A bit of 'jiggery-pokery'....!

Last week we again put our house up for sale...DH has lived in this house for 33 years and I’ve been here only 9 years.

DH was enthusiastic at first as he is looking forward to one day living in a newer house which needs less maintenance. Now he’s quite pessimistic and feels that we will not sell in this economic climate. We agreed that when we came back from the US that we would make some decisions about the house.

The house is a 1951 model (just like me!) and has reached a stage where seriously expensive work needs to be done. Firstly the exterior needs painting. Then, many of the stumps need replacing and the floors need sanding and polishing again. We don’t have a large enough area to comfortably entertain our family and friends so we have looked at extending the side veranda for this. We have pondered whether it is worth doing such work when the one house next door will soon be replaced by 7 townhouses. And DH also dreams of having an ensuite and a walk-in wardrobe. 

Well when we came home I read in various newspaper articles that it is not a good time to sell so we thought that our decision had been made for us and that we would ‘stay put’ for a few more years. Then the real estate agent rang with his ‘silver tongue’.... Next thing we know we have paid over an amount of money upfront for marketing and our house is on the market.

I spent a day and a good part of an evening getting the house ready for the photographer who came last Wednesday. Now here is the interesting bit. Our house is a 1950s ‘box’ with a small kitchen and lounge room. I was a bit hesitant at first to look at the listing for our house online. I expected that my attempt to tidy my sewing room would not have resulted in a showpiece. I also expected that our large modular lounge would make our smallish lounge room seem even smaller. Our 2 verandas are not very wide either so I’d hoped he hadn’t taken photos of them! So with a bit of trepidation I clicked on the listing...what a magician that photographer was! Using all sorts of trickery such as assorted lenses and interesting angles and lighting  he made our house look like it’s on a huge block of land and our rooms looked quite largish...well bigger than they really are!!!



This room is largish but not as much as the photo suggests! lol



This room is not this big! lol

In real life the modular lounge makes this room look small

Now of course that I know this ‘secret’, I will be more discerning and critical of other houses whose photos are also online in real estate sites. It may not be ‘smoke and mirrors’ but it’s certainly ‘lenses and angles’! lol