How "house viewing ready" is your house?

[Millana]

At this precise moment, if you were/are going to have people coming to look at your house, how "ready" is your house?

I'm not planning on selling but mine is a disgrace. 😔

It's been slowly dawning on me that if we were to sell, we'd have to put a lot of work into it so why are we living with the mess and clutter and half decorated rooms etc? Why would we put all that effort in for other people but not us?

Now I need to put that into action and change it.

In RL, a few hours and I'd be ready

In MN land, as long as it takes me to repave the drive, put everything I own in storage, paint the whole thing cream, replace the kitchens and bathrooms and then move the whole house, brick by brick, closer to an outstanding school.

It would need about two weeks off work to clean and declutter full time. In other words, not in the slightest.

I don't know why you would want it to be though? That would be so stressful and annoying. Our house is lived in, by three humans and two cats. It gets messy, we clean it, it gets messy again. It hasn't been decorated for five years so could do with touch ups but they're not necessary to everyday life.

My house is always tidy, clutter free and surface clean but I can't ever seem to find the extra time or inclination for the deep cleaning. So skirting boards, windows, behind the toaster, washing machine soap drawer etc. are all manky😂

I have an outstanding school within a few minutes walk.
However, I'm always a bit scared to mention my downstairs bathroom and on street parking in case I get banned from the site. 🤣

Yikes!

Been having a major declutter for months. tick.
But as for decorating? Epic cross.

It's ready. A 30 min clean would make it show home ready (planned for tomorrow).

I love having a clean house and when the bigger jobs are done regularly they dont take as long (oven cleaning and carpet cleaning come to mind). The trick for me is to clean before things look dirty. I used to skip dusting, hoovering or bathrooms if they looked clean enough and then it would slide for a few more days and need proper effort and take more time. Now it's a breeze as there are no layers of crap and each clean makes it tidier than before.

I also paint and decorate a lot so everything looks fresh and new in the background.

Decluttering and storage is your friend. If you have a pile of stuff on the table, put it in a basket so it looks like it should be there. Or a basket for the stairs to collect things to take up and down. Having stuff that's easy to clean helps too. Bit definitely having less stuff.

I'd just need to run the hoover round, so about half an hour. I hate clutter though so I don't keep lots of "stuff", my place is minimalist and I don't have young kids either.

Days if not weeks, but then I have no plans to see so why does it matter?

I've just booked a cleaner for a deep clean next month
Special offer of £65 for 5hrs. Bit her hand off

We rent our house and I could be ready in 2 hours - but no kids at home

In a couple of hours it would be tidy

I think that's partly it.

We don't have loads of stuff but our house is small so our "not much stuff" is too much for the space we have. I need to address that but some of it can't be helped eg the giant drum kit in the dining room needs to stay so that automatically makes the dining room look cluttered and messy.

Could you style it in? Maybe put some music stuff on the walls or some wallpaper in that space to make it look like its been put there deliberately and make it a part of the space?

My husband doesn't have much stuff but he doesn't keep what he has tidy eg he dumps his clean laundry on his bedside cabinet and he seems incapable of throwing any sort of paper away, preferring to pile it up on any flat surface.

I have stuff and am also messy.

I've got some tarot cards I'd have to hide first.

TBH I'd hope the only reason I was selling is cos I got good on the lottery numbers.

House viewing ready is so artificially removed from day to day life that I'd be surprised that anyone operated within 30 minute striking distance.

Guest ready, though? About 15 minutes if it included putting the dry clothes away and putting the hoover round.

The cleaner has just been so, right now, it looks fantastic. Any potential buyers would need to be here within the next two hours though because by then it is likely to have gone to crap again.

I can't see me ever having our house ready to go on the market and meet the stringent MN requirements for a perfectly decorated and uncluttered house. I think I'd just let the estate agent market it as "in need of updating" and relax.

Mine is . I hate living in
Mess ! I tidy all the time!

Ours isn't. And we have a viewing tomorrow afternoon. Nothing stays nice here between viewings.

It would take us a long time too Op, because we’d like viewers to be able to safely go into wardrobe space etc and not fear things knocking them out like they sometimes do us. 😂 I’m only surface tidy!!

I could have the house reasonably ready in a couple of hours as long as no one entered DD’s bedroom. The outside however……

Minus 1000000%... If you want a fixer upper.

I started fixing her up, now I have a back injury and can't even pick things up off the floor. Lol

Mine isn't.

There's two aspects. 1. The general upkeep, repair & maintenance - which I've been unable to do much of since my marriage ended 10 years ago (lack of money) and 2. Cleaning tidying & decluttering. I am a naturally clean & tidy person & I clean a lot. I find the way that teenage detritus can reduce it to a hovel in hours (minutes?) soul-crushing. I am decluttering a lot at the moment, which is mainly also kids-related (I find it hard to let go of clothes, toys etc no longer used).

Recently, I've also been in a position to tackle 1. There's been a lot of big jobs needed eg new front door, new fences & gate, which I got done & weirdly it made me feel bad about other stuff, instead of making me happy! I also know I've a limited budget so some things I'd like to do I just won't be able to.

If I absolutely had to, I think I'd have it presentable in a week but that would be accepting not being able to do some jobs I'd ideally like, such as new bathrooms.

I keep reminding myself that the clutter (in bedrooms mainly) is the killer & I'm ploughing on with that, hopefully productively tho I sometimes wonder!

Our garden is a mess too. It's a small courtyard filled with the remains of attempts to grow things. Lots of attempts and lots of things. I think I'm going to have to accept that as a lost cause and get rid of the hundreds of pots/implements.