I suggest the book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Staging Your Home to Sell. It provides a step by step guide to staging your own home. And yes, those collections should be boxed up now. If they were distracting to a Realtor, who sees many, many homes, they will surely be distracting to buyers. You are planning on moving, so will eventually have to box everything up anyway - better sooner than later.

First, I am sorry about your husband's health issues. I am wishing him a speady recovery and luck to you both in selling your home.

What advice did the realtor that came to look give you? What are the sizes of the other homes in your area? Are there any other homes on that much land and that large that have sold recently in your area?

What about asking a realtor or someone in that area that specializes in staging properties to come and take a look and give you some advice. Without seeing some photos, it is hard to give some advice about the actual rooms. Is there anyway you can post some photos of a few of your interior rooms? Can you ask someone to help you out with some photos to post?

Wall color choices and wallpaper choices are so individual, it would be important to actually see them to give some advice. They may be tasteful and appropriate and should be left but then again maybe not.

Since you are in the south, I would say a plantation style home is appropriate to your area and you might be able to play up this fact about your home and have it marketed as such. Emphasizing it is a real southern "belle" - that might attract someone looking for just such a home.

Good luck to you.

If a Realtor was distracted by your decor, you have some serious decluttering to do!

Take the true antiques out of the house and store them somewhere safe. The last thing you want is for someone to damage or steal something. Ditto all the collections.

How dark is dark colored walls? Are they "in" right now? Do they make the rooms look small? Are they very specific to a certain decorating style/taste? If you remove most of the personal items from the walls, will the walls need to be repainted anyway? If so neutralizing can only help. Wallpaper, especially a specific period wallpaper should go.

The idea is to depersonalize the interior. You want a buyer to imagine it as their home, not see it as your home. While once in a while you do get someone with the exact same decorating taste, the reality is that decorating is personal, hence you un-decorate when selling. Your home is a reproduction not a true period house so decorating in the period is not necessarily expected.

If the Realtor was distracted and did not have any suggestions on decluttering and staging, that is not the correct Realtor to sell your house.

Pictures would help a lot. Do you have a digital camera? if so, you can take pictures and up load them to a Picture Trail Album if you don't want the pics embedded in the thread.

William Poole The Wedge Plantation House

IMO, you should box up the collectibles just in case. One never knows when someone is walking a house, looking to eventually rob it. The 1st things packed were my collectibles / valuables, taken out of the house.

In the meantime, my husband had surgery for lung cancer, which they found in February, and is now taking chemo.

I'm really sorry. My dad was diagnosed with leukemia a few weeks before closing on his new house. The diagnosis alone is hard enough, add to that building a house and trying to sell one?

What is your husband's prognosis? I have a friend who's hubby was diagnosed about the same time as yours but a few years back. I'm sure there have been advances since then. If you feel you'd like to vent to a stranger, my email is on my member page. I had people I was able to email when my dad was sick. I can't tell you how much I appreciated them letting me vent.

Your house is beautiful. I'll have to go back and look at more of his plans, I really love the layout.

I posted the link to your plans below. Do you have a photo sharing site? If not, Picasa is free.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Wedge

Thank you all for you kind words as well as the links to my house plans. Terriks, I'll check on that book. Springvillegardens, the realtor is the one in my area who has sold a house lately that's comparable to mine, so I'm really considering him. There are several other homes in my area that are close to its size, but there are others that are much smaller. When you live in the country in the South, you are surrounded by all kinds of houses. When I told him I needed to neutralize and declutter, he didn't seem to agree with me. The reason I know he was distracted is because when he sat down in the den, he kept asking questions about the rooms he had just visited. If he had been paying attention to the house, he shouldn't have had to ask those questions. I guess we had too much going on for him to take everything in.

Xamsx, no my colors are ten to twelve years old, mostly, not current. If I neutralize the walls with current colors, I'm still going to have the antique furniture. No matter what I do, short of putting in different furniture that I can't afford right now, painting the walls will not make the house look modern. I even have numerous antique light fixtures, some of which I'm replacing to take with me. I'll try to get a camera so that I can post pictures. I know not seeing what I'm saying is difficult, if not impossible.

Roselvr, thank you so much for offering to let me vent. My husband's prognosis will depend on our next scans, I suppose. A spot was found on his brain during his last MRI, so we're waiting to scan again to see if chemo affects the spot. Hopefully, the spot will remain the same as chemo shrinks cancer cells. I may just e-mail you one day, though. Thanks again.

blueenough, don't worry about making the house look "modern" - although I would seriously question leaving antiques in your house during showings (from a theft and breakage standpoint). Not everyone likes Potter Barn. :-) You want to depersonalize and un-decorate to appeal to the masses. So, let's say you have a room painted hunter green; unless it is a library with all the wood etc that traditionally entails, a potential buyer is going to think "three coats of paint + primer = how many $$". Same with the wallpaper... "six rooms with wallpaper = how many dollars to remove, repair the walls and paint". A buyer will automatically deduct that from an offering price (if they offer at all) and they usually deduct more than actual cost to accomplish these tasks. Neutral doesn't mean blah either. There must be some colors out that will match your house, look fresh and not say to a buyer "I have to paint immediately". The odd part is most buyers DO paint immediately... they just don't want to be forced into it.

Also, swap out your light fixtures before you list. This cannot be emphasized enough. You can do a search on this forum for repercussions of not swapping out light fixtures prior to listing.

My husband's prognosis will depend on our next scans, I suppose. A spot was found on his brain during his last MRI, so we're waiting to scan again to see if chemo affects the spot. Hopefully, the spot will remain the same as chemo shrinks cancer cells.

Sounds like the lung cancer has been controlled? I will think good thoughts for his next scan. If you have any diagnosis, you might also look to see if there are clinical trials going on. I can't say enough good things about them, they gave my dad a few more months when it was looking very bleak. My son has an uncle that specializes in cancer drugs, he told me about the clinical trial site and gave me info about which doctor had better results. Unfortunately, I learned this all too late.

Depending on how limited your time is now will really dictate what you'll realistically be able to do and not do to get ready for sale. The last thing you need is more stress. I used to drop my dad off for blood tests / transfusions, then go to his old house to work. I was pretty much on my own except for when my hubby could help me, so unless you have family that can help; take the time to make a realistic list of what to do with your time.

If he regularly goes to the hospital, bring a phone book with you, it will allow you to look for painters to get a few estimates. Figure out what rooms you would take photos of when you list it, then have those rooms painted / staged if you can manage it. Also look at handymen. We ended up using one to paint, he saved us a lot of money. My dad put the money out for paint, so the cost was mostly in the labor.

I may just e-mail you one day, though. Thanks again.

Your welcome. So far I haven't found a forum strictly for cancer patients / loved ones; although it is much needed. Hospitals usually have support groups, but who really has time for that?

roselvr
what type cancer 'board/site/forum' are you looking for? DH was diagnosed in mid April with esophageal cancer (he is doing great right now) and I after much searching have found several sites.

Carolyn

I've been very fortunate to have quick sales on all but one of my houses. Of course, I've never tried to sell one like yours. Mine have all been in the $200K -$300K range. Anyway, I always neutralize if necessary, rent a storage unit for my clutter, and stage the house. Oh, and I keep it unbelievably clean and fresh smelling...as opposed to how I really live!

I'm sorry you have all this to deal with. Wishing your husband good health and good luck and a quick sale on your house.

blueenough, I wish you and your husband the best. What some of the posters mentioned about looking into clinical trials may be the best thing going for someone with advanced stage lung cancer (just assuming since you mentioned that it metastasised). My mother died from cervical cancer over 11 years ago and I have pretty much followed cancer research since then. When my mother was diagnosed in 1995 you could have read a book on her cancer printed in 1965 and it would have been pretty much up to date on her treatment options.

Cancer research has come a long way from when my mother was diagnosed and I am happy to say that a book written just a year ago is probably completely out of date now. I have also attached a link to a good site that has articles on all kinds of cancer health topics that can be read and understood by non-medical people. I found the more I understood about the disease the more I was able to deal with the doctors and look after my mothers care.

BTW, I have a friend that will be a 5 year lung cancer survivor next year. People do survive lung cancer contrary to what you may hear.

Also here is a link to a lung cancer vaccine that University of Miami developed in 1999, it sounds promising.

http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2007/08/20/story8.html?jst=s_cn_hl

Here is a link that might be useful: Science Daily

Oh, I am so sorry if I have misled anyone. Kitchenshock, we won't know if the cancer has metastasised until four or five more weeks. The MRI showed a spot on his brain, but the doctor is unsure if the cancer has spread or not. The next scans will show if the chemo has had any effect on the spot. Roselvr, I'll keep all your suggestions in the front of my mind. I'm afraid that I'll be the painter. Wishfulthinking, IF and WHEN I finish decluttering, as I'm scrubbing floors, I'll remember your advice. ha I've been so busy clearing and packing my collections, though, that I haven't checked this post lately. I do appreciate all of you who have offered information and compassion.

"but I don't know how to neutralize this house without compromising its style."

I don't think it's the house's style you'll be compromising, it will be your own style.

You may look at your house and see victorian antiques being perfect for it, I may look at it and see scandanavian or even retro americana.

I would neutralize the house.

I'm also praying for your husband to recover. My friend's father was diagosed with inoperable lung cancer 5 years ago. He got a second opinion, had chemo and surgery, and knock wood he's doing fine now.

Do you really have to sell right now? With everything else on your plate, it seems so difficult to try and add home selling to your list of worries...

disneyrsh, your remark about compromising my own style is "dead on." I guess I just hadn't thought about it that way before. We did so much work on this house ourselves that I guess it's difficult for me to even think about anyone choosing a scandanavian style to decorate. I thought I had "distanced" myself somewhat from this house only to realize I really haven't. Though we aren't forced into selling now, I would love to get on with our lives. We had planned on building to get closer to family--a plan we still want to initiate. I know you're right, though, about adding to my list of worries. Thanks for being so considerate.