end up using. But it's not in the budget to redo these rooms now, so I can't paint the columns yet.

So I have finally decided to take a stand and paint them...white. My logical brain finally kicked in and said, "They don't match now! Paint them white. If you redecorate, great, you've done a primer coat and are ready for another color. If you don't redecorate, at least they will not clash with your carpet." HOW long did it take my brain to figure that out?

So $17 and change later, I have a white primer and a detail paint brush. I just need to haul out the painter's tape and drop cloths and get it done. Any bets on how long THAT will take?

Movin' It Out

This week has been a fun week for our house! Consignment sale registration opened up and I raced the clock trying to get everything entered before the sale closed. It closed (64,000 items entered) in less than 36 hours, so I'm so glad I had everything prepared. So now I just have to tag everything and in a few weeks it will be out of my life forever! Now I just need the self-control not to replace it all by buying things when I go to shop!

I also spent a bunch of time this week reorganizing the computer room. An end table and a chair got relocated to the garage, another chair went to the sun room, and one of DS's nightstands/small dressers came in to take the place of the end table. The drawers have now been filled with some of DH's junk, so now I don't have to look at it and it's not cluttering up the floor. Score!

DH and I talked for a while tonight about possible ways to reorganize/improve our living areas. We came up with some good ideas and a list of things to think about. I can't wait to get started!

It's been a month...

...since I last posted, and while some progress has been made, much of that month was spent preparing for a trip, taking the trip, and recovering from the trip!

Not a whole lot has happened in terms of actual improvements to the house. My focuses have been on decluttering and getting the front lawn growing again. On the decluttering end, I sold more than 150 items that my kids have outgrown (clothes, socks, shoes, etc.) in an online sale. So nice to have that stuff out of the house!

On the lawn front, I have been out watering the areas where the sprinkler is broken several times a week for the past month, and things are starting to fill in a bit. I'm hoping our recent heat wave (100 degrees each day with no rain in sight) doesn't kill it back off again. Fixing the sprinklers has been bumped up to #3 on our house list.

We also switched around DD's room. The crib is now gone, so now there's a lot more room in her room. No pictures because our camera is just about dead - time to start shopping around for a new one.

Hope to update more interesting things in a couple of weeks!

The Great Bed Switch

I've been working pretty hard on decluttering and figuring out what the priorities need to be in fixing up the house, especially taking the budget into consideration.
The kids and I finished the playroom and ended up with three boxes of toys and one box of books to consign. I took a couple of trips to Home Depot and started pricing things out a bit. I took down the curtains in the computer room.

But the most noticeable progress has been made in DS's room.


First, we put up his new valances. I know that they're not the pinnacle of stylishness, but they made him very happy AND they were on clearance at Target!

Here he is, posing with them. (Don't mind the colorful shirt - he and DD put a whole sheet of happy face stickers on their shirts.)

But the big thing is that we finally convinced him that the big bed was good for more than naps, and he agreed, as long as it could be in the same spot where his toddler bed was so he could see the bathroom light at night. So today, the toddler bed got moved to DD's room, and DS now has a big-boy room!

The decluttering begins...

I didn't plan on this page becoming an "actual" blog, but I thought it would be neat to keep track of our progress in fixing things up, even if I'm the only one who reads it!

We have a local consignment sale coming up in a couple of months, and it's so popular that you have to have everything ready to enter in their system within the first couple days of registration opening, or else you're going to get shut out. So the kids and I spent the last couple of days going through everything in the playroom and saying, "Keep or sell?" They really impressed me and have picked three huge boxes' worth of stuff to sell, and now we're working our way through all of the books. We all seem to be having fun with it.

Unfortunately, it looks like no house projects will be starting too soon, as we discovered a lovely hole in our roof. There goes a good chunk of the money we'd saved toward house stuff!

House pictures

Here's some pictures of my house. Please tell me what things you see as most needing to be done to improve/update the place in order to sell it.

*Disclaimer #1* These pics were taken at the end of the day without a bit of picking up. Please try to ignore the dirty dishes, toys on the floor, etc.

*Disclaimer #2* I know our house is WAY too cluttered for selling. And it's even worse than usual right now, because I'm starting to get ready for the next consignment sale so there are piles of clothes everywhere. I'm looking for suggestions beyond "get rid of the clutter" 'cause I know that is a need! Specifically, I need to know what your biggest issues would be if you were looking to buy this house.


Front of the house: The grass on one side is pretty much dead because we need to get the sprinklers repaired. The bushes are somewhat overgrown.

Entryway - The exterior portion of the door could stand to be refinished.

Computer room - This is technically the formal dining room, but we don't have a formal dining set so the room got repurposed. The pictures are taken catty-corner from each other. What would you do with this room for selling since we don't have a dining set?


"Formal" Living room - The first picture shows the view from the entryway; the second is catty-corner. We have never figured out a good layout for this room because there needs to be room for traffic flow behind the love seat, and the french doors block off a bunch of another wall.



Kitchen - Cramped & lacking counter space (can't do much about that without a major remodel), and yes, that is purple counters and backsplash. The microwave and one burner have issues but still function.

Breakfast room - The first picture looks in toward the kitchen & shows the pantry. The second shows the built-in hutch. Those are two of my favorite things about the house. The color on the walls is wallpaper.


Laundry room - This is standing in the doorway from the kitchen. The door leads to the garage. The room could stand to be repainted.


Sun room - Sorry, I know it's a big mess. These pictures are taken catty-corner. This is one of the few rooms we've redecorated. The floor has some damage that we're not sure how to repair. The exterior door desperately needs to be refinished.

Playroom - This is right off the entryway. Three walls are built-in bookshelves. Love the room, but it is hard to place furniture since there's basically no wall space. I know the paneling looks dated but not sure what else to do with it.

Now we're heading down the hall to the bedroom area....
Kids' bathroom - See anything that needs updating? The discoloration in the shower is where we replaced some grout with the wrong color. We need to dig it out and redo it but haven't gotten to it yet.
DS's room - We'd love to get that water softener out of his closet as we don't use it. Would we call a plumber for that?

DD's room - There is a portion of her ceiling that needs to be replaced because of a roof leak that has long since been fixed. I'm sure that's one that definitely needs to be done before selling, yes?

Master bedroom - Not much to say about it!


Master bathroom - This is my sink area. DH has his own sink area from another doorway in the room, and the shower & toilet are in between them. It's kind of like a Jack & Jill bathroom but in one room. I know the sinks probably need to be redone (it's the 70s swirled marble with a shell-shaped sink). How about the color of paint? The tub/shower has several issues but we don't have the money or strength for a bathroom remodel right now. It does function.

Backyard - The first picture is looking from the back door to the corner, and the second is from the sandbox looking back at the back door. The bare ground is where we took out some garden to make more play space, and the grass is gradually growing back. There is a stone path leading to the gate that is totally messed up. Probably a priority to fix that, right?


If you made it this far, thanks! My main question is - what jumped out at you as something that a potential buyer would see as a negative point for this house?