About Ottawa's Embrun

You are fixing up your home either for yourself or for selling. You have heard that kitchens and bathrooms sell homes so you have decided to pull out the pink plumbing fixtures, go white and go green.

Six litres of water sounds like a lot less than the Niagara Falls that flows down your toilet with every flush. Be careful. Not every low-flow toilet is able to handle waste. Two flushes to get the job done? Well, you won't have saved Mother Earth. When you decide to replace one of the water guzzling old toilets that actually functioned and wonder what will work:

• look for a dual flow tank,
• talk to the sales people and
• go on the internet to find evaluations of toilets using 6 litres that will leave you ......

Flushed with Success.

Photo credit: Every toilet should be made in Sweden

Decorating note: When the dual flush buttons are located on the top of the tank, it is almost impossible to leave towels, a kleenex box or and other type of decoration.

As I watch CNN television this morning, it is all about what people have done or will be doing tomorrow on Valentine's Day. I feel a little like Miss Rose.....

When I saw that the background had a colour, I decided it was time to go out and buy a light box for photographing small things. This was done before I got the right equipment.

The is the story of the CLEAN DISHWASHER and DIRTY OVEN

As I go out with Buyers looking at houses and host Open Houses on Sundays, there are things buyers seem to notice repeatedly. Clean Dishwasher. On a weekend buying trip, a buyer and I saw nine homes. In every home we opened the built-in dishwasher. In almost all cases there were dishes in the dishwasher. That was not a problem. You expect to dishes in a dishwasher. What we did notice was that a number of people had kept the dishwasher door clean all around the inside edges. The inside and outside were well maintained. To us, this was an indication of people who cared about cleanliness and was seen as an indicator of good housekeeping and maintenance around the rest of the home.

Now we get to the Dirty Oven. In this day of self-cleaning ovens, it is hard to believe how many people do not clean their oven before putting their home on the market. If the oven is included in the sale, a buyer will always open the door to see inside. Sometimes the whole oven is disgusting. There it is, a potential fire hazard filled and coated with grease and burnt on food. The Buyer is buying your appliance as part of the deal, not your food droppings. The Buyer looks at this and wonders where else in the home things have been left a problem. If your house is for sale, before going to bed tonight put on the self-cleaning oven feature and let technology do its thing. If you are worried about this features, Turn it on in the early evening. It takes at least four hours for a really dirty oven. When the cycle has finished, all you have to do is wipe out the ashes and clean the door.

Apply some elbow grease to your dishwasher and oven.

Photo credit: New Dishwasher (inside)

I was out with Buyers looking at homes. Of course we had done our homework by looking at the listings on the Internet and evaluating the worthiness of viewing the homes based on the pictures, price and location. One set of home pictures stood out for two reasons.

• It seemed that the Seller was overly fond of dark maroon paint - it was on the walls inside the home and on the exterior bricks. It was the same colour and it was everywhere. The rooms seemed too dark and depressing but sometimes photos are misleading and not just because of wide angled lens.
• Secondly, it seemed the Seller was running a craft / country store of kitsch from her home. Every bit of wall space and every horizontal surface was covered in craft-like items. It was difficult to see the rooms beyond the stuff.

It was on our "not to see" list. However, I was booking homes to see in the neighbourhood. One Listing Agent called me back and asked if we would add one more house (the maroon kitsch house) to the list. He said the Seller was motivated (aka ready to negotiate the price) and that the house was well built and maintained. Okay, we had time and a favour to another agent is always good.

OMG!!! We were in the house for 1 minute and the husband wanted out. Our eyes were spinning. There was nowhere to look without being attacked by stuff. NOWHERE. The wife recognized that all of the clutter was, in fact, expensive pieces and probably lovingly collected over time. Sadly, everything was on display but nothing was a focal point. All those things were nailed, tacked, strung, hung, glued and embedded in maroon walls and ceiling, on the carpet, tabletops, over the counter, fridge, stove and dishwasher, lining the stairways and adorning the banister. The house was lost in the stuff.

We never made it beyond the first floor. We needed out and away from the overpowering claustrophobic feeling from the dark maroon paint and the stuff. I asked my clients to just wait two minutes at the front foyer knowing that the owner was just down the street and likely watching for us to leave. Why insult the Seller but hurrying out after just 60 seconds?

In my feedback to the agent I told him about our reaction to the colour and the kitsch. I know he had received the same information from others. Apparently, the owner was in love with her stuff and refused to change the house for the sake of a sale. This house was going to linger on the market for a long time.

Photo credit: Kitsch-cow @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/itnomad/11340853/