Just over a year ago we put the house on the market. It was about a month before they scrapped the HIP, or Home Information Pack. Yeah, we were please about this too! But despite being on the market for till the end of last year, having lots of people come look round, we only have one offer on the house. Well, I say ‘offer’ – it was more of a joke really. Some little old lady came well under the asking price and crept up and up. Apparently she had pissed off all the estate agent workers too with phoning up all the time and asking stupid questions. But we were in no need to rush and sell the house at well under the actual value of the house. So we took it off the market with the aim of doing a bit of DIY and freshening the place up a bit.
After 3 or 4 months we are finally there with tarting the house up. Repainted the kitchen, completely gutted the utility room and fitted a new worktop (thanks Grandad) and put the fridge, washing machine and tumble dryer in there. Pictures can be found here. The cats even have their own little place for there food too. We also, with a few mishaps along the way, managed to fit a wall unit. The main mishap was the unit falling off the wall and whacking the fiancee in the face! Opps! One thing I was proud of was all the tiling I did. It’s something I’ve never done before and heard it was quite hard.
Along with the kitchen we repainted the bathroom and our bedroom. We thought the bedroom would be an easy thing to do. Much easier than the kitchen as it was literally just painting. No DIY work needed. But when actually starting we saw that most of the wallpaper had gotten damp and need stripping. It was that wood-chip stuff. Suppose to be really hard to get off. Not for us! It just came straight off with little effort. It was what was underneath that caused the problems. The plaster had crack in some places and the walls were all uneven as there was patches of horrible green paint everywhere. They had to be sanded down and filled. If you have never sanded walls you know the amount of dust it produces. It went absolutely everywhere! And since the paint on the wall was green everything was covered in a fine green dust. Our poor old Henry vacuum cleaner didn’t like it one bit. He had to be cleaned out several times.
We also decided to tidy up the rear garden a bit. I’ve never been a gardener. It just doesn’t appeal to me. But we got on with it and I painted some of the fascias too.
After a busy few months it’s finally time to get back on the market. After working on the house for so long it’s kind of sad to then sell it. But that’s been our aim since the start. The fiancee and I are getting married so need somewhere a little bigger and closer to where we work. I trying to look at it as practice for when we do move. It made me see the potential in a lot more houses now. Even just a simple coat of paint can transform a room. So this time round I won’t be put off as easily if a house has disgusting coloured walls. And to be honest, I really got into the whole DIYing thing. But you we found you have to stick at it. If you relax and say you’ll take a break halfway through a room, it’s a real effort to get yourself motivated again and finish it off.
So, estate agent has been round, done a valuation and they’re coming back to take pictures next week. So this weekend is going to be a busy one. Making the finishing touches and cleaning the house top to bottom. A well earned drink will be needed Saturday night I’m sure.
Let’s hope this time round and with our cosmetic changes, we can actually get a sale!
