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More move stuff: letting go
Wow, when you reach the less than three months to go stage, things start moving FAST.
The staging consultant was here on Tuesday to talk about how to make the house look good for selling. I was out at work, so I missed the worst part. Mum looked utterly defeated when I got home and I can sympathise. By the time she finished taking me around the house and explaining what the stager wanted, I felt defeated and incredibly unwelcome, too.
Possibly more unwelcome than anything else. Most of the stager's problems were with my existence in the house. My books are here. My closet has clothes in. I need curtains in my bedroom (because I can't sleep when it's too light). I need blinds on my bathroom window because it overlooks a neighbour's dining room and I don't want to put a show on every time I shower. I'm living and working here, so there are limits on how much of myself I can erase from the house.
*sigh*
Some of her requests were entirely reasonable and things we'd planned to do anyway. A lot of decluttering and getting rid of things, which will actually help with the preparations for the move. Some suggestions were unexpected (and I cheered them). When I moved here, Mum decided that the pantry was going to be downstairs (even though the kitchen is upstairs) and the linen cupboard was upstairs (even though the laundry is downstairs) and I've spent ten years going up and down the stairs multiple times a day due to this. The stager wanted those cupboards swapped, to be more logical. Mum reluctantly agreed. Now she wants to know why she ever had it the other way around because it's so much more convenient!
I don't know, Mum. It's one of the many ways I've never been able to truly feel at home here - I haven't been able to arrange things the way I'd like them, because the house is hers. My bedroom is the only place that's been "mine", which is why all my stuff lives there and very little is anywhere else (except the books in the office).
This was another complaint from the stager. Why are trinkets and boxes of mementos in my room and closet? She wants them stored elsewhere, because buyers might think there's a storage problem. No, there's a "this house isn't mine" problem. But my stuff is being redistributed...somewhere. We haven't worked out where yet.
Anyway, lots of reasonable things and we've got a couple of weeks to get them all done.
And then there are the completely unreasonable things. My curtains and bathroom blind are staying up. We are not moving Mum's dresser into my room, even if it might be aesthetically pleasing, because Mum will always have to be going into my room to get her clothes, toiletries, and other paraphernalia, which will be ridiculous for both of us. We aren't rearranging the rec room so that none of the seating faces the telly, because then we won't be able to watch the telly. The telly has to stay where it is, it can't be moved to the other end of the room, because that's where the line comes in for the cable. We aren't moving the exercise bike into the shed, because I use it several times a week and it's important for keeping my back from locking up.
In some ways, though, this process of de-personalising the house and removing ourselves from it is helping me with the move preparation. By the time I leave, it's not going to feel like a home any more. That's sad, but it'll make it easier to say goodbye. It may never have been my house, a place where I could make choices about decore or even cupboard arrangements, but it's still been my home.
Anyway.
The first quote came in from a shipper and it's much more reasonable than I expected, so that's a good thing. It's not my current preferred shipper, so I'm hoping my preferred one comes in somewhere close.
My preferred one did a video survey of the house on Monday O.O. Technology is great. So I've met my main contact and we've chatted a bit. He's done a visual inspection of what's going and he's got my draft packing list. I feel better about trusting someone I've talked to, somehow, so I'm hoping his quote comes in at an affordable place. Cross your fingers?
If we can get the house ready for it, a photographer will be here on May 7th and then the house will go live on the market. The realtor plans to have an open house on May 13th. Unfortunately, that's a day when I've got a huge release going live, so I'm going to have to go into the office to do that, because I can't guarantee I'll be able to get back into the house and set up in time for it. Yay, working on my own in a big office building. That'll be fun!
The Canadian system is that the owners aren't in the house when it's being viewed, so we have to vacate for the open house and for any viewings. The realtor is supposed to give us twenty-four hours notice for viewings, although we're prepared for the idea that we'll have less than that. Not being in the house is unnerving me a lot. What will they poke into? How many nosy neighbours are going to come to the open house for funsies and creeping? It means we need to take anything small and portable that is either valuable or that we care about every time there's a viewing, in case of sticky fingers. We also need to make sure no financial or identification data is accessible (tucking it into drawers won't help - there will be poking into drawers happening), which means removing it from the house because there are no lockable cupboards/drawers/boxes here. It's inconvenient, but we'll do it.
I plan to get as much shredding done as possible before the open house then all remaining financial paperwork is going to my aunt's apartment until we have an offer. Mum and I both plan to have go-bags ready with all the electronics/valuables we need to take with us, to make it easier and faster to vacate. Not looking forward to this, but we do need to get the house sold. Hopefully that'll happen soon.
So the next two weeks are going to be filled with sorting and decluttering and millions of odd jobs. I'm hoping I'll have the shipping and flights booked in the next couple of weeks, too.
Really looking forward to the day after I arrive in England :-)
The staging consultant was here on Tuesday to talk about how to make the house look good for selling. I was out at work, so I missed the worst part. Mum looked utterly defeated when I got home and I can sympathise. By the time she finished taking me around the house and explaining what the stager wanted, I felt defeated and incredibly unwelcome, too.
Possibly more unwelcome than anything else. Most of the stager's problems were with my existence in the house. My books are here. My closet has clothes in. I need curtains in my bedroom (because I can't sleep when it's too light). I need blinds on my bathroom window because it overlooks a neighbour's dining room and I don't want to put a show on every time I shower. I'm living and working here, so there are limits on how much of myself I can erase from the house.
*sigh*
Some of her requests were entirely reasonable and things we'd planned to do anyway. A lot of decluttering and getting rid of things, which will actually help with the preparations for the move. Some suggestions were unexpected (and I cheered them). When I moved here, Mum decided that the pantry was going to be downstairs (even though the kitchen is upstairs) and the linen cupboard was upstairs (even though the laundry is downstairs) and I've spent ten years going up and down the stairs multiple times a day due to this. The stager wanted those cupboards swapped, to be more logical. Mum reluctantly agreed. Now she wants to know why she ever had it the other way around because it's so much more convenient!
I don't know, Mum. It's one of the many ways I've never been able to truly feel at home here - I haven't been able to arrange things the way I'd like them, because the house is hers. My bedroom is the only place that's been "mine", which is why all my stuff lives there and very little is anywhere else (except the books in the office).
This was another complaint from the stager. Why are trinkets and boxes of mementos in my room and closet? She wants them stored elsewhere, because buyers might think there's a storage problem. No, there's a "this house isn't mine" problem. But my stuff is being redistributed...somewhere. We haven't worked out where yet.
Anyway, lots of reasonable things and we've got a couple of weeks to get them all done.
And then there are the completely unreasonable things. My curtains and bathroom blind are staying up. We are not moving Mum's dresser into my room, even if it might be aesthetically pleasing, because Mum will always have to be going into my room to get her clothes, toiletries, and other paraphernalia, which will be ridiculous for both of us. We aren't rearranging the rec room so that none of the seating faces the telly, because then we won't be able to watch the telly. The telly has to stay where it is, it can't be moved to the other end of the room, because that's where the line comes in for the cable. We aren't moving the exercise bike into the shed, because I use it several times a week and it's important for keeping my back from locking up.
In some ways, though, this process of de-personalising the house and removing ourselves from it is helping me with the move preparation. By the time I leave, it's not going to feel like a home any more. That's sad, but it'll make it easier to say goodbye. It may never have been my house, a place where I could make choices about decore or even cupboard arrangements, but it's still been my home.
Anyway.
The first quote came in from a shipper and it's much more reasonable than I expected, so that's a good thing. It's not my current preferred shipper, so I'm hoping my preferred one comes in somewhere close.
My preferred one did a video survey of the house on Monday O.O. Technology is great. So I've met my main contact and we've chatted a bit. He's done a visual inspection of what's going and he's got my draft packing list. I feel better about trusting someone I've talked to, somehow, so I'm hoping his quote comes in at an affordable place. Cross your fingers?
If we can get the house ready for it, a photographer will be here on May 7th and then the house will go live on the market. The realtor plans to have an open house on May 13th. Unfortunately, that's a day when I've got a huge release going live, so I'm going to have to go into the office to do that, because I can't guarantee I'll be able to get back into the house and set up in time for it. Yay, working on my own in a big office building. That'll be fun!
The Canadian system is that the owners aren't in the house when it's being viewed, so we have to vacate for the open house and for any viewings. The realtor is supposed to give us twenty-four hours notice for viewings, although we're prepared for the idea that we'll have less than that. Not being in the house is unnerving me a lot. What will they poke into? How many nosy neighbours are going to come to the open house for funsies and creeping? It means we need to take anything small and portable that is either valuable or that we care about every time there's a viewing, in case of sticky fingers. We also need to make sure no financial or identification data is accessible (tucking it into drawers won't help - there will be poking into drawers happening), which means removing it from the house because there are no lockable cupboards/drawers/boxes here. It's inconvenient, but we'll do it.
I plan to get as much shredding done as possible before the open house then all remaining financial paperwork is going to my aunt's apartment until we have an offer. Mum and I both plan to have go-bags ready with all the electronics/valuables we need to take with us, to make it easier and faster to vacate. Not looking forward to this, but we do need to get the house sold. Hopefully that'll happen soon.
So the next two weeks are going to be filled with sorting and decluttering and millions of odd jobs. I'm hoping I'll have the shipping and flights booked in the next couple of weeks, too.
Really looking forward to the day after I arrive in England :-)