It's Working Again!

For a few weeks I was not able to access my blog. I was able to sign in and look at other blogs, but could not work on my dashboard.  Not sure what was going on.  Oh yeah, we did have our system crash, my hubby had to rebuild it from scratch, wiping out everything and reloading.  So there may have been some kind of bug or something going on.

There's lots to talk about.  After about four months of constant work, our condo is completed, sold and listed, in that order.  Yep, we got an offer we couldn't refuse on the place before it even officially hit the mls.  It was a story of one agent talking to another agent in the office and a buyer jumping on it more or less sight unseen.  Tho' they did swing by shortly after sending in the offer, just to see if it was as good a deal as their agent had told them.   Bless their hearts, apparently they'd been looking for a condo and lost one place after the other before we came along. They were familiar with the complex, and eager to bite when they heard about it.

I'll post pictures of the results of our labor later.  It's not overly fancy, I had again staged it to try to appeal to a broad audience, but it shows well.  All the more ironic it was bought with only their agent seeing it, but the people were delighted when they saw it.  Now we have to impress the home inspector and appraisor.  Wish us luck, we might be out of here by Christmas yet!

I was looking for a few flowers to freshen up the outside on the last couple of days before we sold and I came across this gorgeous cyclamen.  I just love the vivid reds.  Hopefully it will remain bright and cheerful for the rest of our time here. 

Final Photos of Staging to Sell

We put my mother-in-law's condo on the market last week - finally.

We had worked very hard to present it in the best light possible.  Even though we had painted and tiled and carpeted in neutrals, to attract the broadest range of potential buyers possible, I did want to stage it to give it a lived in feeling.  I went for a subtle beach theme, using blues and browns, trying to add interest and character without putting too much personal taste into it.  There was also a budget concern, I didn't have too much money to put into prepping it for selling, just to pack up everything again when it does sell.  I did want to have a small console table in the front lobby area, as opposed to the blank wall which previously greeted your entrance into the condo.  I picked up this little table on clearance at Big Lots for $75.  I got the plant and picture for a few bucks each at Ross, and used mom's turtle light.

The couch in the livingroom is actually a dark red, you can see a corner peeking out where we need to pull the brown sofa cover back over it.  The cover and blue and brown pillows pull in the neutral beachy theme back into the room.  We are using much of her old furniture, which is dated from the 80s, so lots of oak and brass need to be worked around.  The cedar chest being used as a coffee table holds shell embellished candles.

Prior to our painting the lower half of the fireplace wall a khaki color and adding a white shelf to act as a mantel, her fireplace consisted of a black box in a wall.  I often wondered why she didn't do more to highlight it, but apparently she had plans of a custom-built oak shelf unit surrounding it, which didn't happen in the 20-something years she lived there.  Okay, I have been known to procrastinate, so I get that, but I think I would have done something in the meantime.  The beach scene hanging above the mantel shelf was one I'd bought but didn't have the right place for in my home, and thought it looked great here, right over the glass bottles and shells.

Beside the fireplace we put her mother's trunk. This trunk has gone through several members of her family, and will of course remain with us. It holds this planter bicycle I'd given her some years back, which I filled with faux daisies to complete the look.

She was very pleased with the look when we brought her to view it before we listed it.  In this photo you can see some of the white drape panels with blue and brown border stripes we installed shortly after we began working on it.  Before there were white vertical hanging blinds which had seen better days.

The kitchen shows well now with the new backsplash and faux granite finish on the counters.  We had to install the new stove as well, her previous one was minus a burner or two.

Her diningroom table got a simple centerpiece of candles and a bowl of seashells.  I put out her blue placemats, but decided against going for the whole tablescape as I'd originally pictured.  Again, I'm going for a theme, but trying to not overwhelm people with too many personal touches.

Since mom took her bed out of her master bedroom with her to the assisted living facility, we moved the one out of the spare bedroom into the master bedroom.  This left us in need of a bed in the second bedroom.  This is the old airmattresses on top of boxes trick.  I luckily had two blowup mattress from our camping days.  The scroll is another Goodwill find I had from home.  I think it looks good as a headboard.

Both bathrooms got treated to new towels and a couple of decorative items.

I came across this beautiful cover and sham set in mom's cedar chest.  She was delighted to see it, as it was a gift from years ago.  It looks gorgeous here with the new setup, featuring a Goodwill picture

 I found for $8, and displaying a few of her own items on the dresser.  The lamp is an antique she kept  because it had belonged to a family member.  I suppose if you like the 17th century lord and lady frolicking look, this would be your style, we frankly just needed a lamp here and this was available.

So we are happy to finally have the condo finished and listed.  In fact, we accepted an offer, and are now currently waiting for escrow closure.  I sure hope it goes through, this process has taken much longer than we intended.  We are now thick into fixing up our own condo, which I pray takes less time than this does.  I'm still hoping to be moved out of state before the holidays.

Jane

Kitchen Redo Pt 2, the Backsplash

One of the projects we took on to prep our mother-in-law's condo for selling was to put a glass tile backsplash in her kitchen.  We started by removing all the outlet covers and laying down brown paper to protect her countertops, as tiling is a messy business.

Admittedly, my hubby did the most of the tile laying.  I couldn't let him have all the fun, though, and actually put up a couple of tiles myself.

The blank area above the stove is where the new rangehood will go. After all the tiling was put up, Dave started tiling the floor in the smaller bathroom, the one with the yellow 1980s laminate flooring. I did the grouting in the kitchen. This involved smearing gritty mud-like mortar over the tiles, a small section at a time, using a rubber float to push the goop into all the grooves.  Then you need to wipe all the mortar off the tiles while leaving it in the joints between, going over the tiles several times to wipe off as much as possible before it dries.  This took me almost five hours, but I'm proud of it.

One of my jobs in assisting Dave putting up the tile was cutting the little glass pieces to fill in around the electrical plugs and line up in the corners and edges. There's a tool they make especially for cutting glass tiles, go ahead and invest the $13 they want for it at Home Depot, it makes the job much easier. BTW, you have to pull all the plug and light outlets out of the wall and get extenders to raise the outlets over the tiles. Turn off that electricity first.

With the covers back on, it looks practically professional.

A small area of the finished product.  I'll include the entire kitchen with new counters and backsplash in another post.

Most of my time and energy lately have been divided between helping fixing up the condo and attending to my mother-in-law, who is now residing in an assisted living facility.  It's amazing how the summer has flown away.  We are almost complete with her condo, though, and looking forward to beginning our own.