Renovating To Sell....A Story Of Survival

I have spent the past few months renovating/updating a house that my mother in law had previously been renting out. All of this with the goal in mind of putting it on the market.

The first step was to walk through the house and Make an overall assessment of what would need to be done. As I began my journey though the house I realized it was actually a tour through wreckage and disaster. Not only was the house absolutely filthy, but the renters had stolen everything that they possibly could. I had an initial reaction...it was Let us pray....

Since the house had been rented to people who had no belief in cleanliness being next to Godliness, and who also seemed to lack all moral and ethical standards, I knew that cleaning and replacing all of the stolen items alone was going to be a huge undertaking. Not to mention killing all of the spiders and creepy crawlers that had taken up residence, some of which I felt I could saddle up and possibly ride...

When I say that things were stolen from the home, I mean these people went all Jesse James during their departure. They stole the vent covers from the floor in every room, the shower heads, and even the knobs from the bathroom cabinets...Seriously??? Who does that?

As far as the unclean accusation goes let me just say that I didn't see any hope of getting the place clean even if I had a fireman's hose filled with hot water and Twenty Mule Team Borax...

I knew I needed a plan because I had no idea where to even begin. I tried to go all bibidi bobidi boo on the situation and then I thought...wrong movie. I didn't need glass slippers, I needed a mop and a broom that knew how to independently get busy. So I started yelling the names of the three fairies from sleeping beauty and still nothing...Disney be damned, I was going to have to glove up...

I left the house and made a reentry armed with more cleaning supplies than Hazel could use in a year. I literally had to suit up. Gloves, a mask, clothes that could be thrown away, a stack of lawn sized trash bags, and a few gallons of bleach and I was ready to go. Just let me say before I go any further that as far as fashion statements go, this was not a good look. I also have to add that other peoples dirt freaks me completely out...

I began by picking up the trash and then I thought I'd sweep and mop the floors. First I mopped all of the hardwood floors several times, and then I moved on to the linoleum in the kitchen. I mopped that floor five times with a brand new mop, then I had to trash it, and go and purchase another one...after mopping it about three more times I realized that I would have had better luck if I'd used a scraper. Needless to say a new kitchen floor had to be purchased.

I cleaned the bathrooms next. This of course included toilet seat replacement and enough bleach in the bathtubs to give me chemical pneumonia.

The carpet that was in all three bedrooms belonged on the street, so this was the next thing that was addressed. This can easily be explained by saying that people who don't clean up after themselves certainly don't clean up after their dogs. After ripping up all of the old carpet The next step was a trip to the flooring store. Carpet and Kitchen flooring was picked out, and then I was told that they would be out to put the carpet down after all of the painting had been done....Excuse me??? I had to walk on concrete floors for at least two weeks?? I also had to sleep in one of those bedrooms...It seemed to me, upon hearing this that the ripping up of the old carpet had been done a little prematurely...

During all of this time I had painted what seemed like EVERYTHING in the house, including the real kicker for me, the kitchen cabinets. I had painted so much that I was head to toe in paint of all shades....I looked like a walking Valspar sampler.

The thought of more painting and the concrete floor thing had me ready to turn myself in as crazy. I'm not a complete princess but at this point there were definitely a few tears. I was working myself sick and covered in paint every day of what now had become my life..a few times I'm pretty sure I developed a glistening on my skin that I could call sweat, if I wanted to use vulgar words. At one point I looked down at myself and thought...Dear God..it's like Alice In Wonderland..I fell in a hole and landed in something akin to the twilight zone, and I am never going to get my life back.. I'm just saying I haven't had my pearls on in months...There ought to be a law...

I am happy to say that the worst is over as far as manual labor goes, the house is staged, and within a week should be on the market...

Am I anxious for it to sell??? Well, I have said that I was going to stagger to the top of the hill out front and wear a sandwich board with the spects listed on it, while parading myself back and forth until I have a taker.....I'll probably even wear my pearls....