Important Warning
Guys, on September 9th (keep your fingers crossed) Bubba and I are moving. It’s only 1.3 miles away but there’s a mountain between here and there. We are remodeling Bubba’s 1934 brick cottage (that has been his office) into a 2 bedroom home for just us. Between now and then, we are downsizing from 3,500 square feet to 1,700 square feet.
We were lucky to sell our house right away. But cleaning out of 35 years and three kids worth of crap is a major undertaking. And trying to oversee the remodeling. And oh my God I’m gonna pull out my hair.
So, or the next three weeks I may only post once a day. If El Jefe and Primo get busy, too, I’ll try to leave an open thread a couple days a week.
I’m picking tile and packing art work today.
Just be patient, please, while I only wash my hair when I need to put the fire out.
Thinking of you . . . .
1Been there, done that. Had no fun at all.
Can you rent a pod for stuff you don’t know what to do with, need to go through, or can’t deal with right now? We did, and it helped immensely. We had it stored for about a month, until we unpacked everything else, then had it delivered and went through it carefully. We found places for some stuff, donated a lot, and threw out the rest. It was worth every penny.
I hope your renovation turns out exactly the way you want. Good luck!
2I’m with thatotherjean with every good wish.
p.s.I still have boxes from my last move, and I do NOT want to say how long ago that was!
3When I first came to Washington, D.C.,I moved a lot! My family and friends had trouble keeping up with me. Finally, we moved into the house I now live in during the spring of 1970. That’s 49 years and it will be 50 next year when I reckon this house goes on the market. I have been diligently removing stuff from the house for years and yes, there is a whole lot less surrounding me. But that whole lot less will be the tear jerker. I don’t really know where I will end up retirement wise, but that temporary storage suggestion by thatotherjean is a darn good one!
4Good luck, JJ!
Sympathy + empathy. Just finished downsizing from 3,000 to 1,700 square feet ourselves, after 33 years. You’ll become best friends with the reception/donations crew of every thrift shop within 50 miles, if your move goes like ours. Buena suerte!
5omg. Condolences. Congratulations. And, oh, I’m sooo sorry!
May I add one suggestion to thatotherjean’s?
A packing/unpacking service.
Several years back, I moved 3 times in 2 1/2 years — buying and selling two houses in the process. Yes, that was the period of my life known as Hell.
After having packed up for the third time, I discovered a local outfit called House to Home. They do everything except the transport itself. I used them to unpack the last move and they were a godsend!
They unpacked everything, rarely needed to consult me about where things were to go and put everything away so logically that I needed to move hardly anything at all.
The result was that I even got ALL my pictures hung within a week — a job that usually ends up taking about 4-6 months because I’m so disgusted by the time I get to them, I just can’t bestir myself any further.
If you can find something similar where you are, I’ll bet you won’t be sorry.
6Best of luck with the move.
7We’ll miss you, but shall carry on the best we can.
In your spare time (hah!!), I highly recommend the book A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. He and his wife renovated an old farm house in France, and didn’t speak French. But I think workmen are the same the world over — “I will be there Tuesday to install the tub” (or lay the tile, or whatever it is they are supposed to do.) It might help give you perspective on the remodel!
8JJ , I found this handy guide map to find your next adventure.
https://www.ursulakleguin.com/
We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfill my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to unbuild walls.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.
Ursula K. Le Guin 1929 – 2018
9Almost forgot: your very own Ursula LeGuin movie.
The Lathe of Heaven ( :-{p>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VRbaVNvSA
10Good luck with everything! When in doubt, don’t throw it out. The idea from ThatotherJean is a good one. Try and enjoy the tile picking and new home stuff. It can be fun, even though overwhelming for sure.
11Good luck
12Best wishes
13We just moved from the house we had been in since 1995, cutting our space in half.. And we get to move again next year (into a house slightly larger than this one). We had two distinct designations for stuff, House and Storage. And we still managed to mis-file somestuff. I know it’s in a box, somewhere.
Try to be more organized than we were!
Best Wishes and I hope your house is everything you want!
14Good luck you crazy, wonderful blog queen.
15Best of luck!
16I’m an atheist but still making the sign of the cross.
17Don’t unpack anything after you move until you need it.
Six months from then, get rid of all the unopened boxes.
For additional motivation, watch a few episodes of “Hoarders.”
Good luck!
189/9/19, nice numerical alliteration. Nein, Nein, Neinteen. 45 is a Nein too.
19Good luck.
20Husband dealing with health issues this summer and I have been looking around.Trying to even imagine how I would begin to downsize
If we had to.
Don’t worry about us, Trump will keep us occupied.
@Sandino Yes, a very good book. Especially like the solution to getting all of the remodeling done before Christmas.
21I hope all goes well — and watch your health while all this is happening.
In the meantime, don’t worry about the latest Russian nuclear explosion. Trump has his best man – Rick Perry, at DOE – on the job. I’m sure he’ll take care of things.
22I am working on my second (17-foor) truckful for auction. We had this 1400 sq ft townhouse full … and it will still appear full after I am done so I feel your pain. It’s kind of liberating when I see something I like and walk away because I don’t need i
23Hoo boy. 15 years ago I married a man who had lived in his 2500 sq ft house for 35 years…and I’ve been decluttering the three stories/ 9 rooms for the past 14 years. It takes a long time to help some people get over “the endowment effect” of their worthless stuff — I finally got my husband to throw out the pile of college philosophy books that he was sure he’d re-read “some day”.
Good luck with achieving a nice, clean move. I’m pulling for you.
24Two years ago this June we downsized from 4500 to 1300 sq ft. We rented a storage unit for some things we just didn’t know what we wanted to do with and for our youngest daughter’s furniture as she was then living in a tiny overpriced Manhattan apartment. Our daughter moved to NOLA the first of this month and took her stuff. We found it much easier to deal with the remaining things after the two year wait. Much less emotion. Good luck with the renovation and the move. And don’t hesitate to store things— just give yourself a time limit and stick to it.
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