FSBO Jane

As much as I despise cleaning snow off my car in the wee hours of the morning, there’s something calming about the winter months. Sipping on a mug of tea while curled up in front of the TV isn’t too stressful. As summer approaches, however, my to-do list gets longer along with the hours of daylight. My goal, starting now, is to find to ways to relieve stress while I’m at home, so that even when I’m not curled up in front of the TV, I still feel calm and collected. Join me in this goal, won’t you?

These are quick, minor ways to strip away stress in the home. Incorporate one at a time into your lifestyle, perhaps one per week, and see if it helps:

• Lay plush throw rugs by your kitchen sink, your bathroom sink, your vanity, below your computer chair or anywhere that you stand or sit often. This will relieve your feet of extra stress, which will relieve your whole body of poor posture and stressful joints.
• Ditch the home exercise equipment that looks bulky, out of place or just plain in the way. Opt for exercise videos, such as dance or yoga videos, which either get your blood flowing or strengthen your muscles using your body weight.
• Create a view to enjoy. You don’t have to visit a spa or an ocean-view hotel room to score a premium view. In your own house, plant flowers or trees right outside your windows and keep the blinds open. Inside, plant herbs for the windowsills, and buy stalks of bamboo that are nearly impossible to kill.
• Keep bath salts and bubble baths in your bathroom for a rainy day. We don’t have much time in our lives, but why not have the ingredients around for when you have a second to spare in the bathtub? For busy days, use lavender-scented body wash to calm your nerves.
• Play soft meditation music while you pay bills or while you savor a meal. It will automatically calm you down and relieve tension. While you clean dishes or dust, turn on upbeat music that’ll get your body moving.

Cleaning the house, working out and showering don’t seem like daily chores if you add these stress-free qualities to them! And when you decide to host that open house, potential home buyers will take notice at how clean your house is and how calm you are.

I loved the following advice I read over at the ZenHabits.net blog. Small steps, done consistently, make all the difference in keeping up with your house work!

Here are the first few tips listed:

1. Never leave dishes in the sink. Or counter. Clean up any messes in the kitchen after I’m done. Wipe the counters, keep the sink clean.

2. Tidy the bathroom as I go. After I use the bathroom, clean the sink, the toilet, spray down the shower, real quick. It only takes a couple of minutes, and the joy of a clean bathroom is unmatched.

3. Pick up as I go. There are little things the kids leave around the house. I’ll just pick them up throughout the day, or keep a basket for their stuff and just dump them in there, for them to put away later.

4. Never leave clothes out. I have a tendency not to hang my once-used but still clean clothes in my bedroom, leaving them out to clutter the place up. No more. They either go in the dirty clothes, or they get hung in the closet.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

If you don’t have the time (or the money) to make major renovations to your kitchen, don’t even worry about it! There are tons of ways you can spruce up the cooking/dining space in your home. Here are five quick tips:

1. Replace the hardware on the cabinets. Getting brand-new cabinets can be an expensive project. It could even take as long as a few months to demolish the existing cabinets and to install new ones. Instead, why not choose new knobs or handles? Before you shop around, though, make sure you know how the knobs/handles are screwed into the door. They’re usually held in place by one screw. Make sure to check, though, just in case.

2. Appeal to the senses. You don’t always have to be cooking something amazing in the kitchen to get sweet aromas to fill your house. Try lighting ginger-scented candles or placing decorative bowls of potpourri on one of the counters. And if you want to appeal to visitors or family members’ stomachs, you could also decorate with a bowl of fruit or a basket of vegetables. That way, the food is also right at your fingertips whenever you do decide to cook!

3. Add curtains to a window above the sink. If you have ever watched Leave It to Beaver or Lassie, you’ll notice that there’s always some kind of cute café curtains adorning the window in the kitchen. Add some country charm to the space. It also adds some femininity to the room, reminding people of their momma’s home cookin’.

4. Make your own wall decorations. How many times have you read a magazine, and a food photo made your mouth water? Cut out the picture, stick it in a frame and hang it up on a wall in your kitchen. Make the kitchen all about food. You don’t just have to cook and eat in there. You can enjoy looking at it, too!

5. Declutter! I’ve said this all along, for any room. It’s not very attractive when you have piles of paper or other loose ends piling up on/falling off counters. You’ll even want to raid the cabinets for expired food and items you don’t even use. Do you really need two can openers, seven bottle openers or 50 different Tupperware containers? Get rid of the mess and your kitchen will look much better (inside and out).

Have you ever walked into a room, debated on cleaning it and walked out simply because the task seemed too daunting? I know I have. Like it or not, you have to keep your house clean, if only to avoid getting sick from any dust, mold or mildew sneaking around each room. Here are five quick tips to make cleaning a little bit easier.

1. Make a schedule. There has to have been some point in your life when you followed a schedule. Whether it was going to a daily soccer practice as a kid or working 9-5 as an adult, we have all had to adhere to some kind of timeline. Why not do this for cleaning the house? To get started, grab a calendar. My advice is to pick one day each week to clean. But here’s the trick: pick a few rooms to do one week, then a few more the next. For example, clean the living room, the dining room and the kitchen one week. The next week, tackle the bedrooms and bathrooms. Essentially, you will be cleaning each room in the house twice a month.

2. Purchase the supplies. Make sure you have all the necessary cleaning products before you take on the house. It never fails that I’m always missing one silly thing, even if it’s a sponge. Survey each room to see what you’ll need. Typically, I use dust polish, a floor cleaner, a foaming carpet cleaner, Windex (for windows and mirrors) and toilet bowl cleaner. There are tons of products out there, so experiment and see which ones are the best for you to use. And don’t forget sponges, paper towels, rags (I use old towels), a toilet brush, vacuum bags, etc. You need to clean with something!

3. Declutter. What is the sense in keeping outdated magazines piled under a coffee table if they are just gathering dust? It is one thing to have your decorative “coffee table book,” but it’s another to leave unnecessary clutter around the room. Always keep this in mind: if a piece of furniture gathers dust, so too will any items you place on top of it. Save yourself the extra work and keep the furnishings simple.

4. Recruit help. If you have a family or you are living with a roommate, don’t do all the work on your own! Get everyone into the act. After all, you are sharing a living space, so by rights you should share cleaning duties, as well. If everyone takes a room, the cleaning will be done in no time! And to keep it fun, you (and everyone else involved) love my last tip.

5. Play some music. Nothing gets you moving like a couple of dance songs. Turn up the stereo and blast some upbeat tunes to get you motivated. Stay away from ballads, as they will just make you want to collapse on the couch for a snooze session. Plus, if you get into the beat and start dancing, you’ll be exercising and cleaning. Genius!

Want to know how you can market your home aggressively?

(Before you say something about lowering the price, stop. Your home should be priced competitively to begin with. That goes without saying.)

No, what I’m talking about is something crucial to sell your home for the right price. Something that could make the difference between your home and the one next door, that’s priced exactly the same way.

In a word, it all goes back to staging.

Selling your home in a buyers’ market means getting your property in mint condition. Make the inside as close to perfection as is possible, and you have a lure for buyers that can’t be beat. Here are some tips, grouped according to areas in your property.

1. OUTSIDE/CURB APPEAL
From the curb of your home, evaluate the exterior appeal, from the perspective of a buyer. The lawn should be perfectly manicured, the driveway and walkways should be freshly washed, the paint should be in like-new condition. Hang flower pots in front and plant perennials along the exterior. Clean out the gutters. Repair any damags. If it’s winter, shovel. If it’s fall, rake the leaves. And if you live somewhere that’s beautiful year-round, take advantage of it, for heaven’s sake! Do every single thing you can to make the front yard POP at people who drive up. They should be WOWed. Blown away. Emotionally imagining themselves making it their own home. If it helps, pretend you’re about to be photographed for a magazine or featured on your local news. This is the time to pull out all the stops.

2. ENTRYWAY
The entry to your home, right after curb appeal, makes a first impression you only get one shot at. Put an attractive welcome mat in front of the door. Polish the doorknob. By all means, make sure the doorbell works. If you have a sitting area or a porch in front, clean everything and make it look showcase-new.

3. OVERALL CLEAN FEELING
I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but your home needs to be spotless. Like, you should be able to eat off the floor, that’s how spotless I’m talking. If I were helping you sell your home, I would come through with my glasses on and a white glove. If that glove gets anything on it, your home isn’t clean enough. The floors, the walls, the counters, the cabinets: everything.

4. NO CLUTTER
While we’re on the subject of cleaning, get rid of clutter. All of it. Get everything that you don’t need (you’re moving soon anyway, right? think of this as getting ahead of schedule) and put it away somewhere. No more knicknacks. No personal photos. Get your college degrees off the wall. This is not your home anymore. It’s a showcase in a magazine, and you’re in charge of getting it ready.

5. FURNITURE
Whether you’re moving immediately or waiting until the home sells, one principle remains: every room in the home should only have furniture that emphasizes its use. What I mean is this—the bedroom should have a bed, a dresser, maybe twin nightstands. Don’t keep your desk/office in there anymore. Put away the playroom you created in the corner. Would you see those out-of-place things in a magazine?

Likewise, if you have already moved, you have two options in terms of furnishings: either leave just enough to stage the home, or rent furniture. Either way, you’ll want to make the interior look like a home catalog, no more, no less.

6. KITCHEN
The general principles above should help you with all your bedrooms and living areas, and, actually, it should be enough for the kitchen, too. But because the kitchen is such an important selling point in a home—many buyers consider it in the top five of importance level—I feel it must be emphasized. Put everything away. Organize the pantry. Clean the refrigerator. If you can put away your additional appliances (blender, toaster, mixer, etc.), do so. Buyers should notice the hardware of the kitchen, the amount of counterspace, the easiness of being able to use it. This will be best accomplished by your keeping it in mint condition.

OH, and if you have those happy little plugins that smell warm and comforting, you might like those throughout, too. Just be sensitive to overpowering smells and potential allergies of buyers.

Go through your entire home and look at it from the eye of a buyer. Rearrange the furniture to give your rooms a spacious look. Straighten out all storage areas. Potential buyers are curious and always look inside cupboards and cabinets. Remove anything that gives your home a disorganized look. Your bathroom and kitchen countertops should be as clear as possible, all toys should be stored away, and any excess photos and knickknacks should be removed. Remove all dishes from the sink and empty your trash cans.