It’s strange to have gone from a normal summer to Full On Real Estate mode in two weeks flat, but somehow I’ve arrived here and this week our house is being listed! Since this was unplanned I’ve still been working with lots of design clients, but the evenings and weekends have been packed with finishing touches to make sure that the house looks as good as it possibly can.

The backyard set up for showings

The biggest checkmark off the To Do list so far has been having the hardwood floors re-done. Usually this is an incredible hassle, and expensive too. You have to move out of your house for a week while the floors are sanded & sealed with chemicals. And with floors that are old as ours (over 100 years old!) once they’ve been refinished too many times, they can’t be refinished anymore and have to be replaced. We’d been told that ours was in this situation- there was barely anything to sand, and it would be a very delicate job.

Thankfully I was looking into a solution last week and found an amazing company called Mr. Sandless that has a 100% eco friendly process that uses an enzyme (or chemical? I’m unsure about the details) to refresh the wood without sanding, and then uses quick drying sealer that’s dry enough to walk on that same day. It uses no harmful chemicals so you can even stay in your house that same night, and move your furniture back the next morning! And it’s less expensive than refinishing the floors the traditional way.

We just had it done yesterday- check out this before & after, I’m so happy with the results!

Before:

The finish was completely worn off in large areas of the floor

After:

Ta Da! I love the results and am so happy that the house looks its best. It has so much character that it’s great to know that it can really shine because of it, rather than having someone look at the house and feel like there’s still one big thing to do.

While we came a long way from the original bee stencils that were everywhere but we took off my beloved wallpaper so it would be more widely appealing. (Sad face)

Ah, the built in day bed. This was my craft room at home for a very long time, but we’ve made it into a computer/reading room so it’s easier to imagine. I did make a cute little sewing and knitting themed vignette on the book case though, just in case a crafty soul walks through.

So I’m suddenly living in a land of open houses and showings, take out food and wondering. While I’m nervous about what will come, I’m trying to remember that we’re doing everything we can as well as we can, and that I have to trust in that.

The (very sweet) bad little dogs are with Jesse’s parents for the next week, and from Thursday on we’ll be camping out at the studio in the evenings while people start walking through and imagining if it could be their home. We’ve had so many important moments inside and have put so much time into it (remember the Great Shanty Removal of 2010?) that I thought it would be harder to say goodbye, but mostly I’m excited for someone to walk in and fall in love with it so I can start really dreaming about the new house and planning our move.

Offers are next Wednesday- until then I’m going to try to be as cool & calm as I can be.

If you need me I think I’ll be alternately diving into client work with everything I have, pretending to be more calm than I am with the hopes of tricking myself, and holding my head between my knees so I don’t faint. ;)