What Realtors do in August

It's hot. Lots of people are on vacation. People with kids in school aren't looking to move right when school starts. August dog days.

I'm just waiting for a few closings, and I really have just one kind-of active buyer client and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the last showing is going to sell my listing.

It's a real contrast from April, the month of unending showings and stagings and signings.

So what do I do? I clean, something I did not do much of in March, April and May.

I attacked my house's clawfoot today. I have a medium to large size tub, not as big or grand as the old place's tub, but still a luxury. I always struggle with finding the perfect thing to clean the tub with, and yesterday I bought my mom's old standby: Comet, with bleach.

The tub came out so shiny and beautiful, but had old a few stains left in the areas that have lost it's finish and is now porous. I don't think Comet is a very good solution for a tub in good shape, but mine's on it's last legs and I figure what the heck. It's over 100 years old and has been losing finish to the previous owner's tough cleaning methods for many years.

I am always sad to see what I call the "hotel tub"in so many homes. New places, mostly. And when you remodel the bathroom, really, spend a little more to get a really great tub. It's worth it. The clawfoot is the best tub you can have -- deep, smooth, and keeps the heat of the water for a long time. I could almost lay down in a foot of water in the tub in the old house.

My favorite bathrooms are the old Ramsey Hill mansions with marble walls (sometimes creating a marble-walled shower stall) or subway tile walls, small octagonal tiles on the floor, and Carrera marble sink tops with giant clawfoots. Sometimes you even run into a great original toilet.

My bathroom's overdue for a remodel. It's gonna be a classic, to match my 1905 house.

In the mean time, I'll be buying Mr Bubble and steaming the house up, making good use of the simple luxury that is a claw foot.