So where have I been for the last month?
Working on my parent's house. Blowing the yard, replacing light switch plates, cleaning the last few pockets of grime, and...PAINTING.
The house was built at the tail end of the 1970's and the kitchen countertops are then-trendy mauve laminate. The previous owners embraced the color and installed cabinet pulls with rose (the flower) painted ceramic insets; Mom and Dad replaced the hardware with plain brass, but they painted the kitchen blue, which made the counters look even pinker in contrast. I said from the start of the selling process that we might end up painting the kitchen beige to make the counters look browner and less dated, but the rest of the family poo-pooed that idea.
Then the stager saw the kitchen.
Three coats of paint and two weekends of my time and my sister's later, the kitchen still looked faintly blue in some lights, but we declared it as good as it was going to get and my parents finally listed the house with the realtor I've been working for.
They received an offer almost immediately (within 24 hours!) and we have spent the last couple of weeks trying to keep the place clean and the plants alive during a record cold snap until the closing.
Unfortunately, due to that record cold, the buyer's inspector was unable to test the air conditioning system, so the buyer wants an A/C service company to test it. Since we are still in the middle of the cold wave, calling a service company out to look at the system would be an exercise in futility, and Dad refused. So, the sale has fallen out of escrow and we're starting all over again.
I just hope the place sells before it burns down or the citrus trees are seriously damaged by the frost. I'm also hoping that the next buyer doesn't look the place over and say, "Could you paint the kitchen blue?"
"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” ~Edgar Degas
