Morty the Moose
I’m in a good mood today.
It’s a gorgeous fall day, and we’re headed to Kansas this week for NASCAR. Life is good.
This week we’re going to take a humorous look at some things you really shouldn’t do if you’re selling your house. I can’t promise there won’t be a funny story or two here or there. I’m just sayin’.
But first, a disclaimer: All these pictures are taken on my own personal properties. These pictures do NOT refer to any specific listing that I (or any other agent I know) have or may have had. These are just general tips from a professional stager. Who happens to be me. 🙂
This here is Morty the Moose. Morty, short for Mortimer, has resided at the Stanton residence since October, 2006. He’s here to start the week off and introduce the first tip.
Remove dead animals from your walls.
I promise no animal died just so I could write this post.
Morty was already dead when we got him. In fact, he was taken in 1989 in British Columbia by a doctor from St. Louis. Or so we were told when we got him. Morty is quite large, but he happens to look really good in my living room.
I love Morty. But then, I am not selling my house.
If you are selling your house, you should remove and stow away any dead animals. This also goes so far as to include urns with the cremains of beloved family members or pets (with much respect and sympathy for your loss.)
“The way you live in your home, and the way you market your home are two different things.” Barb Schwarz, the inventor of Home Staging.
If your home is for sale, you want it to appeal to the largest pool of buyers possible. Anything you do to ‘customize’ it more to your own taste shrinks your pool of buyers.
Suppose you really love the tropics, so you decide to paint your living room or your kitchen Flamingo Pink. Great! For YOU. But that is only going to appeal to a small niche of buyers who happen to really love the tropics.
Having mounted trophies and memories of YOUR loved ones, and not the buyers or even anyone they know can sometimes creep people out. That means the showing won’t go well. Which means they won’t buy your house.
I know some of you may be saying, “We live in the deer hunting capital of the world; everyone expects to see mounted deer heads on the wall. That’s a whole LOT better than a moose!”
Yes, that argument may be logical; but then you’re going to shrink your buyer pool to people who are not bothered by seeing a deer hanging on the wall. And that may not be the nice people from California who are cash buyers who have been lifetime members of the Sierra Club. No matter where you live, it’s just a good idea to put away anything that could be considered creepy by buyers.
Back to Morty.
This is Morty when he arrived at our house. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of Jimmy pulling in the driveway, with the long line of cars backed up behind him because he had to drive really slow. It was like a funeral procession.
Do you suppose people wondered what in the world he was doing with a Moose?
One antler comes off to make it handy-dandy to haul him around.
Maggie was freaked.
She knew he was an animal, but she couldn’t figure out what. She kept trying to stick her nose in his ears to try and get a bead on what he was.
She was very confused.
Convinced that Morty was stalking her, she kept an eye on him for weeks just to make sure he was still in the same spot.
Here’s Jimmy getting him settled into his spot.
“Can we raise him 3 inches, please?” I was kidding. HA
My poor, long-suffering husband. He was not terribly enthused about this moose project, but he humored me.
His life has certainly been a lot more colorful since we met. 😀
