Sunday, October 07, 2007

Appraisal Ready

Whew. We spent the entire weekend getting ready for the appraisal tomorrow. We are in the process of refinancing from the 18-month construction loan to a regular 30-year mortgage. The appraised value of the house will determine the loan-to-value ratio, and could make a big difference in how "comfortable" a monthly payment we end up with. So we went all out spiffing up the house to hopefully get a nice high value.
Here's what we did:

  • Repainted the stairway walls,

  • Washed the windows,

  • Vaccumed and swept all the floors,

  • Deep cleaned both bathrooms, including scrubbing the hard water deposits off the shower wall and polishing the fixtures,

  • Cleaned the kitchen & did all the dishes,

  • Unpacked the remaining boxes from the move,

  • Cleaned & rearranged the office,

  • Cleaned & organized the sunroom,

  • Cleared everything off the porch except the bench, the big planter, the BBQ & the firewood,

  • Put away all the shovels, rakes, ladders, flower pots, hoses & sprinklers,

  • Mowed the lawn,

  • Cleaned up the garden,

  • Straightened up the mechanical room,

  • Cleaned the main entry room,

  • Took down the rest of the wedding lights & signs,

  • Washed, dried and folded all the laundry,

  • Cleaned & rearranged the spare room,

  • Cleaned & decluttered the TV room,

  • Bought & installed a blind in the TV room window,

  • Uncluttered & dusted all the windowsills,

  • Swept the ceilings for cobwebs,

  • De-cat-haired the living room furniture,

  • Put a new shower curtain in the upstairs bathroom,

  • Hung curtains in both bathrooms,

  • Hemmed the bedroom curtains (finally!),

  • "upholstered" the bedroom window seats with blankets,

  • Hung pictures & decorated empty walls,

  • Put a clean tablecloth on the dining table,

  • & put a bouquet of flowers in the living room.
All of this to make a good impression on a stranger who will be here tomorrow at 9 am, and probably only stay for half an hour. I'm exhausted, but I'm confident our effort will pay off. I'm also really anxious to have it done & over with...

3 comments:

Dan said...

I find that amusing considering I won't be doing half that when I have all my family over for Thanksgiving.

Anonymous said...

We did the same thing!

Spent a week making sure each room was spotless and and small dents and dings on the walls were sorted etc.

The appraiser was there for 10 minutes and barely stuck her head in each room.

Addie said...

Yeah, I was just telling Cary we need to have a party or something to show off how clean our house is before we mess it all up again.

The appraiser spent about 45 minutes total at our place, of which about 15 were inside - the rest were spent outside measuring the dimensions of the house and the shop, plus I made sure he made note of the pergola and other yard features.

He was a nice enough fellow, and he seemed to like the house, so hopefully it's going to come out good. Now we just wait and see, which is the hardest part for me...