On Punching Up and Pizzazz

I met with my real estate agent for three hours one afternoon last week. She’s a neighbor and a friend, so I knew I could be open with her about all the quirks and cracks and over-full closets in the house. Still, it’s a very vulnerable feeling to reveal your secrets to an outsider, the things you’ve hidden away, the blemishes you’ve papered over.

My husband wanted no part of it, so I faced her alone.

The realtor and I walked through the home room by room. I told her what we intend to keep and what we want to get rid of, and I asked what we should do now and what should wait until after the house has (hopefully) sold.

Most of the time, she answered, “Get rid of it now.”

She pointed out furniture to move—“reposition” she called it—to open up the rooms so they seem more spacious. The rooms are big by most standards, but I guess we have to make them seem bigger.

She identified all the items we’ll need to hide or dispose of—personal photographs, mementos from our business careers, cutesy knick-knacks our kids gave us. Neither my husband nor I have many “collections” of stuff. Nevertheless, decluttering will have to happen—big time. And fast.

The more important issue is keeping our valuables and pilferables safe during the showing. Financial papers. Medications. Electronic devices. Get them all out of the house or lock them up. How?

We have a storage unit where my husband keeps his boat. There’s some space there, but I don’t know how many boxes he’ll want to dodge around for the several months until we move into our new home.

And tax season is here—I’ll need a lot of those papers for the next several weeks.

I can’t work without my laptop available on a daily basis. Will I have to take it with me everywhere I go, so it isn’t visible to tempt anyone? My tablet is my recreational device of choice—videos, ebooks, Solitaire (shh, I didn’t tell you that). Where will I keep it so I can retrieve it every evening?

Decorative bins, she recommended. Lots of them. And something that locks. For the first time in my life, I am contemplating a home safe.

We will have to change our lives, at least for a few months.

“Some people will object to carpet in the bathroom,” she told me.

I remember my toddlers crawling on the original carpet in the master bath, while my husband and I got ready in the morning. That bath is situated over the garage, and now on cold winter days, the carpet keeps our feet warm. Who can object to warm feet?

But my biggest challenge that afternoon was listening to our agent say we needed to “punch up” our decor. I’ve never aspired to have a magazine-worthy home, so I wasn’t surprised. Nevertheless, it hurt to hear someone else talk about the “comfy” nature of our home as a negative.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Your home is very well maintained. There isn’t much to fix. But we will have to give it some pizzazz.”

People who know me know that I am not exactly pizzazz-y. Down to earth. Buttoned up. (Or buttoned down.) I’ve been called those terms. But “pizzazz” isn’t a good descriptor of me, my husband, or my house.

“A spot of color here and there.”

I suppose I could live with more color. But no orange. I told her I’d tolerate yellow, but not orange, and I’d prefer not red. Why can’t I stick to blues and greens? Oh, yeah. I need to punch it up.

Now, off to hire the window cleaners. And the handyman. There are a few things to patch.

Does your home need punching up?