Sell This House: Part 1

We are planning on putting our house on the market in about 6 weeks! Which is very exciting but also means there are a lot of little things to finish up to make our house a little more presentable. We don’t plan on spending a lot of money right now. After all, we have done quite a few upgrades in the 2 1/2 years we have lived here. Our goal now is mostly just to make our home as clean and fresh as possible.

The first thing on our list was actually our floors. We took advantage of the time my husband had off school just after Christmas and shampooed the carpets. They came out so clean, which was really encouraging because before they were pretty bad!

The other problem with our floors was the squeaking! It was definitely not in our budget to rip up the carpets and screw down the subfloor. So we just sucked it up for a few years as it got worse and worse. Then last Christmas, I randomly walked into the living room at my parents and my Dad was watching “This Old House.” They featured this product that was supposed to stop squeaking in your floors. I was super excited and once we got home I searched and searched for it. I found it online and sent them an email but they replied that they didn’t sell the product in Canada. So I just sucked it up an paid the extra shipping.

Yes, those are screws sticking out of my carpet. You just screw them right down through your carpet into the floor joist to a certain height. They are pre-scored so that you can snap the top off just below the top edge of the subfloor. The most difficult part is locating the joists but they send you a couple bits to help.

The best part though? It works! I’ve eliminated all of the squeaks in our living room and the upstairs is next on the agenda. The unfortunate thing is that in the squeakiest place in the house – my son’s bedroom – we discovered the squeak was coming from where the wall is attached to the floor so we may or may not cut out the drywall to fix it.

At least the rest of our house will be squeak free!