Project 52: Date Nights - Have You Seen My Shoes?

Being separated continues to be a tough experience, but we are making the most of it... here is a recap of our date "weekend."

Daniel came home on Friday, dropped his stuff in the living room, did some work on the house and then crashed. I came home to find him exhausted and in bed. I have to confess that my first reaction was to be annoyed and run around and put away {hide} all of his stuff since we had The Staging Girl coming by to give us advice on how to best stage our home when we put it on the market.

By the time Barbi {The Staging Girl} arrived, I had gotten over my annoyance {and had also forgotten that I threw Daniel's work shoes in the coat closet}...

Anyways, we had a great meeting with Barbi {see this post} and then we ran to grab a late dinner at O'Charley's where we discussed our weekend plans and how much we wanted to spend on staging and landscaping.

Saturday was a huge shopping day for us – this was a bit overwhelming since we are not big shoppers. We normally meticulously plan out what we intend to buy. We research like mad and then we go about finding the best deals. It is important to us to make sure we are both on board with purchasing decisions since we BOTH live in the house. Saturday was a bit overwhelming because we essentially threw caution to the wind and hit the stores with a list in hand. We managed to get everything at IKEA, Lowe's and Target, but it was overwhelming to pick out items that will {hopefully} stay with us for some time.

We spent Sunday rearranging the furniture in our basement and then we headed to the Original Pancake House {I was too exhausted to cook all weekend – shopping really wears me out.} Once again, we said our goodbyes in the parking lot and Daniel headed back to Chattanooga.

An hour after he left Charlotte, I received a call: "Do you know where my work shoes are?"

OOPs. I had completely forgotten that I threw them in the coat closet on Friday night before The Staging Girl arrived...

the good. the bad. and the random. (Selling the Morganford House, March 2010)

The Good. 

The stager that came by our house said we shouldn't hire her and proceeded to give us some great tips.
The Bad. 

She did say that we should hire a professional landscaper to do some cleanup in our yard. 

The Random. 
I found these rather large, fake palm tree plants at IKEA for $12.99 {I purchased two}. Daniel thought they were real when I brought them home. He was excited about the price tag, but less excited that it cost an additional $14.99 for the pot to hold the plant.

The Good.
Several houses in the area went under contract last week. This strengthens the value of our house.
The Bad.
We decided to wait until Saturday to finalize paperwork with the realtor. Daniel had too many questions about the contract to go ahead and move forward without having the opportunity to talk in person to the realtor.
The Random.
I gave Sophie a bath last night and managed to spray water all over the bathroom while I was busy focusing on lathering the pup... thank goodness for tile floors. OOPS!!!

The Good.
 After a major shopping trip including stops at IKEA (twice) Target and Walmart, we have everything we need to finalize staging our home.
The Bad.
The consensus is that we need to install closet doors in the bedrooms. In theory, this would be an easy fix. In actuality, when we framed in the closet we managed to make them 3 inches too wide for standard closet doors. Unfortunately we don't have the time and don't want to spend a lot of money on specialty doors. After some intense brainstorming {and trips to Lowe's and Home Depot as a part of the mega shopping trip on Saturday}, we have finally figured out a work around that we can live with {that is relatively inexpensive}.
The Random.
Daniel misses my cooking, but I haven't had the energy to cook when he is home {I haven't cooked for myself since he left 2 weeks ago}.

The Good.
My Life in France {Julia Child's memoir} is waiting for me at the library.
The Bad. 
I haven't had time to go to the library to pick it up.
The Random.
I have watched very little television in the last two weeks. I don't watch much to begin with, but projects have taken over my life. Also, The Style Network has disappeared - it used be a part of our cheap cable package... I wonder what happened? I miss Clean House. It was the one decorating-type program I could enjoy since we don't get HGTV!!!

Pottery Barn Meets Urban CoffeeHouse

"Pottery Barn meets urban coffee house" is the phrase that Barbi, The Staging Girl, used to describe our home. 

On a recommendation from our realtor, we set up a consultation with Barbi {she stages homes for a living}. I have never felt so validated in my life as I did when Barbi walked through our home and then stopped abruptly to say, "What the hell do you guys need me for? You're house is perfect. Your realtor is going to laugh at me for saying this, but I would be doing you a severe injustice to charge you money when you have already done all of the work."

Free of charge, Barbi proceeded to give us very specific advice on minor things to change to make our home show the best.

She also gave us great advice like:

1. Make sure before every showing to bake Chocolate Chip Toll House cookies
2. Put a note on our fridge telling prospective home buyers to help themselves to a coke
3. Have Michael Buble music playing
4. Turn all of our lights on and the fans on low. 

She also suggested that we write a letter to our potential buyers telling them why we love our house and our neighborhood. 

She gave us 45 minutes of her time and wished us the best. This is a woman I would recommend in a heartbeat.

It makes me happy that she described our home as feeling like an urban coffee house. Also glad that we are able to fake Pottery Barn's look - as we are way too cheap to shop there.