Sell The Kids To Get A Show Home

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Sell The Kids To Get A Show Home

March 13th, 2008 by Mommie

We did it. The house is on the market. Ummm, there’s one problem…kids. My daughter thinks that “clean your room” means move it so you don’t trip on it. (Quick disclaimer – this pic is not a pic of our rooms!) So how am I going to keep a showroom clean house with kids? Maybe I should take the easy road and just sell the kids!

Honestly, how do you keep the house that clean when you have little ones. As I start the insane cleaning/decluttering/rearranging, how will I keep it that way for any length of time. Any stay at home mom knows how hard it is to keep anything clean for more than a day, much less the amount of time it will take to sell a house in this market. But I have a game plan!!

1. Put a ton of stuff in boxes or storage – my son is to young to care, but my daughter might freak out at this. I’ll make a game of it and see how that flies.

2. Wash more laundry – I usually only do laundry once a week, but it ends up being PILES. Doing smaller loads will keep that level down so if I have a 20 minute warning, we won’t have heaps anywhere for eyesores.

3. Enlist the family’s help – Even though I do most of the cleaning, we all live in the house, so they are all going to help clean it! But I’ll try to make it as fun as possible for the kindergartener, the husband will just have to suffer.

4. Clean as the day goes on – If I touch something, it will be clean when I leave. An example is making lunch for the kiddos, after I make them lunch, everything will be clean and put away, you won’t know I was in the kitchen.

5. Hug my family – Hey, it may not keep the house clean, but it’ll relieve everyone’s stress!

Any ideas for me? PLEASE let me know!!

4 Responses

Jessnboys writes:
March 13th, 2008 at 10:48 am

We had our townhouse on the market for almost 3 years and it gets old so fast. The best suggestion is to keep up on the housework, so that when you are called for a showing you don’t have to scramble to clean the whole house before they show up!

Declutter everything! Depersonalize it. You want potential buyers to be able to picture their own stuff in your house.

Since we are house hunting, I will make sure to let you know things I see that turn me off.

I just looked this morning at a house that reeked of cigarette smoke! OMG It was soooooo nasty! Anyway I looked at another one that I really liked. It smelled clean (like bleach, haha) and they have some very nice calming music playing. It was a nice touch!

Best of luck! I will add this to my prayers that everything goes well and you guys are able to sell!
~Jess~
Eric (5)
Isaac (2)
Baby # 3 EDD 10.9.08!
m/c 6/04 @ 5w, 6/07 @ 5w and 11/07 @ 10w
My blog: http://jessthemama.blogspot.com
Jolene writes:
March 13th, 2008 at 11:49 am

ugh!! I feel for ya! We are going through kind of the same now.
Our landlord is selling our unit since we are not renewing our lease, so now not only do I have the much hated task of packing, but I have to do it while keeping the house clean and tidy for showings for my landlord…NOT fun! My kids are not going to like the fact that I will be on them even more then usual nagging for everything to stay picked up and to clean up after themselves.

I just have to remind myself that it’s only for a month or so then we will happily be in a new place.

a tip with the laundry, I used to be horrible at letting it pile up, but now I do it twice a week, every Monday and Friday, it’s routine for me now and no more piled up laundry! If I know I’m going to have plans on one of those days I will usually try to start it the day before if I can, if not then I make sure it gets done the day after. Keeping a laundry schedule has made all the difference for me!
phoFuki writes:
March 13th, 2008 at 6:26 pm

LOL…I’m doing laundrey while readin gthis post. The scheduled laundry day really worked out for me. I found myself actually doing laundry 3-4 times a week. What I found by setting a specific day aside for it, I actually got more done during the rest of the week (4-hour work week tip).

I definitely agree that all the personal stuff (photos and excess) be put away. You’re going to have to pack it up anyways so might as well do it now.

Good Luck!
Stine writes:
March 14th, 2008 at 2:07 am

Hahaha – little ones? Wait till you’ve got teens… My 18 yar old uses the floor for a laundry basket, wardrobe, waste basket, bookshelf… You have to use force to open the door, and swan dive to reach the bed. I’m not selling anytime soon… Good luck to you!