Road to Perfection

Eduardo is still at it. He manages to find something to work on everyday, and whoever buys this house has no idea how lucky they are that they are buying it from him. Every detail, every piece of trim, and every bit of work that could be done to make this house perfect Eduardo has found and finished. He even power washed the driveway! And he made a great entrance to the crawl space that looks so inviting I almost wanted to try it out!

Decisions

We have decided to go with the second agent, and list the house at $139K for two weeks and if we don't get any bites we'll drop the price to $134k, and be willing to take $130K if it comes to that. It's really hard to make these decisions. And we are limited by those stupid comps. I really did not realize how important they were, and how much they could impact the sale price of the house. Basically it doesn't matter how wonderful the inside of the house is, or what the upgrades are, if there aren't other houses close by that have sold for the amount you are asking, then the mortgage companies will not approve a loan. Period. It's one of the difficulties of having the best house on the street. And it's the reason experts always caution about over-doing the finishes and putting too many upgrades in certain houses. So we will see how it goes I guess.

Listing

We are ready to list the house.  We went to look at a house that we thought was similar to ours the other day and the only thing that other place had over us (in our opinion) was a better curb appeal. So we went and got some landscaping logs and more mulch and cleaned up the front walkway a little more. Then we did a thorough cleaning of the house, top to bottom, with everything perfectly in place and staged, and all the lights on. The house was immaculate. We had talked about it and we were hoping to list the house for $140K. We thought with all our improvements it was worth that.
We had three agents come through and give us their opinions today. When they asked us what we wanted to get for it we skirted the issue to see what number they came up with. We also wanted to get a feel for each of them, since we'd be working with them to get the house sold. The first guy was an older man, and while he was impressed with the work we'd done he priced the house between 100-120K which was MUCH lower than we were hoping. I won't lie, it was pretty discouraging.  And it was hard not to take personally, even though I knew I shouldn't. He kept saying it was because there were no comps that could be comparable to our house. We didn't really realize that would matter, but apparently it does for anyone who'd be needing to qualify for a mortgage when buying the house. The second guy that came was younger, our age, and said that he'd brought a sheet with comp,s but after seeing the house they were way too low. So he said he wanted to go back to his office, and try to find some houses more comparable to ours. But his ballpark was $129K. That was better, but still lower. The last guy came in and took all of five minutes to give us the same $129K number. He seemed to know his stuff, but he was so...nonchalant and casual, I just didn't get a great vibe from him. So that's where we are at the moment.

Before and After Part 6: The Laundry

The laundry room was a disaster like the rest of the house. We did the usual, paint, floors, trim, new doors. But perhaps the biggest impact was the really nice washer and dryer set that Eduardo bought. We had some problems with the washer (we failed to remove the shipping bolts from the underside before trying to run the washer which resulted in the machine bouncing and jumping around so much it dented both walls, and made a sound like the whole house was going to come down!) at first, but now both machines run great. We were able to reuse two of the old kitchen cabinets to create some storage at no extra cost to finish out the room.

Before and After Part 5: The Master Suite

I wasn't impressed with this room initially. I didn't like the deck, I wasn't a fan of the sloped ceiling, and I thought how much time does anyone really spend in their bedroom anyway? But I have since changed my mind. This room was my biggest "surprise" in terms exceeding my expectations.
Pretty much everyone but me thought it needed a walk-in closet. I dragged my feet, but they won and so we moved the living room wall out about three feet to add to the existing two foot deep closet. As with every room everything was painted, we put in a new ceiling fan, new window and sliding door. Eduardo spent a cold, drizzly day outside power washing the deck. We put in all new doors, and new carpet as well. The space is so big that we have plenty of room for our bed, plus I was able to set up a cozy reading corner and still have room in the middle to roll out a yoga mat.
The master bath was small and pink. Well actually I think "mauve" might have been what it was called originally. Whatever it was in 1989, it is hideous now. The guys pulled everything out. We trashed the toilet, sink and fiberglass shower stall. I was able to save the vanity and painted it white. I painted the room in a relaxing shade of grayish-lavender, the guys tiled the floor and laid the most beautiful shower I think I've ever seen. It looks like it belongs in a fancy New York apartment or something. We got a new toilet, sink, and hardware, and we scored a great deal on the perfect shower door to complete the package. It might be small, but it is bright and cheerful and SO luxurious!
The whole combination of bedroom/private deck/closet and attached bath make the space feel like a high-end hotel suite. It's such a surprise to me how much I enjoy spending time in there (especially since I've become pregnant). I feel like I'm on vacation!

Before and After Part 4: The Loft

This room was huge but the walls, floor and popcorn ceiling were DISGUSTING! (The yellow stuff is nicotine.) There was also a cheesy glass block "bar" at the one end. We ripped everything out, and bumped the wall out to where the bar had been to make room for the walk-in closet in the master bedroom. We removed the popcorn ceiling, replaced the skylights, added recessed lighting and everything was painted by moi, including the railing and spindles (that took forever but look great now!). We also put down awesome new carpet, and the color scheme makes it feel really bright and spacious.

We divided the space into a TV area complete with wall mounted flat screen TV (to watch football), and a game table area where we can do puzzles or have exciting games of Mexican Train while also watching football. A lot of the furniture we were able to borrow from my grandmothers. That allowed us to stage the house without really spending any extra money. The accents were either stuff we had or purchased at yard sales and repainted/repurposed to fit the decor. I got that globe on the table for a dollar. 

This room is our main hang out, and it's a comfortable one. With the view of the tree branches out the skylights and the railing overlooking the living room, it has a tree house kind of feel to it. 

Before and After Part 3: Main Bath and "Pink" Bedroom

Because of the broken pipes, we had to rip out the downstairs bathroom right to the studs. Then we drywalled and laid the tile floor, painted, and got all new tub, toilet and vanity. I did the painting per usual and am very pleased with the color. We also added the recessed light above the tub, and Dad and Eduardo did an amazing job on the tile for the tub. It looks super modern and I love the earthy, relaxing color scheme. I have not yet taken a bath in there yet, but it's definitely on my list of things to do.
And we all remember the pink and purple room right? The one with the "coordinating" black carpet? Well, no more! For such a small room it was a lot of work. The floor was rotted out under the window, and of course I had to paint everything. We got a new closet door, and the ceiling fan is the one we were working on when Eduardo stabbed himself with the screwdriver. The new carpet really made the room look bigger and I staged it with a little bed, to make it look like a kids room. It's small, but with a crib or a kid bed, it's plenty big enough.

Before and After Part 2: Dining Room and Kitchen

It's been quite the transformation, and none more so than the kitchen I think. If you recall we ripped it out completely and started from scratch. There were pipes to fix, floors to pull up and put back down, painting, new cabinets, new appliances, new door and windows...pretty much new EVERYTHING. I think my favorite thing about the kitchen (besides the dishwasher that works amazingly!) is the granite tiled counter top. We didn't have the budget for a slab, but I honestly don't even miss it. I love the way it looks and functions, and I couldn't be happier. The one thing I might do differently in my own home would be to go for taller cabinets. They are custom and more money, but the standard size cabinets cannot accommodate things like tall bottles and wine glasses (without removing one of the three shelves), and I think it would be worth the extra money. But otherwise, I am very pleased with the way the kitchen turned out.