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Tips For Keeping Your House “Showing Ready” When You Have Kids

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Getting a house ready for market is stressful! No doubt about it! You suddenly notice every flaw that had somehow escaped your eye the entire time you lived in your home. You nitpick your home harder than probably anyone else will. You end up driving yourself insane. The truth of the matter, though, is that just putting forth the effort to make your home presentable will get you ahead of many other homes on the market.

When we were searching for our current home, we discovered that a lot of folks don’t actually do very much to make their home more desirable. It’s an odd choice, for sure. I mean, you wanna sell quickly and get top dollar, right? However, going too far to the other end of the spectrum is only going to add stress to you and your family… stress that is probably unnecessary. Like all things in life, balance is the key.

We are preparing to put our home on the market again in the near future. Having just “been there, done that” 2 years ago, I learned a few tip and tricks along the way that I plan to implement again to keep our home “showing ready.” Moving is just a part of life and I know many of you will do it at some point over the next 2-5 years. Maybe you’re in the process RIGHT NOW too. Well, then you’re in luck because today I’m sharing 6 tips for keeping your house showing-ready without losing your mind, even if you have kids!

1. Make certain rooms off-limits to keep them clean.

Some might say this is unrealistic but I think it’s effective and a huge time savings. You will save yourself a lot of headaches if rooms don’t get used and cluttered unnecessarily. For example, only let your kids get out toys if they’ve asked and you know where they plan on playing with them. Otherwise, a room can get pulled apart very quickly when there’s no limit to the number of toys they can play with.

We have a toy closet and I put a childproof handle on the doorknob. It keeps the younger kids out while reminding the older children that they need to ask permission before opening that door.

If your home has multiple full bathrooms, you should also consider just using one and making the other(s) off limits. Cleaning a number of bathrooms can really cut into your time as you prep for a showing.

2. Have a campout.

Let’s face it, children make a huge mess in their rooms, even when in there for short amounts of time. If you have an early morning showing or just want to ensure the children’s bedrooms stay clean, have a campout in your living room. The kids love the excitement of doing this because it’s fun and different. I even have the kids change into a new outfit for the next day the night before (instead of pajamas). Then, when they wake up, we just fold the throw blankets and we are ready to leave the house clean and ready to go for a day of showings!

3. Get Organized.

It’s key to practice good organization during this time. Using appointed tubs, containers, and drawers to organize all the little toys that children have makes it so much easier to put them away when the time comes. They know exactly where the toys belong. If you have multiple children and bedrooms and choose to use tubs for organizing all the little knick-knacks and toys, you can color code the tubs for each specific room.

Tub O Towels

4. Keep “bug-out bags” ready.

If you’re a prepper or have ever spent time around anyone who is, you’ll probably have heard of a bug-out bag. Well, I am borrowing this from them because it’s too good. In simple terms, a bug-out bag is a backpack or other easy-to-carry container that is prepared ahead of time for if disaster strikes and you must leave your home quickly. If you have a late notice showing request, you’re prepared to go, go, go!

A typical bug-out bag is full of survival items. So what “survival” items do you need for when you have to leave the house quickly with the kids in tow? Some examples might include:

  • diapers
  • wipes
  • toys, games, or other entertainment
  • season-appropriate inclement weather gear
  • DVDs if your vehicle has an entertainment system
  • change of clothes in case of accidents

Really, many moms will have a lot of this in a diaper bag anyways. However, having the bug-out bag(s) ready for each appropriate age can be very helpful in these situations.

5. Keep clutter bags ready.

This is a similar idea to the bug-out bags. If you have a late notice request for a showing and you don’t have time to clean up some specific clutter properly, simply toss it into this bag and take it with you as you leave. Toss it in your trunk for the time being. When you return home after the showing, you can organize it then.

A word of warning, though! Don’t let this make you complacent towards all clutter! (It’s human nature to do so.) This is only for if you’ve just walked in and have no alternative.

6. Have Tub O’ Towels handy for quick cleanup.

I recently discovered Tub O’ Towels and I LOVE them. They work well, exceptionally well! When completely unfolded, they’re about the size of a paper towel and stand up to firm scrubbing. The thing I like best about them is that they aren’t harsh. I try to be mindful about using natural products, however, I’m not perfect at it. Tub O’ Towels uses some type of gentle additive that they refer to as Bond Buster. Bond Buster instantly breaks this static molecular bond, freeing dirt, grime, and grease for easy removal with biodegradable cleaning agents appropriate for use in a hand wipe. So, in other words, it is free from harsh chemicals but still works incredibly well.

Because it is so gentle, Tub O’ Towels wipes are safe to use on almost any surface. In addition, Tub O’ Towels have lanolin, vitamin E, and aloe added in to help protect your hands and leave them moist. It also means they are safe enough for me to hand off to each of my kids and instruct them on where to clean. Having them help me keeps them out and trouble AND gets the job finished faster. Win-win!

Tub O Towels

The regular heavy duty Tub O’ Towels are wonderful. However, they also come in other versions made for specific surfaces around your home and even your vehicle! They’re available in:

I keep all the applicable Tub O’ Towels varieties around our home (which is all of them except for granite and marble). They’re lifesavers! As one example, we have stainless steel appliances which means one thing… fingerprints everywhere. Ugh! It seems like I can’t keep little hands off of these things. A quick wipe down with the stainless steel wipes, however, have them sparkling in just a few seconds. Just look at the difference on my refrigerator door below. The left side has not been wiped yet while the right side has. It literally takes less than 2 minutes to wipe it down with the Tub O’Towels Stainless Steel wipes and makes such a HUGE difference!

Tub O Towels

The carpet and upholstery wipes are wonderful for a quick spill cleanup on carpet, chairs, or couches where you don’t have time to break out some spray and wait for it to dry. The heavy-duty wipes, of course, are best for general cleaning. I use these things constantly now.

There was a spot on our ceiling where the previous owners had splashed food particles (I know, don’t ask me how!). We thought we were going to have to repaint the entire ceiling because of the stains. Before we painted though I thought to myself, might as well try Tub O’ Towels, and you know what, it worked! My husband and I were ecstatic!

Keep a variety pack of these on hand for fast and effective cleaning before showings! I put mine in a handy carrying caddy so I can move it from room to room for quick cleanings before showings.

Tub O Towels

7. Use only a single trash can.

If you have a lot of those small wastebaskets around, consider making them off-limits to trash (haha, that sounds funny) and only put your garbage in one specified waste bin such as the one in your kitchen. When a showing is coming, you won’t have to waste time running around emptying small wastebaskets and can, instead, know that only one requires your attention. It’ll make your tidying up so much easier!

Alternately, if you don’t want to have to bother with emptying and replacing the bag in the kitchen trash, you can simply keep a bag hanging from a specified door where all trash is deposited. When a showing is coming, just toss that bag into your main trash cans or, if it isn’t full, take it with you for the time being and hang it back up when you return home.

8. Get out of the house.

Once our house is on the market, the kids and I get up, eat breakfast, and then try to spend our day somewhere other than our house. Find places you can take the kids that are cheap or free. Some places we like to visit are the library, museums, the mall, the park, and the ever-popular ChickFilA with an indoor playground! When you aren’t home, you can’t make new messes!

9. Splurge on disposables.

I typically don’t like to buy paper plates, bowls, or plastic cutlery. You’re literally throwing money away with those. BUT, when we are showing our house, they are lifesavers!   You’ll wash fewer dishes, saving you time to clean other areas of your house. This also means your dishwasher will likely be clean and empty when people come to view your home.

10. Have a checklist.

When you are busy trying to make sure your home looks great for a showing, it’s easy to forget something before you head out the door. Especially small things that you’ve become accustomed to, like child safety locks on doors or the dog food dishes in the kitchen. Having a checklist makes sure you don’t miss any important prep steps. Below is a copy of our checklist. I keep a freshly printed checklist on the refrigerator so when we are notified of a showing, I can go through each item and make sure it’s checked off before we head out the door. Feel free to print it off for yourself!

Just click on the image to bring up a full-size printable version.

11. Adjust your expectations.

Your house isn’t going to be perfect, nor perfectly clean if you have to live there. Just accept it, do the best you can, and go easy on yourself. This is probably the most important tip in here. Accepting your limitations is okay. Obviously, this doesn’t mean letting clutter and mess get away from you and destroying all your hard work and preparation up until this point. It simply means to cut yourself some slack and don’t expect perfection.

You and your family will have needs when you are trying to sell your home. Don’t let that time on the market be a miserable one! Enjoy doing family stuff and don’t let your entire home become a sterile, untouchable box that you just happen to be residing in. Your buyers are people too. They’ve seen dust. They’ve seen fingerprints on windows. They have them at their current house!

R-E-L-A-X!

Could you use some Tub O’ Towels at your home? I’ve teamed up with Tub O’ Towels and a few other bloggers to give one lucky reader a great prize package featuring an assortment of Tub O’ Towels and a $50 Amazon gift card! Click HERE to enter now. Good luck!

Janessa


Hi! Welcome to my blog. My husband and I were high school sweethearts who married over 12 years ago. We now have 5 children: Maggie (age 8), Jacob (age 6), Zellene (age 4), Gideon (age 2) and our youngest little guy Aram born in June 2018. I love sharing about the great products I find that help to make our lives easier, while also talking about some of my passions like home birth & natural childbirth, travel, family life, and living a semi-green life.


Comments

  6. What an awesome! list you have provided here for us, and I love how clean your refrigerator is getting with these handy wipes.
    @tisonlyme143

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  8. What is amazing, is when I first heard of these towels a month or two ago, I was thinking how much incentive they would be to help get my home show ready. I want to sell next spring. This is a good list. There are so many things to do that you just don’t tend to get around doing routine cleaning that would make a huge difference, I want a boatload of these!

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  11. I use many different wipes and cleansers but have not tried these as of yet. I have heard quite a bit about them and would love to give them a try. They seem to get rid of things regular wipes/towels don’t.

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  13. Thanks for the great list. It’s almost impossible to keep my home clean while my kids are young. I really like these cleaning towels. Very convenient.

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  14. These are such great suggestions. I can’t wait to try these hand towels. I have never heard of them before. Thank you so much for sharing

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  17. I have not seen these in stores nor heard about them until now. This certainly sounds like my kind of product to have easy access to at all times. And your tips are really beneficial for anyone that has their home on the market.

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  22. I could see how having kids would definitely be a challenge keeping your house being show ready! Great tips!

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  31. Selling a house and trying to keep up with the day to day activities is so stressful. These are such good ideas to help with getting through the experience.

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  33. Wow what a lot of great tips. I don’t imagine moving from our house anytime soon but if we ever decide to move I have some wonderful tips to fall back on. The Tub of Towels sounds just wonderful too. With grandchildren always running around here, it sounds like they would really come in handy.

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  35. I would love to have these!! Living with two men and a baby means constant cleaning and always looking for new products to clean with.

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  38. These are great tips! We still have quite a few projects to get through before we’re able to list. It was easy when we had showings for our last house because we kept the toys in one small area. I’m going to have to come up with a checklist and a sstem fir rotating toys in and out before we sell again.

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  39. (Have Tub O’ Towels handy for quick cleanup.) All great tips on having your home show ready. I do like the tip on the Tub Of Towels too. I am going to start using these in my kitchen all the timenow. Thanks for the tip.

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  40. Thank you for the wonderful tips for reading your home for the market. It is amazing to me how properly cleaning can make all the difference in price. I am going to look into Tub O’Towels.

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  47. Some great ideas here – I never would have thought of the camp out idea, but I think mine would love it! And it’s true, the mess multiples quickly!

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  50. I like your checklist! We sold a home before and I didn’t think of leaving bottled water or homemade baked cookies out for the potential buyers. That gesture shows that we are really hospitable people. Plus buyers know that the sellers would try and leave a spotlist home for a showing. I keep remembering what my mom used to say to me. She said that a house isn’t a home unless it looks lived in. I know she said that because, I worked all week and then nearly killed myself trying to make the house spotless on the weekends. She helped me get my priorities straight and to calm down about my “museum” of a house!

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  56. I like the checklist of things to do if moving. We are possibly moving within the next year or so and Ill have to keep these in mind.

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  57. Lots of great tips but it sounds like it is a lot of work to sell a home while living there. But some of these tips can be used in a lot of other ways………. thanks

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  61. I could definitely use the heavy duty and carpet and upholstery Tub O’ Towels. I have pets and a messy hubby so these would sure come in handy. I like that they don’t use harsh chemicals in their product too.

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  62. It’s been a hole a once we were selling a one, but these are great tips for keeping a house clean, too! I love that Tub o Towels doesn’t have harsh chemicals!

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  63. I do agree that Getting a house ready for market is stressful and I dread when that time comes. These are super helpful tips and I will be sure to get Tub O Towels.

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  65. This list will definitely help with our recent move. Everything is a mess, and ut seems like everyone is getting sick. Time to tidy up and get things put away!

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  67. since the storms here are going to hit again i take make bags for the goup withe doc ingfo and thing for the dog and cat the dog will sit in truck i can put the cat in carrier and then there food and then stuff for me for up to 3 days

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  70. Theses are all great tips . The tub of towels would be great to have on hand on a daily basis . I love that they are not harsh and even have ingredients to keep your hands soft and healthy

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  72. I am adding these to my cleaning bucket that I travel with!!! I clean houses for a living and these will comeback in handy!!! Thank you for sharing!!!

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  73. Great tips. I think having good storage is key. I love the idea of totes that are well labeled. That would be a huge benefit for me. We live in a small home with very little storage, so clutter becomes a problem fast. These “towels” look amazing as well. I have used wipes in a tub before, but these look sturdier and would be a better fit for my busy life.

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  80. I need these wipes living with 5 males! Your tips sound easy enough to follow through with, & this brand does sound heavy duty to handle my life.

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  82. I need to get some of these I have a 16yr old and a 12yr old, 5 dogs and a 2yr old grandson….we run into some serious messes.

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  83. These tips are so helpful, and not just for those selling a house. Many of the tips can be used just to keep you house looking great when you get that call from someone saying “We’re going to stop in for a visit”. Eeekkk! I love that the wipes are so convenient. The before & after of your fridges shows how great they work. Great for that quick cleanup.

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  85. These are wonderful tips! I love the “bug out bags” and the checklist idea! I remember the stress of having to leave our home suddenly for a showing. I wish I had this list and Tub O’ Towels back then!

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  87. These are great tips, thanks for sharing! I have never actually owned a home before, but have moved SO many times in my life and had to clean places spotless before leaving. I can definitely see how Tub O’ Towels would make this so much easier!

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  88. This is great advice! Thanks for sharing this – I’ve been wanting advice for when we need to show our home.

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  91. My mother-in-law recently sold her house, so yes, I understand the stress of it all. I wish we had tub o towels to get through the cleaning. I will definitely be seeking them out in the near future.

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  92. Just started following you. Found a post I liked from Pinterest. It also turns out we have the same first name! It’s not very common 🙂 Live your blog so far and can’t wait to see more. Thanks!

    Reply

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