Not sure why there has been such a long gap since I last posted, but here's the latest news anyway....
I am at last satisfied that the inside of the house is spruced up enough to be photographed and viewed. I would estimate that we have only needed to spend about £50, which is great. £35 of that was on a new freezer drawer as the previous one had cracked and the front had snapped off! The freezer is built in and will be left behind.
£50 of course, unless you factor in my hours - at a minimum wage of £7 per hour, I would have charged a minimum of £500 :)
The hallway was recently decorated, so I've just cleaned off all of the woodwork, touched up the paintwork on the walls and removed the pile of coats from the front door.
My son's bedroom needed redecorating and a massive declutter. He has always been an avid reader and had accumulated a large quantity of books. He is now a film buff, so was collecting DVDs too. I have boxed up most of it to be stored in a friend's garage for the time being. Similar to my youngest's room, his isn't huge, but we have managed to fit in everything a teenage boy could need. His room is lovely and light being at the back of the house. It certainly looks a lot less prison cell like after the declutter.
Ignore the filthy windows! You can see the culprit :)
Let's hope any viewers aren't Man United fans!
Our bedroom needed a good clean and I decided the rocking chair needed to go into storage too for now - it was never meant to go in our room and made it all look a little cluttered. The cat will be devastated as its her favourite place to snuggle up. No doubt she will find somewhere else, although I am rapidly closing down their options whilst the house has viewings!
Finally, my eldest daughter's bedroom in the loft was given a good tidy. We can't market this as a bedroom because of the access and head height, but it's still a great space. I guess they'll call it a hobby room or something similar, but for us it has worked extremely well as a bedroom. Funnily enough, my eldest daughter has had the loft room in every shared Uni house too!
I hope you've enjoyed the virtual tour of the house as I have prepared it for sale. For me, it will act as a lovely memento of the house we have loved so much :)
On others fronts, Mr D has now become an educational consultant meaning he is now self employed and more flexible with when and where he works. He has taken the last few days off which has been wonderful. Having been working in a high pressure, stressful environment for such a long time, it has been great to see him slowly unwind and I'm starting to see the old Mr D reappear from the grey faced, tense man he had become. He has enjoyed being free to do what he likes and it's been great to get out in the garden, socialise and walk the dog together. We are imagining him working part time from now on.
We have had three valuations on the house. How ridiculous that the difference between the bottom figure of one valuation and the upper figure of another is £50 short of £80,000! Surely that can't be right?! We have plumped for the estate agent who came somewhere in the middle. He's a local chap and I like him so I had always imagined going with him anyway. We are away this weekend so the house will be on the market as of the following weekend, if he hasn't found someone who'd like to view it sooner. They always seem to have lists of people waiting for these kind of family homes around here. We are a 27min train ride from London which helps.
I'll keep you posted on how it goes, but it's all reached a more exciting stage now knowing that something is happening at last after multiple years of waiting for the time to be right!
