Wow! I didn't realize it has been a month since my last update. Since purchasing the RV just four weeks ago, we have been extremely busy trying to get the house ready for sale. Our first step was to decide what to take with us, what to keep in storage, and what to sell. You can't really understand how much stuff you accumulate over the years until it comes time to
git rid of it all!
We spent the first two weeks preparing for an estate sale. Oh, and for those of you planning to do the same, two weeks was NOT enough time! We sold a few things on eBay, put some things in the RV that we would be needing for our trip, and packed up family photos and important papers for storage. The rest was all laid out for the estate sale. We managed to sell
a lot, but in the end it was only about a third of everything. During the week after the estate sale our time was spent emptying the house, starting with the bedrooms. We had only one day to clear the bedrooms because we had carpeting being installed on Tuesday. Most of everything that was left over was donated to another family in our church who is also planning to have a moving sale. Except their sale is also raising money for a mission trip to Romania. There were three van loads of saleable items donated.
Now the items that were left was the usual garage stuff. You know all those nuts, bolts, pieces of wood, old door knobs, etc., etc., that accumulate over the years because some day we just might need them. Now I just spent the last two years completely remodeling our entire house, so you can imagine how much "spare odds & ends" had been accumulated. Most of my neighbors came and took half of it. The other half was loaded up into and filled a full-size pickup truck and hauled off to the county dump!
It took the entire past week emptying out the garage and cleaning every corner of the house. From sunrise to well into the night, we spent our time cleaning everything, touching up some of the paint on trim and baseboards and repainting the hall (having two boys, white paint on a hallway doesn't stay white for long). I also had to paint the final two bedrooms that haven't yet been painted as well as all the closets, being very careful NOT to drip any on the new carpet!
Finally, on Friday August 12 our house is listed in the paper and our
For Sale By Owner sign goes up out front! We get about a half dozen people stop by the first day. No bites, so we thought. Early on Saturday we get a call from one family who stopped by on Friday saying they wanted pick up a contract. This
surprised us because they were in/out of the house so quickly the day before. She even had her mortgage broker call us. So as of this evening (Sunday) four possible buyers have said they'd have an offer in to us by tomorrow.
Now that the hectic past few weeks are behind us, I can begin to update this website more often. So I hope you return soon. And please don't forget to register in the
message boards and post a few comments. We look forward to hearing from you.
Mark