A Journey Toward Perfect

perfect:[adj., n. pur-fikt; v. per-fekt]

1. having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be

It is a word I use frequently, perhaps because perfect is in the eye of the beholder. Regardless of how perfect we may think our house, for example…… no house is absolutely perfect. Nonetheless, my husband and I have been on a journey to make our little house in the mountains perfect for someone.

Before technology, agents may very well call from their car in front of the house – clients sitting in the back seat – to ask if they could show your house now. These days the request comes in the form of a text message: reply Y to Confirm or N to Decline the request. My husband, for once not protected from this process in the confines of his comfortable office, had to be coached on the fact that we never decline a showing.

The house has been cleaned from top to bottom relentlessly. Even still, there’s always something that has to be cleaned again: nose prints on the doors, footprints on the floors, dust somewhere. Sweep the patios, the porch and the deck, pull weeds from between the bricks, and clean up the poop all around. With only minutes to spare, the dogs are loaded into the Jeep, every light bulb in the house turned on, a spritz of Febreeze in every room.

One needed another bedroom, or more space for goats and chickens. There were the Buyers that wanted to convert our house into a Bed & Breakfast, but needed one more something. We began to lose hope that anyone would find our house perfect. The dreaded ‘what if’ made its way into our conversations.

Unbeknownst to me, my husband put the guest house on Airbnb. Within a few days, we had bookings for the next two months straight! Finally, my son and I convinced him we could not be “show-ready” with paying guests in the guest house, and the house remained listed in the Multiple Listing Service while the guest house was de-listed from Airbnb.

A new request arrived. We changed our plans for the day and replied Y to confirm. It rained. No, it poured. The showing lasted for over an hour. A second showing request came along with a list of furniture they would like to have stay with the house. We responded Y to confirm. It rained…. and then the power went out.

Undeterred, we fired up the generator, went through our show-ready routine, loaded the dogs in the Jeep….. the agent called. The Buyer had cut his arm and was in the E.R. It was the 4th of July. We re-scheduled.

The “show-ready” routine was dwindling, but the alarm rang at 5am nonetheless. My husband cleaned the floors, I swept the patios, the porch and the deck, pulled a few weeds and cleaned up the poop. The showing lasted another 1-1/2 hours, and…..

The agent gave us their verbal offer as she said, “The Buyers seem to love this house as much as you have.”

We wanted to celebrate, but we felt a little sad. It will be hard to leave these mountains for the unknown of a new city, a new and different home. Suddenly, we worried our new home would not be as perfect.

Many years ago, my Aunt and I talked about getting rid of things: clothes, furniture… things. She told me she doesn’t mind purging these things from her life from time to time because it makes room for new things – things that may be even more perfect than the last.