Selling our Hercules house

Since we are moving to Southern California, and our tenant in our Hercules home has moved out, the timing is right to sell that house.  This weekend, we spent some time checking out the house, meeting with our realtor and figuring out what needs to be done to get it ready for sale. I haven't been there for four years, so it was kind of cool to see it again.  The garden is so overgrown, as you can see in the pictures below. So that's one thing we have to address before we sell it. And since it's empty, it's obvious that there are lots of things to be done inside. Our tenant had little dogs, and you can definitely tell they were there. We only had carpet in one area, on the stairs and hallway, but that needs to be replaced, and it needs to be painted throughout, and there are some baseboards the dog sort of messed up. In addition, the kitchen looks very old, so a few little things in there will help. We've arranged for most of the work to be done, and then hopefully we can get it on the market and sold soon.

We were attending a party in Hercules on Saturday and we decided to spend the night in the Hercules house. I was prepared - air mattress, pillows, sleeping bag - but when we got there at 10 or so on Saturday night, we could not find the stopper for the air mattress. We did find it the next morning in the driveway! So on Saturday night, we had to find someplace else to stay, and ended up spending the night at a Motel 6 in Pinole. The room itself would have been okay, except that they only had a smoking room available, and it smelled horrible. I felt physically ill on Sunday morning when we got up! Nothing that several cups of coffee couldn't fix, though!

Dara, Zac and the boys came over to see the house while we were there. It was kind of cool to walk around the house where we spent so much time, one last time. Dara had some memories (some of which I have repressed!!!) but she enjoyed seeing her old room. Aidan, who spent the first two years of his life there, obviously had no memories of the house. The lemon tree is overgrown, but that means there were lots of lemons. So both Dara and I have our final batch of lemons from the old house.

I'm hoping this sale goes well and goes quickly. We have decided for tax reasons to wait to sell our house in Berkeley until 2015. so the sooner the better on this one.