We are moving and we are staging our house.
Everyone tells me I should start packing weeks ahead of time. This is sensible advice, so I try. I really try. After the kids are in bed I attack the fringes of ten years of clutter. I sort through clothes. I clean out the dining room buffet and toss old candle stubs. I take down the wall of postcards that grandparents have sent from exotic vacation spots, carefully peeling tape off each card and tucking them into a box. (I wish I could travel to Copenhagen!). Then I start to panic. It's clear that at this rate, we'll never be ready.
We up the pace one weekend by renting a portable storage pod. A parade of relatives helps us cart off the extra dining rooms chairs, shelves and the daybed. I box up the dishes we seldom use, books, throw pillows, wicker trash baskets and candlesticks. By the end of the day, the house feels barren.
A few days later, our real agent arrives with a color consultant, on her dime, and spreads paint samples all over the living room rug. They decide on a palette of saturated colors that we would never have dared if we hadn't been moving. We stay in my mother's basement while the painters have run of our house.
A few days later, I leave for work just as our agent pulls up with a rental truck and two assistants. I'm apprehensive. Suddenly this whole endeavor seems over-the-top. Our agent told us that staging has helped some of her clients "let go" because their house no longer looks like their home. How will my house feel when I return? At the end of the day, I walk up to the front door and notice that the pileup of scooters, bicycles and helmets in the front porch has been replaced by two wicker chairs and a table and a tin star ornament. So far so good.
I feel like one of those reality TV show participants when I open the door. Oh my! Why haven't I thought of putting the living room rug at an angle in front of the fireplace? The house that has felt cramped now suddenly feels spacious. And what a nice Mission style armchair. (Wonder if she'll sell it to me?) There are a dozen new lamps casting pools of cozy light. The paint colors look splendid. And I really like her artwork. Remind me again, why are we moving?
She has rearranged the den as a "music room" with the piano against one wall. Our master bedroom looks like a page out of a Pottery Barn catalog. There are matching IKEA bedside tables and brushed pewter lamps where our mismatched shelves used to sit. A bold black and white spread has replaced the flannel Navajo print comforter cover that my husband brought to the marriage (and which I've been intending to replace for years!). The bathroom has a new shower curtain and artwork and a fake plant (...ok, I could live without the fake plant). Plump striped towels hang on the towel bars with washcloths carefully folded over the tops. "What if I forget and wipe my hands on them?"asks the 8-year-old.
Uh oh. Reality sets in.
A staged house looks nice, but just try to live in one. In ten minutes the children have recluttered every room. At least with most of their toys in storage, it doesn't take as long to pick up. That night I undress in the closet because one of our bedroom windows now has no curtain. My husband and I stand on either side of our staged bed to lift up and fold the new bedspread. Then we retrieve our Navajo comforter and lumpy pillows from the closet where they have been stashed with our other unsightly belongings. The next morning, we reverse the routine. The photographer is coming!
The kitchen counters look spartan, empty except for two fancy condiment jars with corks. My knife block has gone missing and I finally find it under the sink. The toaster has been moved to a pantry shelf. At breakfast I fold up the ends of a fancy table runner so the kids won't smear it with peanut butter. I hand dry the dishes because we can't leave out the dish rack.
Just before we leave for work and school, the five-year-old gets in a fight with his brother and hurls his sobbing self onto the sofa. I'm afraid that instead of consoling him, I start yelling frantically.
" Get your snotty face off the silk pillow!"
I flip the pillows to hide the stains from his teary face. Then I stand there draping and redraping the afghan to get it to look like it had before. It reminds me of going home after getting my hair styled and trying (unsucessfully) to get it to look the same way the hair dresser had left it. We almost miss the bus.
We put the house on the market a couple of days later at the start of spring break and fly out to California to stay with grandparents for the week. It ends up being an inspired decision. We are high above Las Vegas as the brokers' tour is going on. We fly back to Minnesota with an offer. We only have to keep the house tidy for several more days while our buyer comes back with various inspectors.
A week later, the agent sends her assistants to collect her things. My two-and-a-half year old daughter howls when she sees her pink bedding and the tulle netting canopy carried out the door. I promise to get her a canopy for her bedroom in the new house.
We are moving in two weeks. The knife block and our old comforter are out of hiding. Watching television is a challenge, however, since the TV is in the "music room"; where there is no seating and I haven't bothered to move it. But I discover I like living without TV.
I have also discovered that I like living without a lot of stuff. I like the space. I like not having to dust and clean it all. I'm beginning to forget what we actually packed away. And, with the exception of my silver candlesticks and my son's Harry Potter Wizard cape, I not sure I really want it all back.