Getting the house ready to go on the Market

The list to get the house ready to go on the market seemed like it went on for miles!  How can that be.  Most of it was stuff like ... removing items from the rooms to make them look less personal and more appealing to the general masses.

We had to:

• remove all personal pictures and documents from walls in:  the office, Marissa's room, Robert's room, the master bedroom, the basement and work out room.
• remove all bookshelves and thus pack up all books that were in: the Master bedroom (2 bookshelves), Robert's room, Marissa's room, the England room, the Office (3 bookshelves), the basement (2 bookshelves) and the family room. 
• remove "extra" furniture or items that make the room look smaller.  This was two antique sewing machine cabinets from the dining room, extra end tables and such.  
• remove the oversized furniture from the family room, and take the tables to storage.
• remove all the stuff stored in closest in the England room, Marissa's closet and Robert's closet
• thin out items in the Master bedroom closets
• take office away - transform room into a sitting room.  Store credenza, Sell desk and pack up everything that was in the desk, credenza and area.
• Reduce stuff stored in the closet in the basement (kids closet)
• Remove sewing area from main entertainment area and place in "hobby" room
• Take down the basketball hoop inside the house
• Paint:  kitchen, Marissa's room, Robert's room, Master bedroom, Master bathroom, and drop zone.  Also, paint all trim where Jasper had scratched or kids had scuffed
• New carpet:  New carpet in the entire upstairs and the entire basement
• Load everything up that was stored in the garage into a U-haul and store in a storage unit.  Hard, heavy and expensive
• clean up back patio
• clean up back deck
• pull weeds in landscaping and in yard
• reseed yard where we pulled weeds (this year the weed killer finally worked - so there were LOTS of dead spots) - really, of all years for it to finally work it did this one.
• Take all shoes out of drop zone. take one shelving unit out of the drop zone to open it up and make it fell more roomy.

After all of the above was done - we were exhausted --- for days!!!

Lots of work, lets hope it pays off.