Working Towards A House Sale

Curb Appeal
When we listed the house for sale at the end of October, the weather was only going to get worse and "curb appeal" soon meant having less than 6 inches of snow on the ground. There wasn't much we could do on the outside of the house other than mulch and trim a bit before winter hit but we did what we could.

Now, five months later...SPRING has finally arrived (it was 80 degrees today and sunny), the grass is growing, my roses are budding, Karen's bulbs are popping out in the gardens, and I'll soon need to mow.

Yesterday: Forsythia Attack
Yesterday I spent all afternoon and into the evening trimming the "Forsythias-gone-wild" at the back of our lot along the alley. THAT was a job. For me Forsythia's are nothing but a giant weed. Kind of like a monster dandelion with a million intertwined stalks and branches that try and poke your eyes out. Karen planted three cute little Forsythias on our berm below the pine trees shortly after we married. They started out like nice little stick "starts" that then turned into the woody weeds of yesterday. I cut them down to 7 feet tall and tried to hack them back far enough so they'd at least respect the rear of our property line.

Yes, technically it may have been a bit "late" in the season to wail into them as they'd already started to flower, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And yesterday was THE DAY to do it. So I did it.

 "A little off the top and sides, please."

Today: Front Porch Maintenance
Today it was another outside day focused on the front porch and fine-tuning the entry to assist with the FIRST IMPRESSION as prospective buyers come up to the front door.

I hand washed/scrubbed all the siding on the front of the house, removed and repainted our mail box and front porch light fixture, and painted our light post and the concrete top on the brick column by the front hand rail. After that I hosed off the each side of the house up to the eaves knocking several years of dirt down. All in all, things look a little better today than they did yesterday.

 Screwdriver, pliers, light bulb, wire nuts, screws, nut caps...

 Hanging the freshly painted mail box.

 Reinstalling the cleaned and repainted light fixture.

 Not bad for a guy with limited home-owner skills.

Tomorrow I think I'll tackle the initial stages of reseeding part of Tucker and Tanner's yard. I still need to re-stain the deck.

AND WE STILL NEED SOMEONE TO BUY THIS HOUSE!