This weekend was a tremendous success. Our house is on the market and will be shown to the first set of people tomororow morning. It is looking great and we hope that it will sell pretty quickly since it is quite bargain to find any house in Connecticut for that price (which, coincidentally, we couldn't afford if we were shopping for our first house right now instead of two years ago).
How it got ready to sell is nothing short of amazing.
Abby and I went to Connecticut on Friday morning with a list of things that needed to get done before the house could be shown thanks to our realtor's careful review of the house last week. It was three pages long. It had a mix of some ambitious projects along with a long list of really crappy grunt tasks that were no fun for anyone especially in August.
On Friday afternoon the first of our willing volunteers arrived and through out the weekend we had a steady stream of bodies. Weeding, painting, lifting heavy things that were covered in mud, they all got done without a bitch. Some came for an hour or two, some for much longer.
Amazing. Someone said that that is what you do when friends need help. We are touched by the support.
But the grand award for tremendous work has to go to my three cousins from New Hampshire.
They are three brothers who have always been very smart and really good at technical things. One is a software designer, one in college for technical management, and one for engineering. Since we didn't have any programming to do, I stupidly figured that they would be warm bodies in the line of bodies for the weekend. I foolishly thought that Abby, my brother John, and I would be 'the brains' of the operation.
Very foolishly, I learned quite quickly.
These three arrived on Friday night and by seven on Saturday morning had studied the list of tasks, developed a systematic way to tackle each project in order, and were at work by 7:05.
Abby, John and I kept looking at each other and resigned our posts as 'the brains' of the show by 7:06. These guys knew what they were doing, knew what their brothers were doing, and checked off tasks as they finished.
Installing caulking and painting the crown moldings that Abby I had started and stopped on three times? check.
Wiring the vent hood from the fuse box? check.
Fabricating a metal cap for our chimney that was off sized and could not be purchased? check.
Painting the L.A. Laker purple bedroom (Abby's idea)? check.
They worked without a pause until 5:00 PM on Saturday. No matter what is was it got done and by 5 PM on Saturday we were most of the way done with the list.
A very fuzzy morning later (did you know that PBR comes in 30-packs?) and we were down to a lot of cleaning and some swety manual labor but by 3 or so we had everything checked off the list, and were waiting for the RE agent at 4:00.
We are still reeling from the emotional and physically draining weekend but it is done and we can check that giant set of tasks off of our list.
Thank you to everyone who came and did so much for us. We appreciate everything that you did.
Now to find a place to move all of that stuff up here that we can afford.
Another tall task, but we'll figure something out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3XSs_EOK1g
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2 comments:
Your excellent friends (eh-hem) are a testament to what great people you both are. And I agree, some kids get a village, others are backed by a UN. (Ellie Nation!)
The cousin trio was indeed amazing. If ever they'd like to return to CT to perform an extreme home makeover again, I've got a house they can use.
If you need additional help looking for a place in the new area, let me know.
Great, now I'm going to be singing that song all day...
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