This house has to go!
It was late summer, three short weeks ago, we were enjoying our newly renovated kitchen and hardwood floors.
Finally, the new air conditioner was installed, (the other one was 40 years old!) there were other projects and updates we needed to do, but we had done enough this year. The rest of the stuff can be put on the back burner
…. wait a minute, those projects have to be done now! This house has to go!
Don't think...just work!
My husband Ken was still traveling for work 3-4 days a week, so getting this house ready to sell was up to me! Where should I begin? The basement, the sheds, should I paint the bedrooms…
I’ll need to have a huge garage sale. If I start thinking about how much work, I have to do…don’t think! Just work!
Audio book to the rescue!
My go to remedy for boring jobs like, ironing, weeding, painting, cleaning and such, was listening to audio books. Wireless headphones went on and I was off!
First I cleaned the garage and set up tables for the sale.
Then downstairs I went, carting up everything that needed to be sold, thrown away or given away. Mind you we had been in this house for 40 years!
Ken built these storage shelves for me, each section was four feet wide…boy was I going to miss these!
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Every closet, drawer, and cabinet was gone through upstairs. Sell, trash or give away. The garage and sheds where next…. hauling everything to the garage.
The spare room needed painted, so did the office. To the store I went, bought the paint and painted like crazy.
The garage sale was a huge success. Many trips to the Salvation Army were made, a few things were put at the end of the driveway and marked free.
On the weekends when Ken was home, we pulled weeds, power washed the house, the sheds, the sidewalks and put fresh mulch on the plantings.
The Budget
There will soon be two mortgages.
Ken reminded me we agreed on a strict budget for the renovation on the new house, we were not taking any more money from our 401K.
After borrowing money to put a down payment on the farm from our 401K, we had 60 days to return the money to the account with no penalty.
60 days to list, sell and close on our house….and I didn’t even have it on the market yet!
Looking online we did a home sales comparison and came up with a listing price for our old house.
Estimating the sales price, minus what we owned on the original mortgage and the down payment on the farm. Left us with the dollar amount for our renovation budget. It was going to be very tight.
Calling John.... again, lol!
A friend of ours (John), was a retired builder/general contractor. He had agree to help us with the renovation. John also did the renovation in our old house, which included a gray and white polka dotted breakfast bar, lol!
When, I called him, he was shocked to hear that we would be doing it all over again, less than a year later… and just 4 miles down the road, lol!
Filling him in on our “must haves” and our “if there’s enough money in the budget wants” he came up with an estimate and hired a crew. The main objective was to take down the wall between the formal living room and the kitchen, to have an open concept kitchen/dining room, hoping to have the worst part of the job done while we were still in the other house.
Staging for the pictures
Now I had to get the house staged and pictures taken.
Pictures of a house after staging….are not real life, lol!
I just kept packing stuff in boxes and putting it in the garage… I left the bare minimum in the house, just enough to soften the edges.
Listing "For Sale By Owner"
Our friend from church (Nathan) was a real estate attorney, he would take care of all the paperwork and help us to sell the house ourselves.
Listing on Zillow that evening, we set an open house date for the next two weekends. The first weekend we had 22 couples go through. The following weekend we had an offer.
The house sold in nine days. Such affirmation! Maybe everything was going to be ok after all…what was that extra comment in the offer to buy the house…
They wanted to close in 3 weeks!
Starting the kitchen renovation at the farm
John, our friend and contractor, had just ordered the materials and set up the construction schedule to remodel the new kitchen, the guys had barely started the work. The crew had ripped all the carpet out of the house (original hardwood floors underneath) and new hardwood floors were going in the family room.
Ready or not....here we come!
The moving company was called, and I started packing up. We had three weeks to decide what things were absolutely necessary to bring into the house
We hired Two Men and a Truck…
it two 4 men and two trucks PLUS 12 hours, to move our stuff 4 miles!
They started taking boxes downstairs, setting down box after box, after box. Our new little basement was completely filled from the back wall to the stairwell, with no aisle to walk in…ugh! I just shut the door and said “I’ll deal with that mess later!”
The yellow shed
We had two sheds in our old backyard, they were loaded all the big stuff: zero-radius lawn tractor, two motorcycles, leaf blowers, tools, bikes, yard tools, etc. The yellow shed was built to hold Ken’s two motorcycles…. but I painted it to look like a “she shed”, lol!
I was going to miss looking at that cute shed, lol!
The shed on the farm, already had the big lawn tractors, air compressor, GMC Jimmy w/plow, etc., in it, that we bought from the previous owner.
Oh, did I tell you, we bought a golf cart from him too, the kids were going to be over the moon. So the movers just crammed the big stuff from our other house, in with everything else.
My best friend and I have the same name….so as my friend Sandi would say….
” It was all a crazy mixed up, big fat mess, lol! “
Where will we put the furniture?
Only the beds, Ken’s desk, the tv and two recliners were going in the house, until the floors were done… so where will we put the furniture?
Where I was going to put six vintage cupboards in that little house, I didn’t know, lol! They were filled with dishes and serving pieces I had collected for years and used on a regular basis.
So the moving company wrapped all the furniture in plastic and moved everything into the barn!
Ken's office/familyroom/mudroom/...
When Ken wasn’t traveling, he had a home office. So, no matter what, we had to figure out a place for that.
The 4 season porch was around 10 x 12 feet, it was going to have to do for : Kens office, along with two recliners and the 52 inch tv, until the kitchen was done, lol ! I didn’t take any pictures but you literally had to climb over the furniture to get to the desk, lol!
That porch was our family room/office/mudroom for 3 months!
The temporary kitchen....my favorite inconvenience!
The upstairs laundry….with the awkward toilet in the corner, actually made a great little kitchen!
The utility tub made a nice big sink. We plugged the stove into the dryer outlet, lol! Plugged the refrigerator in the washer outlet, it was actually very functional!
Do you remember the awkward toilet that was in the laundry room? Well we put a table over the top of it and covered the table with a vintage cherry covered tablecloth….instant kitchen!
A new chapter...
Even though I was ready to leave it all behind to start a new chapter in our lives, there were a few things I was going to miss.
Memories of raising the kids in this house I could take in my heart, but boy, was I going to miss our backyard neighbors of thirty-five years! Bye-bye, Steve and Carolyn, we miss you already!
We closed on the house and moved to the farm the end of September 2018
401 K money was put back into the account with no penalty and the old mortgage was paid off. Our fear of two mortgages, never happened!
The kitchen supplies were in the garage, covered with saw dust. The furniture was in the barn. I don’t want to talk about the basement, lol! But we were HOME!
Up next time…. take down that wall!
