ready or not

Ryan called our realtor earlier this week to get the ball rolling on putting our house on the market. We were simply hoping to at least get a sign out front since our neighbor is having an open house this weekend and it'd be nice to be noticed by his traffic. I thought it was looking doubtful since our realtor wouldn't be able to make it out here or meet with us until late this week.

Well, she called Ryan yesterday afternoon and said she knows our house isn't formally "listed" yet (and she hasn't even seen it or us in almost three years) but she knew she really liked our house and had a client coming in from out of town tomorrow (today) who was set on our neighborhood and would we mind if she showed it to them? She told Ryan it would be mid-afternoon... 2-2:30ish. (at least that's what he relayed to me...).

Yikes! Never mind that we were still in the middle of a couple of projects (a stalled drapery hanging half done, some wayward tile in our bathroom, boxes everywhere in our basement) and have yet to clean floors or shampoo carpets, how could we pass up a possible buyer who happens to be set on buying in our neighborhood?
Besides, it was totally doable. Maybe. We just needed to get our butts in gear.

(and I should mention here that I had a friends' kids here all afternoon yesterday, helping her out while they're getting ready to move out of state this weekend... and then had the whole family over for dinner! something I probably wouldn't have purposely scheduled for last night when I needed to be switching into chaotic, panic, must-suddenly-make-our-house-say "buy me! buy me! aren't I the most beautiful house you've ever seen"-presentable mode. four hyper kids don't really help the house presentable idea. but sharing an evening with all of them was worth it. for the last time *sniff*)

So we shooed away our guests (not really!), put our kids to bed early and got to work last night finishing a few priorities and cleaning up our kitchen table area which has become command central for paint and tools and house project supplies.
Today my job was to clean everything else up... get the rooms all showable, vacuum, dust, wash windows, oh and at least make the basement presentable. I was actually getting stuff accomplished this morning, despite a baby who (great timing) decided to not sleep at all and pretty much cried all morning. Still, even with him attached to my hip, by the time I was due to pick up Sawyer from preschool I had every room in the house ready sans vaccuming and dusting and a big pile of stuff to take downstairs. I had at all planned out; I'd pick up Sawyer, run to the store for a couple of last minute things, and get back with plenty of time to do a quick vacuum and dust job and then do what I could in the basement, at least straightening up the living areas down there, with time to spare! It wasn't even noon and I could easily accomplish that and still be out of here by 2!!

But I no sooner walk in the door from picking up Sawyer at 11:30 then the phone rings. It's our realtor and she's in the next neighborhood over and is hoping to swing by. Um, like now. Aaaaaack! I switch to hyper mode and make a couple of quick trips out to the garage with the piles that were at the top of the stairs, forego the vacuuming and dusting and instead do a quick broom sweep of the kitchen and bathroom (and by that I mean literally sweeping things UNDERNEATH rugs), pile the kids in the car and back out of the driveway just as they're pulling up. I never even touched the basement. It's embarrassing... that's where everything else in the whole house got thrown for these last couple weeks of revamping!

So we have grimy floors and smeary windows and a chaotic basement, but most everything else was in place and we had our first showing!
And I'm hoping the little details will be overlooked since it was obvious this was a last minute, premature, prelisted showing.
Wouldn't that be nice though if we had a buyer for our house before it was even on the market??

Anyway. We're ready now. Basement clean up is on the docket for tonight and then we're officially ready. And hoping for more showings soon!

And since I'm pretty much done stressing about house stuff, maybe I'll get some before and after pics posted on here. Ryan found a file of pictures of this house when we first looked at it, the images from that original listing and it's crazy to see the difference! Actually it's crazy to see the pics they choose to list! ha! If you ask me, this thing'll show a lot better this time around... :)