Moving

We decided to sell our farm house and 3 acres to move to Indian Lake into a much smaller house on 2/10 of an acre and with a much smaller payment. We hired a great contractor to help us get the farm house and barn ready to sell.

I have to tip my hat to Franklin. Strong as an ox, super nice guy, jobs done very well, and reasonable prices. And, fearless. He re-roofed one half of the bank barn – a 12-pitch roof – and the apex is at least 50 feet in the air. I had several roofers who wanted the job until they actually saw the roof – then they turned me down or wouldn’t call me back. Can’t say I blame them.

The elegant half and I decided to re-surface our 16’x24’ deck.  What a job that was. We would remove several rows of deck boards on a Saturday (about 2-3 hours of work) and call it a day. On Sunday we could manage about 1-2 hours and have to call it a day. On those days that we worked, Advil was my little friend. That went on for 3 weekends. For a couple of older people, the heat was just murderous. One of those weekend days, it rained. I looked at my wife and said do you want to thank God or should I.

We spent the same amount of time (and weekends) screwing down new deck boards. And it looks great. I think I have one more deck in me.

My elegant half worked the real estate ads on multiple sites picking out houses to look at. After looking at several houses we finally snared one. We closed on it a couple of days before we went on a sight seeing trip to Great Britain.

There are two kinds of trips…vacation and sight seeing. The first type is one where you rest when you get to the vacation site. The second one is where you rest when you get home.

When we came home on 25 September, we had to start the process of moving to the new house even though we couldn’t take possession of it until 6 October. We decided to have an auction on 26 October to get rid of all the stuff we just had to have when we bought it but decided we no longer had a need for it. And besides we were going from 3 acres to 0.2 acres and from a 2200 sq ft house to 1,400 sq ft house.  We needed to be out of the house by auction time and oh by the way we really needed to be out of the house 3-4 days before that.

The hardest thing about the move was deciding what we were going to keep and what we would sell at auction. We wrestled with that for months. Keep it, sell it, keep it, sell it…If it has special meaning, keep it. If you’re going to need it, keep it. If it’s expensive and you might need it, keep it. If you really, really want to keep it, then keep it. If you have two of whatever it is, keep the newer one and sell the old one or sell the one in worse shape. If you’re really on the fence about it you can keep it but get ready for a yard sale the following year. For all the other crap, be ruthless and sell it. One way to look at it is, if you lost everything in a fire would you replace it or spend the insurance money on a pricey bottle of 12 year old scotch.

Truism – You work your whole life to accumulate stuff you don’t need.

For the stuff we decided we could not live without, we packed in boxes ourselves. When you start, it seems such a mammoth undertaking but if you just put your head down and pick a room you can get it done pretty quickly. The big thing is to have the supplies you need, i.e., boxes (lots of them), tape (at least one for each person packing and a spare roll or two), wrapping paper (use plenty of it to keep things from breaking, magic markers (to place the room name and box contents on the box), etc. Be careful not to place too much in the box…heavy stuff on the bottom, lighter stuff on top.

We managed to get moved. Two Men and a Truck brought the bulk of the stuff up to the new house…Actually, it was 5 men and two trucks. They did a wonderful job. One little thing got broken. The guy that did it was very contrite and upset. And I told him not to fret about it. And I said I didn’t like the damn thing anyway. The elegant half basically said no one cares, shrugged, and asked them if they wanted to take a break and drink a co-cola. We ended the day by giving them a nice tip, shook all of their hands, and thanked them for the good job they did.

For all you folks who don’t know what a co-cola is, it’s a Coke, Pepsi, RC, Mountain Dew, or any other carbonated soft drink. Where I’m from if someone asks for a co-cola, the correct response is, “What kind?”

After moving, we had the auction at the house. Mountains of stuff left the property and most of what we sent to auction actually sold. Except for my 16’ flatbed trailer, I don’t miss that stuff one damn bit.

While all of this is going on, we are personally moving other stuff. This saved us a ton of money. Using the aforementioned trailer, we hauled stuff out of the garage, tool shed, and our huge bank barn…hand tools, yard tools, power tools, electrical and plumbing parts, lumber, a tractor with a front end loader and a rear blade (I don’t need it but it’s my damn tractor and I’m keeping it), a brand new John Deere zero-turn mower with a 62 inch deck (I don’t need it with my little bitty yard but it’s my damn mower and I’m keeping it), rear tine tiller, power washer, deck furniture, concrete patio steps, concrete blocks, new stuff we bought for the new house, and a mega-ton of other stuff… All totaled, we hauled 5 or 6 trailer loads packed to the max.

We bought a 10 by 14 shed – It’s completely full. We have a 1 car garage – it’s full too – floor to ceiling. And behind the house in the yard…well there’s stuff everywhere. We should have sold more stuff.

Anyway, we got moved, got the bulk of the auction stuff sold and gone, did some house cleaning and put it on the market.

November, December, and January are lousy months to sell a house but we knew that going in. We finally got a hit in late February and hopefully we’ll close on 31 March.

After we close, we’ll hire someone to put up a barn (workshop/man cave), we’ll put in a new deck (16’x24’) on the back of the house, put on a new roof, upgrade the electrical service from 100 amps to 200 amps, and convert the one-car garage into living space. It’s going to be a busy summer.