Adventure Time — Part 2
Times of Living and Learning
Author’s Note: This is the second of a series of posts about when two baby boomers decide that a life adventure is in order, so they buy a house, sell a house and move to a new town in exactly two months’ time. Importantly, it’s about life and its lessons as well as trying to be one’s best self during the strangest of times. Read the first installment here:
Things moved swiftly from that moment in the pub when we agreed we really wanted to purchase a 1912 bungalow in a small town more than three hours away from our home of almost 33 years. By the next evening, we had prepared an offer, contingent on the sale of our house, for obvious reasons. By the following day, our offer was accepted. Having not experienced purchasing a house in over three decades, we didn’t know what to expect, but it sure seemed to fly through with nary an issue. It was if it was meant to be.
The next big step was scheduling an inspection, which would take place Dec. 27. In the meantime, we had holidays to celebrate, and our crew would all be with us for Christmas. There was much to do, given our housing diversions of recent past, but that didn’t stop an occasional cruise through the fantastic pictures of our hopefully-house-to-be on Zillow.
I’ve always experienced a slump after Christmas. The joy of selecting presents, wrapping them, deciding on menus and welcoming loved ones into the house culminate in a grand couple of days of celebration. With the anticipation gone, I tend to wander about aimlessly for a day, pondering what comes next, until rescued by New Year’s Eve. This year should have been even worse, for our entire crew planned to depart on Dec. 27.
But not this time. Instead, we were the first ones to depart the house, eager to meet the inspector and experience the new house once again. We were waved off by confused kids, but that was A-okay; they seemed amused by their perky parents. It was a several-hour meet and greet with this funky old house, and once again, we were smitten. We checked out the local brewery, a walk of just three minutes from the house, and began plotting what furniture we would keep and what furniture would require a new home, given that we were purchasing a fully-furnished home.
New Year’s was a joyous time with dear friends, and on Jan. 2, operation “Let’s Sell a House in a Hurry” commenced. Experienced advisors made it sound so simple. All we had to do was purge a whole bunch of stuff, and hide the rest, resulting in a clean, glistening home that would appeal to a bevy of buyers. The first step was taking down a sizeable wall of framed personal photos in the basement. While my husband felt that keeping it up would help potential buyers see what a wonderful family we were, our advisors eloquently communicated that potential buyers wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about our lovely family, nor their excessive number of photos.
That effort resulted in the need for some touch-up painting, which commenced soon thereafter. While my husband coordinated procuring painters, boxes and other needed products and services, I began to box up our lives. We realized that we had a real team effort under way, after my husband reluctantly asked if he should start packing up boxes as well, and I gently shot down the seemingly-unauthentic offer of help.
“Do you WANT to pack boxes?” I asked.
“Absolutely not!” he replied, with a look of horror.
“Do you think I want to make bunches of phone calls and review detailed realtor communications?” I added.
“Absolutely not!” he cheerfully shouted.
“Then YAY TEAM!”
I started boxing all the personal effects — photos (yes lots more photos), knick-knacks (yes lots of those too) and items we simply wouldn’t need for the next many weeks. Every day, I would get up, put on my grungy jeans and find the packing tape. It is amazing how many times I lost the packing tape, the permanent marker and even the stash of empty boxes. It also was amazing how many lost treasures I discovered, when opening a cupboard in a room I thought was ready to go and finding it overflowing with yet more stuff. It was never-ending.
And once I started, I couldn’t stop. I became robotically manic each day — packing, taping, lugging, finding the tape, finding more treasure. My husband practically had to wave a cold glass of wine under my nose each evening to help me shift gears and rest my body.
In the meantime, he orchestrated the listing, the house photographer, the painters who helped with some cosmetic improvements — the list went on and on. His Airpods were permanent fixtures in his ears. We briefly connected on important matters, such as asking price, items to offer as part of the sale, and whether we had anything to eat in the house. And on Jan. 11, my husband pounded the For Sale sign into the ground and our realtor let the world know that we were selling our house.
We didn’t know what to expect during this phase of the process, much like the previous phase of the process. But we sure didn’t expect 25 showings in three days and five offers. Apparently, millennials love mid-century modern houses. We had to get creative on where to hang out during those three days, and are thankful for dear neighbors who took us in, nervous dog and all.
By January 15, we had accepted an amazing offer from a lovely couple. We had a feeling our beloved home would be in good hands. Which was good, because we needed to shift our attention to help eldest daughter and son-in-law move to Chicago. Yep, the family that moves together…. Well that old adage doesn’t quite work, I guess.
Then we headed back home and got really serious about packing up everything and finding a new home for almost all of our furniture. Because it was looking like we would be moving in early February.
It was Jan. 21, just five short weeks after our first look at our funky new place.
Lessons learned:
— We had a fine shared vision, then added a strong element of teamwork to it, making for an amazingly productive effort. It is indeed incredible what can be accomplished when people are leveraging their strengths, gifts and interests, and not being forced to tackle things they simply hate to do. In our family, we call it Team Hemming, and that teamwork rocked.
— Don’t work until you drop. Well, technically I didn’t learn that lesson, but I think I should at some point. But cold wine under one’s nose is a useful way to get one’s attention.
— Dear family and friends helped in so many ways. We are so thankful for those assists.
Next time: We purge, we pack (more) and we plan a move.
