Project: For Sale- Bribe 'Em with Cookies

FIRST off, let me just say "THANK YOU" to all of you for your sweet comments, happy thoughts, and reassuringness (totally a word) about selling our house. It sure helps me out in times of stress.

Research shows....okay so my friends say and I agree...the smell of baking cookies and then fresh cookies ta' boot help sell your house. Okay so who really knows if this is true, but hey cookies never made anything worse.

So my theme for Project: For Sale today is Bribe 'Em with Cookies.

I whipped up a couple of batches of cookie dough, ate some dough, and then put it in the fridge to later use when we have a showing. Before a showing I bake some up. Then I put them on my cute tiered platter and set out some bottles of water.

Since today is Recipe Thursday (if you are somewhat new, yes there is a recurring recipe Thursday), I am sharing with you the two recipes I used for this showing.

First is an awesome Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I had been looking for a new recipe, not because I don't love mine, but they tend to get crumbly if not eaten fairly quickly...not normally a prob for me. I came across this one last week and have already made it twice.

Love. It.

Next I will share the Brownie Chunk Cookies. I had been craving a brownie cookie something fierce. I came across this recipe and changed it up slightly. Making sure to under cook just slightly ensured that I had that oh-so-delightful fudginess of a brownie in cookie form.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our Best Bites

2 C plus 2 T flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
12 T butter (1 1/2 sticks) melted and cooled until warm
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
2 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 C semi-sweet or milk chocolate (my preference)

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in mediumbowl; set aside.

Mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients;mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

Portion out cookie dough, a heaping tablespoon, or a cookie scoop and place on cookie sheet. Bake until cookies are set around outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 10-13 minutes.  Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store inairtight container.

Brownie Chunk Cookies

Life's Ambrosia 

1 pkg chunky brownie mix (mine was Pillsbury)

1 1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 stick butter, melted, cooled

2-3 Tablespoons cold water

2-3 dark milky way candy bars, chopped up into chunks

Stir together the flour, brownie mix and brown sugar.

Mix in eggs one at a time. The add butter and 2 T of water. If the batter appears  to dry add the other T of water. Batter will be THICK. Fold in candy bar pieces.

Cover and refrigerate the dough for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a cookie sheet. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough on the cookie sheet. The thicker the cookie the more it will be like a brownie, so press down lightly. Bake for 8-10 minutes...slightly undercooked is better than overcooked.  Remove from oven, cool for a couple of minutes on cookie sheet then transfer to a rack.

There ya have it...cookies that would make anyone happy. Hopefully it will make someone happy enough to buy our house.

Project: For Sale, Curb Appeal

Here is another installation of my Project Series. Remember my first one, Project: Leaving on a Jet Plane, found HERE and HERE? This time it is all about getting this house sold. For the last month it seems the majority of my thoughts and efforts have gone to getting our house ready to be sold.

Obviously I am not the expert. This is our first house after all. BUT I have had a lot of great advice, and DUH I watch HGTV...so I am basically a pro. Hahaha.

Today's theme of Project: For Sale is

Curb Appeal

We all know that first impressions are a big deal. We wish we didn't make snap judgements but, let's be honest a lot of times we do. Selling a house is no different. You know what I am talking about. How often do you see an absolutely breathtaking house from the outside and immediately wish it was yours?

So one of our projects was to get the outside ready. NOW, we don't have tons of money so this had to be done on a budget. So today I am sharing some easy and affordable fixes to the outside of your home.

FIRST- give your front door a face lift. Clean it. Paint it if you need to (we did not). Hang a cute wreath. Our latest addition to the door was putting the numeric address onto the front of the door with vinyl. It was super easy and gives it a crisp, traditional, Martha-Stewarty look.

Next, we gave a face lift to our mailbox. We would have loved to replace it, but again...that darn money thing. SO instead we took the generic numbers off the post. Painted the post in a glossy black and then put similar vinyl numbers on the mailbox.

Immediate update. Hubby came home the day I did it and declared, "Look at that fancy mailbox! Why didn't we do this forever ago?"

The last thing I have to share with you is simple. WEED. If you have any flower beds or landscaping, weed even though it is annoying. Just do it. We also put down a fresh layer of mulch. Basically freshen things up and then maintain.

With the outside of your house all beautiful, hopefully people will be knocking down your door to see the beauty within. Then of course they will be fighting to be the one who buys your house...fingers crossed anyway!