Creative ideas for repairing, maintaining, cleaning and selling home with full family chaos?

We have a 14 mo. old, 6, 9, and 13 year olds (all boys) plus Mom and Dad. We need to do extensive maintenance and repairs to sell our house (doing work ourselves) while keeping home clean enough and nice enough to show to prospective buyers. Any creative suggestions on how to get this to work? Mom home during day with 14 mo. old, Dad and other kids home afternoon/evening and all of us home on weekends. Extensive maintenance and repairs = painting house inside & out, moving washer and dryer (elec. and plumb. included), replacing lights, replacing drywall and popcorn ceilings, repairing and refinishing wood floors, pulling up linoleum & installing tile, landscaping, weeding, etc.

Do you have family or friends who can take your children to their homes for a while, while your husband & you are doing the necessary improvements? Your thirteen year old is old enough to help you with some of the work. Perhaps he can do some of the lawn work.

Sounds a lot like my wife and I went through a few years ago, my tip from experience :

Don't over do it (like we did) we even put in a whole new front lawn, and believe me it's a waist of time and money. The house will sell it's self, unless it's in such horrible condition that it's ready to fall down!

A little paint and cutting the grass etc. is normal, but don't listen to anyone that tells you to dump $thousands$ of dollars into it. especially the Realtors. They don't care if you have to pump big bucks into stuff or lower the price a few thou. that don't affect them all that much. (it's not their money)

Please be frugal as much as possible.

I am a Realtor and I DO care about getting my clients the best price possible for their homes. What you do for updating often depends on the price range of the home. If it's a lower priced home, the less you should do. People buying those homes should be expecting to do a little sweat equity. If your home is in an expensive neighborhood where yours is the worst, price it accordingly and sell it as is. If you want top dollar your house should be in top shape (especially in this market). That being said, it sounds like an awful lot that you're doing. Seems like it may be just easier to price the house lower than to sink a lot of money into it that you may not get back. Keep in mind the emotional cost of all this work your doing. If you insist on it, there are ways to make it go smoother. First, send your kids somewhere for the day and you and your husband just work like hell all day and get what you can done. Do this a couple of times and you'll be surprised at what you get done. Have the 9 y/o and 13 y/o do the weeding. I always give the kids a contract at the beginning saying that they will keep they're rooms clean (or clean them when you ask) with no back talk to you and when the house sells I give them a gift certificate to an ice cream place or whatever for them and 3 of their friends. Make them sign the contract. Hope this helps!

Take it one room at a time.

We have a house full. (twin 14 year old girls, a 12 year old son, 4 year old daughter, 2 dogs, 2 cats, fish, guinea pigs)I have been working on our home for four years doing all of the work myself.

DON'T STRESS IT IF YOU NEED TO TAKE A WEEK OFF FROM DOING THINGS. DON'T STRESS TAKING TIME FOR A MOVIE WITH THE KIDS.

That caps thing is my biggest problem. I can keep them away from where I am working but I feel so guilty for not working and then when I work, I feel guilty for not being with the kids.

It is really a two edged sword. Most of my vacation time over the past four years has been working on the house.

I hope that you have some time. Remember the turtle in the tortoise and hare story. Slow and steady wins the race.

Good luck.