The Viewing

There are several less than desirable features that go along with attempting to sell one's house. At the top of the list is "The Viewing." When I was a kid it was still very common to have viewings before a funeral. You would go to the funeral parlour and the dead person would be stretched out in a coffin, wearing much nicer clothes than they ever did when they were alive. Also, the mortician's wife, whose make-up applying skills were a bit sketchy, would have had a go at the person. The end result left you feeling like you were looking at a complete stranger.

In some ways getting our house ready to be viewed has the same feel to it. We rush around cleaning and tidying up. I purchased some plastic bins to throw in things like the dog toys, excess junk on the kitchen counters, my current knitting projects spread out over the kitchen table, and, well, anything else that doesn't look like a selling feature. Thanks to the suggestion of a couple of you I have purchased white towels, and they are stored in one of the bins. When the house is being shown I quickly take down the real life towels hanging in our bathrooms and exchange them for the pristine white ones.

Right before The Viewing we round up the animals and drive away, leaving behind us a house that, just like those corpses from my childhood, I barely recognize. I suppose that is the goal though. Potential buyers want to be able to picture themselves and their own stuff in the home they are looking at, which is easier to do if bits of the current owners' lives aren't front and center.

However, there is a slight problem. All of our stuff can't be crammed into those three blue bins. Fortunately some of our possessions are hidden from view. An example of this would be the Halifax Bomber. Due to the fact it was shot down and blew up on impact, the pieces Jay recovered are small enough to fit nicely in the dozen or so boxes on our garage shelves. This saves the buyer from what might be a confusing encounter with a chunk of fuselage or part of an instrument panel.

David's box of outgrown legs isn't completely hidden from view like the bomber, but it's shoved far enough back in the storage room to not be noticeable. This is good, because I'm thinking a box of legs might not shout "Home Sweet Home" to anyone other than a Hammond.

More problematic are our books. We definitely need to sort through our numerous bookshelves and do some downsizing, but until we do there is no way to keep them out of view. Here's a sample of some of the bookshelves scattered throughout our house. Note, I said sample.

And then there is my yarn stash. All I can say is I hope any prospective buyers are knitters.