Selling a home after fourteen years is hard. It's messy. Being messy is really easy, but makes it so much harder to sell a home.
At times the messiness takes over and pushes your life into the middle spaces, away from the corners and ledges that so easily become overwhelmed with clutter. It piles up and jams in until you're scared to open the closets and drawers anymore. To be sure, there weren't many to-do lists jammed into those piles. For good or ill, there were no 'honey-do' lists at our house. You could say that we hung onto things for a little too long. It might also be true that we were distracted, or unmotivated, though fourteen years is a really long time. It's a lot of stuff.
Beyond finding new places to hide fourteen years of stuff (reluctant family members garages, rented storage bins, and of course the local garbage dump), one of the first things to do is choose a real-estate agent. The right agent will expertly present your home at all of its most flattering angles, and in just the right light to allow for imagination and fantasy to find its way. Those interested in these well worn spaces don't want to picture your family in them. You'll remove family photos (though we never framed many), knickknacks and sentimental items (of which we had way too many), and most importantly clear every cupboard or closet by two thirds to create the illusion of roominess. Everything else must be staged and curated. Your life is too messy and there's no place for it in this fantasy. It clouds the imagination. It really is too much stuff.
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The Hedge
Short StorySome memoirs of my home of 14 years that we recently sold. Nicknamed The Hedge because of the eight foot high cedar row that spans the front of our yard.
