Make It Look BIG!

"Make it look big," she says.

She, someone I had never met before today, was making suggestions on preparing my home to go on the market.  She looked around my living room and pointed to the big rubber plant I have grown over the last eleven years and told me it had to go. Takes up too much space she told me. You want your rooms to look BIG so potential buyers can envision their furniture having plenty of room to fit in she says.

My recliner where I sit to talk to my son every Sunday evening - out. The chair where I sit to watch TV in the hearth room - out - or at least moved to a different spot that makes it impossible to see the TV. The pretty shells, candlesticks, and philodendron I have around the bath tub - out, out, out. Declutter the bookshelves, unstock the pantry shelves, and reduce the number of pots and pans, dinner plates and drinking glasses. (Really? Everyone doesn't collect the plastic cups at the end of every athletic event like we do?)  The cabinets need to look spacious, the walls should look fairly empty (no personal pictures for heavens sake!), and the landscape pristine, even on a winter's day.

Selling a large home to downsize to a small apartment is a tough gig, even if I am doing it by choice. Making my house look bigger entails throwing away high school scrapbooks, yearbooks, and negatives from hundreds of pictures I can never re-take. It means tossing that little Bentwood rocker that is broken down but was part of my son's nursery. It also means my gardening friends are going to love me when they are able to pry my fingers away from my potting bench in the garage.

Yes, my house will look bigger but it also means I can't say "Go Big or Go Home".  Going big means I probably won't have this home.