Selling the Dream

A good friend once said to me that when you sell a house, you are not selling reality, but a dream. The past two weeks have been no dream, but a nightmare instead. Fortunately, I don't have to sell those two weeks...only their end result.

I am afraid that my spouse and I would have been quite comfortable in the Victorian age. We instinctively clutter our habitat with whatever we are interested in at the time. Our house bulges with maps and books and wooden ware and Noah's arks and magazines and paper and dishes and candlesticks. Surfaces are littered with any and all of these, and boxes and bags bloom in stray corners. Laptops lie where they are most used; the afternoon mail occupies a corner of the dining room table. To eat dinner, I need to rearrange the piles of 'To Do" items that accumulate in the one place where we know they will be seen.

No more. Potential buyers apparently don't dream of our particular lifestyle, and so, for a while, we need to imitate the reality they (and we, were we to be honest) dream of. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Sleek bookcase shelves, with a smattering of books and room for well-placed objets d'art. A dining table, ready for setting. A kitchen where the maid (apparently) has just washed up and emptied the dishwasher, having stored all appliances in the ample cabinetry. A cozy fireplace, a reading nook, newspapers and magazines that miraculously disappear as soon as they are read, without spending a week or so in the limbo of an ugly recycling box parked in the hall. A cat curled on the windowsill who doesn't require unsightly kitty litter or scratching post. Man, if I could find a place like that, I'd buy it too.

And so, we have spent two weeks boxing up the books and the other excesses with which we've populated our life. We've moved furniture and doo-dads and pictures and papers until we are not sure we know where ANYTHING is. We've rearranged, reduced, and rethought every aspect of the house until it isn't really ours anymore. At times, it seems as if we have moved everything we own into storage: not an easy task. Our agent approves--up to a point. I think she would prefer that we move out bag and baggage, sleep on the floor in sleeping bags, and roll even those up each morning and put them in the car. We have taken firm stances on some things. No, I will not pack up my cookbooks in their entirety. No, we will not take off the top portion of the hutch in our entry. No, we will not empty the storage spaces in the house. But, for the most part, we oblige her in the interest of selling the place. After two intense weeks of preparation, it goes on the market tomorrow.

For sale: charming home in a secluded location in the heart of Old Town. Convenient to all, walking distance to shops, restaurants, trolley and Metro. Fireplace. Light and bright. Treehouse views from third floor, lovely walled garden. Dreamers wanted.