Starting the process again

[billeyler]

I guess this is Phase 3 of our long-term remodel of the house.

Phase 1 started in 2004 when Danny and I redid the downstairs ourselves, plowing through our learning curve. Lots of electrical, drywalling, tiling, cabinet installing, but when that part was done over the course of a couple of years, we were generally pleased with our efforts. A few things, done by 'contractors' were awful, like the conversion of the carport to a garage and adding a deck. Both need to be redone.

Phase 2 was from October 2008 for about 4 months, starting with Danny completely gutting the kitchen--in effect, every square inch of the upstairs has something done to it. Most of the upstairs work was done by hired contractors, and except for a bunch of plumbing issues, the results were quite nice. But of course, we were both so over the process by the time we finally moved back into our bedroom and the rest of the upstairs in late Feb 2009, all the little unfinished things stayed unfinished.

Phase 3 isn't so much remodeling, but doing a lot of deferred maintenance things to ready this white elephant of a house to put on the market. New gutters, new shingles on the roof, replacing the badly made deck, fixing the roof in the garage, scraping and repainting all the trim (again). A whole bunch of small projects that will end up costing a bunch, but will be needed for a quicker sale.

Jim Bailey and I bought this house over 20 years ago, so a lot of memories have been accumulated here. The house is oversized for Danny and me, though. Although it's not a big hindrance, I am tired of climbing up and down the stairs, since we use large parts of the house for our daily activities. I don't use the downstairs for dancing anymore, although that was one of my Big Ideas when we first saw the house.

We have two dedicated guest rooms, rarely used. We have a 'crafts room' which is right now just storage for a lot of garage sale items. We have two large living areas (which I'll miss having), a large dining room, a large kitchen, and we have a walk-in closet that was formerly a bedroom. It's on 1/3 acre with a lot of yard maintenance that shouldn't need to happen (lots of tree trimming, leaf raking, weed killing), us being in a severe drought in a high desert environment.

Phase 3b will entail getting rid of a lot of the furniture that's filled this house up over all those years. I got rid of a lot when Danny moved in back in 2002, but we've accumulated a lot more. We've been purging small stuff for awhile; now on to the big stuff.

The plan is to have this house staged for a sale, move into an apartment somewhere, then look for a nice single-level house about 1700 square feet here. AND buy a vacation home in another city.

Yes, I could stay here forever, but I think an actual move might get me kickstarted in thinking of my own Phase 3 of my life and what to do as I enter my retirement years. Part of that goal is to live life for me and not put so much of my time into maintaining the house.

Comments

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

I think about purging, but most of the time, it remains in the thinking stage. Right now, I am almost paralyzed with inertia with all that is going on in my life.

Have you had a real estate agent analyze what is important to do before putting the house on the market? Perhaps, an outside set of eyes would be helpful. Some of those items that seem important to you might be lower on the priority list.

HUGS!

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

We have researched enough to know what will and won't matter when selling a house. There's a bunch of stuff we're not going to do, since it won't make that much difference, but that being said, Danny and I disagree on a few of those things. We'll see what happens when it all comes down to it.

We WILL have the house staged and not be living in it when it's on the market. I don't think that will be for another year or so though. I need to be within a year of retiring for all this to happen and that target date is 7/1/16.

[bendoutdoors.livejournal.com]

It's no fun living in a house that's for sale. We got a call Valentine's day morning that a couple wanted to see our house that afternoon. So we spent our Valentine's day cleaning the house from top to bottom. Ugh. Normally the house is pretty clean, but we were due for a good cleaning. I suspect it will take us a year or two to sell the house. But you still need to visit in the near future!! :-)

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

(posting from a year later than this original post).

And how is that house sale coming along, now that you're on the road for a few months?