My Mission: Deep Clean and Declutter

I choose to accept this mission as my house will self-destruct if left to its own defenses. And the second main reason is that we hope to list it with a realtor in March. We've been planning on moving this spring for about a year. As spring is almost upon us, it's crunch time to get the place in order and actually begin the ball rolling of selling it, finding a new house, and moving into that one. I feel confident that it will sell as we have a corner lot, only house on the street with a double garage and are located somewhat close to downtown.

The hitch is getting our belongings either out or straightened up to a degree of someone else walking into our home and wanting to make it their own. I have already boxed up 2/3's of the kids' toys and moved those to the attic. We plan on doing some furniture rearrangement (maybe getting a storage unit to house an extra couch and bookcase) to make the rooms look more spacious, painting the office which never got painted in the 9 years we've been here and has lots of stray marks on the walls, deep clean (i.e. remove the grime) the kitchen cabinets, stove, microwave, refrigerator, doors, and lightswitch plates. Oh and lest I forget, keep up with the laundry, dishes, and general tidying (we have a bad problem of not putting things back where they belong).

Believe it or not, I am really excited about this process because I know it leads to one day Matthew and I going "house hunting"! I almost wish I could do that first to see in what shape other people's houses are in. I do want to leave our house "better than we found it", slightly impossible as it was brand new when we bought it. Actually now it has a lot of character and I'm praying someone comes along with the same character preferences. I've already taken "before" photos of each room and as I complete rooms, I'll post the "before" and "after" photos.