It’s time for me to return to the important task at hand: getting the house ready to sell. I’ve been remiss of late in that I’ve essentially withdrawn from my responsibilities for taking care of a lot of cosmetic necessities.
So, today, I will buy four gallons of paint, several brushes and rollers, a few tubes of latex caulk, some sandpaper, and a few other odds & ends to prepare for a focused week of fix-up. I will paint the hallway outside the master bedroom and the bedroom that serves as my wife’s office. And I will paint the dining room and the entry hall. And I will paint one wall in the breakfast area. And, I will paint the interior of the garage. And I will paint the guest bath. And I will paint the wood trim in the bedroom that serves as my office. I say “I will” instead of “I plan to” as a means of putting pressure on myself to actually get it done. I’ve planned on doing these things since I was young and tall and good-looking.
Before I paint the garage, I have to do a bit of drywall repair to address some damage I did while trying to be Mr. Handyman in the past. While attempting to temporarily store some sheets of siding by hanging them on the garage wall, I put a rather large hole in the wall just above the base plate. It’s a repair I should have made months ago, but I’ve been terribly busy lazy.
In addition to painting and handling drywall repair, I will take care of some other long-deferred maintenance issues, among them:
- Fixing squeaky door hinges
- Power-washing the garage door
- Cleaning out the gutters
- Patching some cracked mortar around the exterior brick
- Arranging for refinishing the countertops in the half-bath, guest bath, and bar
- Re-grouting the tile in the guest bath
- Repairing the interior cabinet base in the half-bath
After I get some of this stuff done (it may take a while), my wife and I plan on taking a trip to visit my nephew and his wife in Ohio. That’s something else we’ve deferred several times this summer. But this time, assuming it works with their schedule, we will do it. And, in the process, we will explore a part of the country in which we’ve spent little time heretofore. We may visit my wife’s friend in Columbus, we may wander down into Kentucky to sample Kentucky whiskey, we may play it entirely by ear and take each day as it comes.
When we return, we will return to a house that is nearly ready to sell; I will just complete the list and be done. And then we’ll work out the schedule of when to actually put it on the market and where we’ll go once it sells. I thought these decisions had all been made. But decisions can change. Intentions can be redirected. Now, we must focus on the tasks at hand. Focus. Focus. Focus.
