Extreme Makeovers

Much painting and gardening going on, wall and house washing and window cleaning as we prep our house for sale.
This side garden has for some time been beyond us with deeply rooted weeds and only a few plants we like- so we hired a gardener to come and totally rip it up with a hoe taking the topsoil with it and putting in nice clean soil for new plantings.  We have re homed the daffodils that have finished flowering now. 

We have bought 6 lovely grasses and a few lavender plants and have splashes of colour from pansies as well to add.  the colour plan is purple, cream and yellows as that works with what we have already.  The red tulip you see in one photo is in one of my pots and was this year my only tulip to flower from last year's lot.  I'm going to plant a big pot plant of colour for the front door.  Mum and Dad are giving us some shrubby ground cover and small plants to fill in any empty spaces we may have after the new garden is planted.  Everything will be low maintenance and attractive in shape or colour.  Probably mulched with pine bark which we will put also onto the other front garden bed over the older pebbles.  There are some lovely azaleas and rhodo's that do well in their location there.

We have been painting parts of the house as well, making a big difference inside and out. See on the right how the window sill has changed colour?  All windowsills in the entire house are now white rather than brown.  Worn areas are touched up.  Bathroom is freshly painted in white.  Children's room is next- from a cold blue into a milky latte colour.  Will be lovely to see that transformation. Our plan was always to paint their room once they reached an age of being less messy-but then that time came and we were busier than ever...so now we'll enjoy it for a few weeks before we sell.
Hubby has been washing the house exterior climbing ladders in places to do so, with an extendable cleaning do-dad. Its raining now so I can't get a good photo but the house has never looked whiter!  We have more doors to paint inside and out.  And we must do some dramatic decluttering.

Meet Skippy.
Into which the garden waste will go along with  household junk.  One skip hire vs many trips to the tip was not a difficult decision.  We have all sorts of stuff hanging around that is destined for Skippy.  I just hope its big enough, lol! 

We're finding homes for couches and dressers and things we will probably not have room for with our move- and I have to rearrange the computer into my sewing room. Our third bedroom is used for a small sewing space/ study area-but we have had the computer in the dining area so that when our children use it we can monitor them closely.  Quite a bit of our office furniture came as flat packed stuff so I am packing down some equipment to make room for the computer on my sewing table- we'll dismantle the computer desk and some of our book cases and another table as well.  Have to love flat packed furniture when you move house!    Its good to weed household stuff down.
Since the house is quite large, there are a whole lot of surfaces that need washing and cleaning-upstairs and down.  Curtains to vacuum....and on it goes..  My parents are coming to visit for a few days next week to help us do some additional cleaning/ painting.

The race is on to get our house to presentation levels within a week to fortnight- so it'll be interesting to see how fast things move when we have two extra adults on the job as well.  I have my quilting retreat starting in a week on Thursday (could the timing be any worse??) but plan to go and finish off some work and personal  things that will help make packing easier and hopefully find some new homes for a few bits and pieces with quilting friends.
It will be nice to chill for a couple of days before diving back in to the house all over again.

I hope you are all out there sewing madly or perhaps some of you are preparing to sell your house as well?
Cheers,
Stephanie