I don’t think people can really comprehend the process of selling a home unless they’ve been through it. I’ve done it six times in the last ten years, so trust me, I’m basically the wise home-selling guru. Throw in the fact that I’ve done it while raising three boisterous sons and a husband who works most of the time and you can just call me the grandmaster.

I don’t blame Ted, of course. He’s out there working to support the family and he works so incredibly hard, but it when we have to move for the umpteenth time it’s mostly up to me to make sure the place is spick and span. I know of services in Melbourne that offer home staging, and I will admit I’ve thought about it a few times. Just to have someone come in and do up the place to make it sell-worthy would be just lovely. I’ve never actually called them as yet, however. I don’t want to inflict my boys and their mess on an innocent interior designer. That’s my problem to deal with. Sometimes just getting them to pick up their toys or wind up their game console wires for an upcoming open house is a nightmare enough without having someone in telling me that the wallpaper is a bit drab. It probably IS drab, but more people in our home is stress I really don’t need at the moment.

Maybe it’s a career I need to look into. I’ll admit, I’ve got quite an eye for what people want, purely from all that lovely experience. Some weeks I talk to real estate agents more than I talk to Ted, so I know the industry pretty well. And if I ever had the time to start my own home staging based in Melbourne, I think it’d be quite satisfying to step into someone else’s home selling nightmare and direct them to profits and success. I won’t, though. I’ll leave the home staging to Melbourne people who actually have the time for it.