My father's HGTV daughter.

Staging is everything.

A little lighting, de-cluttering, and dusting go a long way too.

What in the world am I talking about you ask?

In 2008, I couldn't sleep the night after we made the decision that we needed to move. Ryan had been accepted to graduate school, and it would already be no money in, a lot of money out. So, we decided to move in with my parents.

The only problem was finding new renters. We didn't have to (because our contract was up) but wanted to (because we made the decision suddenly and couldn't give a 30-day notice).

So, that night when I couldn't sleep, I started messing around online and I thought, hum, maybe I should post our apartment on craigslist.

It was 4am.

I didn't think much about it, and went to bed.


I hadn't accounted for the interest, and realized our place was not ready to be seen... So I frantically cleaned before two different people showed up to view it and knocked on my door.

It wasn't even 10am yet.

I consulted with my landlord and BAM, it's 10am and the apartment is SOLD.

6 hours people, 6 hours!

Looking back it was amazing! Such a blessing, and such a relief. We were (still are) so grateful.

Fast forward to last week when I started panicking because I had just bought a house and agreed to a May closing date...

What was I going to do with three months of an apartment contract left?!?

Enter my calm, HGTV self.

While I was still in Hawaii, Ryan and I decided we would list the apartment for a May 1st move-in date thinking newlyweds, visiting students, etc.

So, after a 6-hour red eye, we drove to Provo, signed the official house contract, stopped by my parent's for a chocolate-covered-macadamia-nut visit, and headed to our apartment just after 10am.

We didn't have much to do there because we were making a round trip back to Farmington... In fact, we were on a mission: take pictures for a criagslist post We were there about 10 minutes and headed North.

Here's where guilt and self-disclosure come in.I wasn't watching the second session of General Conference... I was posting our apartment on craigslist.

I ventured a guess that I could use html and it worked! So rather than a plain, boring listing, I had a nice, well-written and catchy listing...

See?

With a catchy title... 

Can you tell which is mine? 

I worried because it was a month exactly, could I possibly sell it in time? It only takes one... I kept telling myself that.

I should have known. (:

Staging is everything.

A little lighting, de-cluttering, and dusting go a long way too.

Ryan and I had done all of those things. 
We used four pictures... 

And although it was perhaps a little too bright outside, and iPhone quality, we were happy with how they turned out. 

I posted it at 3:30pm on Saturday and by 10:15pm had serious interest that resulted in selling our contract. 

Just shy of seven hours. (: 

We're so grateful that it sold and know that someone is watching out for us. 

Here's to a new home and fingers crossed that everything moves like clock-work. 

And, if anything I think I've discovered a new talent and future career... maybe?