Our condo is on the market. Woo hoo! Fingers crossed for a fruitful sale. Here’s some photo evidence of the efficient and affordable work we did to prep our home.
Kitchen Update
We went with cabinet re-facing instead of replacement because it is so much more affordable. The doors are new, but the faces are not–they have a new plate over the old one to match the new color. We upgraded to a granite countertop, an under-mount, stainless steel sink and modern hardware, all of which the cabinet re-facing company helped us do on a budget. Danny did the backsplash himself with this peel and stick tile from Home Depot. It took him a few hours, it looks great and it is easy to replace if the new buyers don’t like it. Instead of spending $30,000 on a total kitchen re-do, we spent $8,000 on a pretty fantastic facelift (if I do say so myself).
Master Closet
I have always loved our Elfa closets in the master bedroom. However, when we had them installed, The Container Store told us we would get more shelf, rack, drawer space if we removed the bi-fold doors. We said, “yes please” and lived with open closets. I think, when it is organized, it looks really nice, however to accommodate a pickier buyer, we purchased tension wire from Ikea and curtains from West Elm to add an optional “door” to the closets. (We splurged on the curtains because we plan to use these same four panels to cover the huge windows in our master bedroom at the new place). The tension wires were easy to install, however one is working perfectly that the other has required additional repairs. It even pulled out of the wall once. It was also the first one we did, so maybe that was just user error.
Hallway
We waved goodbye to all of our personal photos and put them in storage. Then we hired some guys to fill all the holes (from all the photos) and paint the wall. Yes, we could have hopped on the struggle bus and done this ourselves, but we felt the $200 was totally worth it for saving hours of our time and potentially sanity. There were a lot of holes…
The paint is photographing greener than it really is. Actually it looks more blue/grey in person.
De-Clutter
So far, we have sold two unnecessary pieces of Target furniture on Craigslist and gone through every closet and cabinet for items to sell, items to trash and reorganization. I also re-organized these bookshelves to make them a little less crowded.
Elphie, photo bomb!
Yes, I got rid of some books, but mostly I re-arranged everything. I put like colored books together, turned some things on their sids and tried to avoid long rows of just books. Honestly, I cannot wait to create styled vignettes throughout our new home, mostly using what I’ve learned from Young House Love and watching too much HGTV.
To Do
There are still some areas that need help. This mess, for one. 
And obviously we couldn’t update/paint/fix everything. I would love to replace the blue carpet in the bedrooms, replace bathroom floors and vanities and put new hardware on all of the closet doors (right now they are white plastic and I still may get to this one), change the light fixtures, and re-paint the entire apartment except for the newly painted hall and the two green walls that I love. 
Also, I pretend every day that this ceiling fan does not exist.
However, I believe that with the work we’ve done, we will find a buyer who will love this place like we did–and who maybe even loves a gold-plated ceiling fan.
year of fun 