Kitchen Time Lapse

A Surprise for My Bride

We signed the paperwork with Premier Surfaces to replace our countertops and tile backsplash on January 26th and they told us that the soonest they could start the project was Monday, February 13th.

That was a lie...

I had them tell Wendy that was the date when we went in to sign off on the paperwork. What Wendy didn't know, is that I had already worked it out with Premier to start the project 1 week EARLIER, on the 6th. The same day that she was leaving to go on a business trip for 3 and half days. Which would be PLENTY of time to get old countertops ripped out, old backsplash tile ripped out, kitchen cabinets prepped for painting, new granite countertops installed, new backsplash tile installed and new paint on the cabinets. In THREE days...no problem...

Right?!

Wendy's reaction when she walked in at 5am, after riding a charter bus all through the overnight hours, was THE BEST!

Watch...

Before and After Pics

I NEVER remember to take the before pics of a project. Luckily since we had the idea to market the house this way, we've had pics of most of the rooms in our house up on our "Make Me Move" listing on Zillow. Plus, having them be in one .jpg file helps when you Pin these to Pinterest.

The walls are Revere Pewter. The cabinets are in Alabaster White.

The walls are Revere Pewter. The cabinets are in Alabaster White.

As if painting the cabinets in 1 day wasn't enough, Three Brothers Painting also did the handrail for our staircase as well.

We went from the standard oak finish on the handrails to Black Fox paint that matches our fireplace mantle and our kitchen pantry doors.

Featured
25 Years of Marriage Advice
25 Years of Marriage Advice

My post about meeting my wife Wendy, gathered a lot of eyeballs as well as questions about relationships and marriage over 28 years of knowing each other. (You can catch up on that post here if you haven’t read it yet). It even prompted me to send some unsolicited advice to a a couple that I knew was heading out of town to go get married.

The Black Crowes, Sweaty T-shirt and Bowling...aka The Night I Met My Wife
The Black Crowes, Sweaty T-shirt and Bowling...aka The Night I Met My Wife

That should give you an idea of juuuuuuust how arrogant I was at 20 years old. So arrogant! The following is my way of documenting the 3rd best day of my life. The first being when I decide to follow Jesus and 2nd when the Detroit Tigers won the World Series in ‘84. Wait, I mean, my wedding day! I definitely meant to say my wedding day is the 2nd best day of my life. Moving on…

Social Media & My Dishwasher

I short video that will resonate with exactly 50% of my audience.

Honoring Daughters
Honoring Daughters

Even as I wrote that heading, it seemed a little weird. My oldest is out on her own. Working. Paying bills. Dating. Paying Taxes. And as of today, she can order an alcoholic beverage!! I mean, my wife was younger than 21 when we got married. Sheesh...I'm old.

An Open Letter of Tweets to Husbands
An Open Letter of Tweets to Husbands

I was wondering about what to post next in the Family section and being a Husband to me is a pretty important title, having been one for over 23 years.

Huge responsibility!

The Four of Us
The Four of Us

Posting the picture above reminds me...we need to get a new family pic. Didn't we JUST take this one? Actually no. This is at least 3 years old. Now, I have a beard, my youngest is a Senior in high school and my oldest is out on her own, ya know...adulting. This time next year my wife and I will be empty nesters. 

Staging and Color Scheme

in

Thank Goodness for Creative Friends

So it's not like our old color scheme was BAD. It's just that it could possibly have been a mental hurdle for a potential buyer to have to overcome. Clarissa Gibson with The Gibson Co. noticed this immediately the first time we had her over to talk about using her to stage our home.

You don't want a home shopper to walk in to your house for the first time and immediately start having to change things in their mind. Like, "We'd have to paint that room.", or, "Those curtains will have to go.". They could even be the person that eventually buys your house, so allow them to walk in and see as clean of a slate as you can. - Clarissa

 

Clarissa came by the other day to talk about what's left to do now that we have taken her advice and painted our entire downstairs, foyer and upstairs hallway. Give the video below and watch, then PLEASE SHARE our story with your friends using the share button below the video. 

 

New Paint for Blank Canvas

A Blank Canvas

Above is our new video for the first Episode of our reality show "Buy The Baird's House" where we are preparing to sell our home around March of 2017. We took our Staging Designer, Clarissa Gibson of The Gibson Co.'s advice and did away with our old paint scheme and replaced it with Revere Pewter.

As we had mentioned in our big announcement, Clarissa Gibson of The Gibson Co. is staging our house in order for us to bring out as much appeal and value as possible for potential buyers. Upon her initial walk through, we all agreed that while our current color scheme is fine, it could potentially be a barrier in the purchase process, that we wanted to eliminate.

So, before she could really make the changes she wanted to from a decor and staging standpoint, we chose to go ahead and wipe the slate clean and paint our downstairs and upper hallway in a Revere Pewter from Benjamin Moore. Which means we called in our friends at Three Brothers Painting to do the job.

 

Best Painters...Period

Oscar, the owner, came out the Monday after Clarissa's Friday visit. As always (we had used them 3 years ago) he pulled out his iPad, plugged in our room specifications and he quickly emailed us an estimate. Once we agreed on the price, he said he could have a crew out THAT Wednesday morning and they could probably get it all done in 2 days.

The crew showed up around 9:30. Broke for lunch at 12:30. And by the time we returned from our dinner out at 7:30, the entire project was completed. Say what?!?!

 

Next Steps

We're off to meet with Premier Surfaces to talk about replacing the countertops in the kitchen. Once those are installed, Three Brothers will be back out to paint our kitchen cabinets. That's when Clarissa will be taking over. There will be furniture replaced. Decor will be hung. Rooms will be given a theme. And we'll be that much closer to being ready to take offers in March...ish.

Featured
25 Years of Marriage Advice
25 Years of Marriage Advice

My post about meeting my wife Wendy, gathered a lot of eyeballs as well as questions about relationships and marriage over 28 years of knowing each other. (You can catch up on that post here if you haven’t read it yet). It even prompted me to send some unsolicited advice to a a couple that I knew was heading out of town to go get married.

The Black Crowes, Sweaty T-shirt and Bowling...aka The Night I Met My Wife
The Black Crowes, Sweaty T-shirt and Bowling...aka The Night I Met My Wife

That should give you an idea of juuuuuuust how arrogant I was at 20 years old. So arrogant! The following is my way of documenting the 3rd best day of my life. The first being when I decide to follow Jesus and 2nd when the Detroit Tigers won the World Series in ‘84. Wait, I mean, my wedding day! I definitely meant to say my wedding day is the 2nd best day of my life. Moving on…

Social Media & My Dishwasher

I short video that will resonate with exactly 50% of my audience.

Honoring Daughters
Honoring Daughters

Even as I wrote that heading, it seemed a little weird. My oldest is out on her own. Working. Paying bills. Dating. Paying Taxes. And as of today, she can order an alcoholic beverage!! I mean, my wife was younger than 21 when we got married. Sheesh...I'm old.

An Open Letter of Tweets to Husbands
An Open Letter of Tweets to Husbands

I was wondering about what to post next in the Family section and being a Husband to me is a pretty important title, having been one for over 23 years.

Huge responsibility!

The Four of Us
The Four of Us

Posting the picture above reminds me...we need to get a new family pic. Didn't we JUST take this one? Actually no. This is at least 3 years old. Now, I have a beard, my youngest is a Senior in high school and my oldest is out on her own, ya know...adulting. This time next year my wife and I will be empty nesters. 

Make Us Move

in

We're Moving

In April of 2017.

ish...

My wife Wendy and I will be empty nesters and we are ready to down size to our "Forever Home".

Soooooo...

Above is a test video that I took back in October 2016 to post onto Zillow. This will end up serving as our "Before" in our "Before and After" video once we list our house for sale in April 2017.

 

We thought we'd share the journey of getting our current house ready to sell. 9265 Old Preserve Trail has been our home since we moved to Georgia in 2009. We bought it out of foreclosure, which helped to ease the pain of what we had to sell our house in South Carolina for. If you'll remember, the housing market was a little, umm...off? 

 

Big Picture

5 Bedrooms • 3 1/2 Bath • 3600 Square Feet • Open Kitchen • Breakfast Nook

Main Floor: Family Room • Dining Room • Office/Living Room

Upstairs: Master Bedroom with Full Bath • 3 Bedrooms • Full Bath

Basement: 1 Guest Bedroom • Full Bath

Living on a pond is the biggest selling point of this home. The pond is the HOA's, but we treat it like our own. We have a peddle boat (that stays with the house) that we take out at sunset and use to fish the wooded side of the water. The back deck makes it feel like a vacation spot. We created two paths to the pond/common area. One is a short-cut to the pool and tennis courts that a lot of our neighbors use so we get to meet so many people. The view from the front porch is perfect for looking at the Smokey Mountain range in the distance.

 

Fixer Upper

Over the next few months, we will be continuing some updates to the house in order to make it as appealing as possible to potential buyers. Ironically, we updated the paint colors in 2013 and we will be doing another update in January 2017. In November of last year, we updated the carpets upstairs and installed new flooring to the entire main floor and upstairs hall way.

The Gallery below will serve as our "Before" pictures. We're working with Clarissa Gibson of The Gibson Co. to help with staging, design and color schemes. Carlos Velez with Three Brothers Painting will be coming back out to do the updates to the walls and the kitchen cabinets.

 

Leaning on our Friends

Starting in March...ish, we would like to be in a position to officially take offers on our house and we are going to try and sell it on our own for 60 days. The point of blogging about it is so our friends can start sharing and build up some awareness before March rolls around. So please SHARE this post with anyone you think would be interested in making this their new home in March...

ish.

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Look, I’m not a writer of the words. So this isn’t going to communicate what I’m feeling as accurately as a true wordsmith would. This is the Executive Summary though…I’ve called myself a Christian since I was 23 (currently 48) but due to how some Christians interact with and respond to other Christians AND non-Christians, I think I’m out!

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