Chapter four - How NOT to start selling your house - Part Two

Oh dear  I have already had 10 viewings and I am horrified to realise that there are 3 ceiling lights without shades ( 2 of these are in the entrance hallway and one in the bathroom), 2 faulty spotlights in the kitchen and a total lack of lightbulb or lightshade in the fourth bedroom !!!

Also the  house has more chipped woodwork than a reclamation yard !

I really wish that I had spent the last 3 months redecorating my tired looking hall and finishing off my many unfinished projects around the house. The truth is that I have never been very good at finishing things. I have lots of enthusiasm for changing the overall look of a room and am very happy to slap some emulsion on the walls to achieve a new look in a matter of hours. But unfortunately I get bored very easily and often want to redress a room before the walls are dry and without a thought for the need to sand and gloss the woodwork I am now faced with the need to sand and gloss all that woodwork and there is a lot of it :(.

Thankfully I have enlisted the help of 2 girlfriends ( Gaby and Julie) to help me tackle the most urgent areas.

So our occasional coffee morning which is usually spent in a leisurely fashion will now be a caffeine fuelled hour or two of glossing and gossiping. I think that I will enjoy that.....a LOT.

Chapter Three - How NOT to start selling your house - Adult Content

Having had 3 valuations of 3 Falmouth Road just 4 weeks ago I decided to look at some affordable and desirable homes. I installed the Rightmove app on my phone and the search became more addictive. I decided to narrow my search to houses which I can realistically afford and discovered that there are in fact a handful of houses for sale which could tick all the necessary boxes, ie :

Box 1 -  must cost less than £300,000

Box 2 -  must be within walking distance of the children's schools and the Gloucester Road

Box 3 - must have 3 bedrooms

Box 4 - must have a good aspect.

Box 5 - must have some wow factor.

Box 6 - must have lovely neighbours.....

I started to view what was available and after just 3 short weeks I found myself looking around a dream home. I made an offer very close to the asking price almost immediately. To be in with any chance of securing this dream house I had to act swiftly to sell my own. Ocean estate agents were very happy to start marketing my house and they literally swooped in the next morning at 9am to take photographs and measurements.

And so the marketing began !

At 1.50pm on that very first day the first prospective purchasers arrived. I had been madly stuffing clutter into cupboards and filled my camper van with as much stuff as I could manage in the few short hours available. In fact I was still running around the house when they arrived - 5 minutes early ( a good sign I thought ). I let them into the house and quickly disappeared into the garden to seek refuge with my next door neighbours, Gaby and Tom, who were having a lovely relaxed  sunny Saturday afternoon reading the Guardian in their own garden.

 Gaby was aware that there were people looking around the house and Tom was engrossed in an article in the Guardian's Weekend magazine. Just a few minutes later I saw the estate agent and prospective purchasers step out out of my french doors onto the garden deck to admire my lovely garden. At the same moment Tom told us that he was reading about some bloke having a  "WANK" !!! Gaby and I looked suitably horrified and Tom explained that he was reading an article about "SEX TOYS" !! My eyes almost popped out of my head as I desperately tried to salvage the situation and said "THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE IS ALWAYS VERY INTERESTING."  Tom was oblivious to what had happened until I explained it to him a little later when I had recovered from the shock and was sure that the prospective purchasers had left. Tom then suggested that maybe he could demonstrate his own wanking skills to the next prospective buyers and we giggled.....a LOT !

Chapter Two - a little bit of house history.

3 Falmouth Road, Bishopston, Bristol, BS7 8PU was built circa 1890. That makes it 120 years old. That is quite old. There were no cars then. Photographic evidence is available. It has been our family home for 11 years. I moved here with my ex-husband and 2 year old daughter Maia in August 2001. The house had been partially renovated by the previous owners and needed lots more work to transform it into the beautiful home that it is now. Somewhere in one of my many boxes of old photographs ( I am sure lots of people have a similar mountain of photos that never quite made it into albums ) there lies the photographic evidence of how hideous the kitchen, bathroom, study, master bedroom and hallway were back in 2001.  The walls were mostly covered in anaglypta which was bizarrely painted a pastel pink colour throughout ; the bathroom suite was a sickly shade of avocado. There was a hideous 70's mock stone fireplace in the kitchen and the garden was a mostly  bare green rectangle with an ugly concrete path.

I understand that the house was in multiple occupation for many years and was once inhabited by several immigrant taxi-drivers so it has a colourful multi-cultural history to be proud of. Well done house ! I have also discovered  that 3 Falmouth Road was a student house in the 90's as one of my neighbours apparently spent many late nights drinking and smoking at number 3 with fellow students. I like that story..... a lot.

Our first 18 months living here were filled with builders, floor sanders, student decorators and plasterers. My ex-husband and I also worked very hard decorating and planning our dream kitchen layout whilst working and being devoted parents at the same time. A particular highlight was the day I discovered an old sash window in a skip on the Gloucester Road. Our local sash window specialists, A E Thomas on Bishop Road, crafted a beautiful window frame and the room was transformed from a second reception room which was blighted by a nasty 70's window  into a light-filled study.

Another highlight was searching for the perfect cast iron feature fire surround for the master bedroom. This search took me to the fascinating reclamation yards in the depths of the Black Country for a bargain piece and the trip was successful. Another room transformed from grotty characterless square to what is now my favourite room in the house !

During the last 11 years the sitting room has had lots of different disguises. We were told that the entire ceiling collapsed on the previous owner and had to be replaced. It was fully renovated by them and was painted a fairly vivid green. It stayed that colour for a while as there was so much else to be done. Then one sunny day in 2002 my sisters and I did a one day paint job and my ex returned home from work to a beautifully cosy purple sitting room - which worked really well at the time. It has since been revamped several times and has sported shocking pink alcoves before assuming it's current calming neutral hues.

My son Ezra was born in this sitting room on 30th June 2003. One day the Bristol Civic Society may decide to erect a blue plaque stating that Ezra Angel was born in this house and lived here from 2003 until 2012. They may decide to erect a second plaque stating that Maia Angel lived here from 2001 to 2012  and a third  stating that Lara Angel lived here from 2001 to 2012. Alternatively there may decide upon a single large blue plaque stating that 3 Falmouth Road was home to the Angel family from 2001 to 2012. I like that little fantasy....a lot.

Chapter One - the first 8 days....

Is it really only 8 days since my snooping turned into selling ?? Feels like 8 long months !

Having spent most of this year browsing the Property Pages compulsively every Thursday evening I now find myself consumed by the whole roller coaster of buying and selling property....

Current acute symptoms are :


1. Obsessively checking Right Move for that dream home that has my name beautifully etched in the frosted glass above the front door.....

2.Obsessively decluttering and cleaning my current home to achieve the best price possible...

3. Trying to view all properties which may be turned into the property described in 1. above with a little "TLC".

4. Juggling telephone calls from about 20 different people working for 7 different estate agents.

5. Scratching my head at the prospect of buying a property in need of major work....

6. Desiring a home that is pristine and means that I would not to have to lift a finger....+-

Having lost out on a house that I fell in love with and was my final motivation to sell up and move on I have now found a second possibility but need to sell my own to make a proceedable offer !!! After just 10 days on the market my humble abode has attracted 18 prospective purchasers but no offers as yet.....

And that is just a small snippet of the my selling experiences to date. I think that I should write individual chapters on the following :

1. How to get the best deal from an Estate Agent.

2. How not to start the selling process !

3. And  "what are my requirements ??? "

Can't write them now as I am viewing another unsuitable property at 4pm and have another viewing here at 5pm....