Create a soothing selling atmosphere. Imagine last time you visited a bed and breakfast. Your home should be as welcoming and accommodating as that. One easy way to accomplish this is by brightening up place. Turn on all your lights for your visitors. Plus, fluff up your bedroom. After all, most people want bedroom to be most comfortable spot in house. Make sure it is—at least when buyers are around.

Clear joint. Along with last rule, there is standard real estate practice of vacating premises when buyers come for tours. This is done for good reason. Buyers are there to evaluate your home, not meet your sisters, sons, cousins, and cats. So send your family to mall for a day of shopping, or to park for a picnic.

Cut clutter. All of your stuff can get in way, too. That’s why it’s important to start packing and storing your personal belongings as soon as you know you’re going to move. An empty house is a cleaner looking house is a more attractive house. You don’t want your perspective buyer opening a closet and having a bowling ball fall on their head, do you?

Make a killing on said clutter. One option is to simply move your personal items to your new home and create instant clutter there. That’s way of pack rat. Or, you could sell what you no longer need and turn a quick profit. That’s way of fat cat.

If you choose wisely—the latter option—be sure not to hold your garage sale on same days as your open houses. Neighbors in their undershirts and jeans on your front lawn do make for a great sales ploy. Instead, it makes you look desperate and could hurt you come negotiations. Schedule your yard sale on separate days.

Better yet, sell your goods online. Classified Web sites allow you to negotiate with potential buyers, get best rates for your stuff, and ship it off at your own convenience. And it’s all accomplished on your own time, inside your own home (where you can wear your undershirt and jeans and no one will care).

Take a deep breath. Lastly, never let home-selling experience overwhelm you. Sure, there are a load of responsibilities to take care of. But that is what your real estate agent is there for. They handle all of grunt work. They do all of hard talking with buyer. They make all follow-up calls. And they showcase your home for you. Your job is just to smile, be polite, and answer buyer’s questions if they come up.

Around outer edges of your cottage build a form as shown in picture at side. I assume that you didn't knock walls of your trench in; if you did, be sure to clean them out again. You are now ready to lay reinforcing down. The usual procedure is to use wire mesh weighing 40 pounds per 100 square feet.

If you can't get it, best substitute that I have seen is heavy turkey wire (welded type). Roll out mesh. Put some small rocks under it so that when concrete is poured, mesh will be in slab. Along bottom of trench use two %-inch reinforcing bars. You're actually building a concrete beam around perimeter of building.

You are now ready for big pour. By this time you will probably be willing to call for transit mix. When you ask for this prepared mix, tell them you want kind that reaches a minimum compressive strength of 2,000 pounds per square inch in 28 days. If you are going to mix your own concrete, use I part portland cement, 2 parts sand, 4 parts coarse aggregate, and enough water to make it sloppy.

The actual water content should not exceed 7|/2 gallons per bag of cement. The table will help you to figure how much you will need. The thickness of concrete slab should be a minimum of 3 inches. After you have framing up, you will want to add one more inch of smooth concrete for your final finish (I part cement, 3 parts sand).

You can also add color to this batch if you don't like natural gray of concrete. There you are. Except that you should also put some 6-inch stove bolts along outer edge of slab, about 8 feet on center, starting roughly I foot from corner, to fasten your sill. If you are going to use cottage year-round and are building in northern states, insulate outside perimeter with Fiberglas boards.

If you use slab described, be sure that soil is porous. Heavy clay or stiff soil will require building of foundation walls to frost line to prevent heaving.