Moving Part 7: War of Attrition

My post-move, unpacking strategy has been basically to clear out one room at a time, moving things dropped there for convenience sake into another room. This has some advantages.
1. Tangible signs of success. You can tell when the room is free and clean.
2. Availability of the room for use. We did the bedrooms and baths first, kitchen and living next. Playroom, offices next. Today, the "dining room" (future use unknown). Last will be the garage.

It also has a small disadvantage, as things get pushed from one room to the next then tend to accumulate. These are things that we don't have immediate use for, or obvious place to put, so they are harder to dispose of. It isn't simply a matter of unpacking.

Moving Part 6 - Closure

We closed on the new house ten days before the old one. Our plan was a good one. We could complete any prep needed on the new house (not much), move in the PODS (mostly to storage), and be all set to move the much needed stuff after that, saving our beds for last.
Well.. the best laid plans.
We decided the carpets needed cleaning, so we did that first.
We ended up moving the PODS first, mostly into the garage, but also it held furniture and toys that we needed to entertain the kids.
Then we arranged for our things from the old house to be moved, a few days later.
School was starting and we wanted in before it was too crazy.
So all of our stuff was there, which made painting and such more difficult, since we were using the spaces. But Carly managed (with minutes shaved from kids naps) to paint their bathroom a cheerful seascape scene. The kitchen was laid out according to a trial and error system of utility, and we were roughly settled but living from boxes.
Getting all the stuff out of the old house was the most difficult part.
It was hot, and miserable, and we have a ton of stuff, even after the purges.
But we eventually got it all out. And the place restored to relative "pristinity". (Trademark Scholz 2007).
Now that I am not chained to the old house, I can be of more use at the new one.
Today Carly should be installed the new Airport (which died en route) and we should have regular internets again. We missed it so.

Moving Part 5. The Agony and the Ecstasy

I was just about settled on the last house we looked at when it was suggested we expand our search a little, especially to include one that would not need extensive renovations. But I loved that house, for all its imperfections. Still, I was a reasonable person, so I agreed to at least look at some others. We found one, just down the street from some friends who moved away from our 'old' neighborhood. It was bigger, and nicer, it was somewhat more conventional than my eclectic fixer-upper, but it didn't need anything immediately changed. And after all the work that looked really good.
So... we made an offer.
It was a moment of resolve, and tense calm. (If that makes sense) We committed to a house. We were 'all in.'

Only to find out that the day before they had accepted another offer. We were crushed and saddened to lose the first house we no reservations about. We hadn't really thought about finding a place before our vacation anyway, but we were excited about being done early.
Our agent suggested we make an offer anyway, just in case the first one fell through.
We did and half heartedly looked at other houses for the next day or two. We didn't find anything half as nice, and my old love seemed paler in the new light of the house we couldn't quite get. We resigned ourselves to selling our house at the end of August with less than three weeks to find a new one.

Then in the evening before our trip to California the agent called. Because our offer had no contingencies (we didn't make our buying the house contingent on selling our own by any specific date) the previous offer which had contingencies had to either remove theirs or retract the offer. They chose to retract the offer, and the house was ours!
Joy!

A brief history of moving

Now that the deals are done, the closings successful. Here is the story. I am not sure whether this will make much sense, or if Blogger will cooperate. If not I will try to adjust it.
In order:

Burgled
Moving Part 1
Prepping
Slave to the Phone
House Hunting
Closure
agony and ecstasy

Moving Part 2 - Prepping

What does it take to sell a house? We've watched a lot of those HGTV TLC shows about house flipping, sales and the like. So we felt reasonable prepared for what would be expected of us. Our first plan was to complete the work before our trip to California, and let the house show itself without us in it. It as a good plan. Sadly we completed our work well before, and figured we might as well start showing immediately.
Here are the top ten bits of advice from HGTV:

1. Make the front entrance inviting. ------------> Added a nice flowering plant to patio
   
2. Clear away clutter.------------------------------>Did we mention the 70% house clearing?
   
3. Clean the house thoroughly.------------------->Two kids.
   
4. Freshen the appearance of rooms.------------> New paint, throw pillows (why do people want these pillows that you don't even use?)
   
5. Arrange furniture for spaciousness.----------> Like a roller rink in our house.
   
6. Do all you can to reduce odors.--------------->Did I mention our cat has chronic diarrhea? Originally, the plan was to kennel him while we were gone, and the house was being shown.
   
7. Perform all minor repairs, if necessary.----->We dropped a clock on the kitchen faucet trying to spruce up the look, and that took way too long to fix. And then there was the closet maid shelves that picked this week to collapse.
   
8. Replace outdated light fixtures.--------------->Ironically this had to be reversed. We added fluorescent bulbs in most of the house, but because many of our switches are on dimmers these bulbs would hum or make other odd noises. So, for now we had install old fashioned incandescents.
   
9. Clean the carpeting.----------------------------->Originally, when we were quoted $800, we'd planned on replacing the carpet left in our house (mostly laminate wood floors). But when that price nearly doubled, we opted for a Drycleaning service instead. It isn't perfect, but hey.
   
10. Don't forget the garage and basement.--------> I forgot. We have neither.

So we are in pretty good shape. At first we needed a good hour to get the place in order to leave and let people look at it. Now, we've got it down to about 5 minutes.

Moving Part 1 - Are we crazy?

Having decided to move, we first set about fixing those things we knew were wrong with the house. There was a shingle loose, a bit of rotten siding (damn you masonite!), a stair railing on the front porch that needed replacement.
We also looked into painting inside and out, and getting new carpeting. We had this excellent plan for painting the inside of the house while Carly and the kids were down at the beach at my aunt and uncle's place. But it meant acting quickly, we thought, given the siding issues, it might be best to paint the outside as well, so we signed on to the first paint crew that was able to promise completion before the kids got back. It was a day or two later that we met with a realtor who didn't think the house needed painting. Oh well. What is a couple thousand dollars.
At the time, I was pissed we hadn't scheduled the meeting with the realtor first. But in retrospect, I am not sad we painted when we did. I think it is adding to the resale, if only by making the house more attractive than our neighbors.
As that was happening we rented a PODS which is a big crate you fill with stuff and they haul away, allegedly to a warehouse so you can retrieve it later. We tried to put as much of our stuff in there as we could live without. It took a long time. If you've never moved boxes in the afternoons, during a summer in the South, well, you've never really sweat. Especially clearing the attic. But, the house is considerably lighter. I would say we got rid of about a 5th of our stuff (to goodwill mostly), threw away another 5th and put half of the left over in storage. There are no mathematics available to represent the amount left over. Sadly.
The house was painted inside and out. The repairs were completed without much ado (however see below). And it looks great. We were done in time to start showing the house considerably earlier than we originally planned.
Some snags.
We decided to paint our kitchen but feared the painters would not remove the wall paper. So we did it. What fun! Nothing like holding a wall paper steamer (in the Southern Summer) while balanced on the countertops. I ended up scraping away a quarter inch of drywall in my enthusiasm, but ultimately it did the trick. I felt pretty foolish when I saw the big gash on the wall, and began to question whether I was the do-it-yourself kind of guy.
We also had to come out and fix the door Carly installed when we first moved in. The master bath has doorways inside to the vanity and shower area. But there was only one door, originally to the shower/toilet area, so Carly moved that door to the bath entrance to allow early risers (I think she got up at 5:30 those days) to use the bathroom without flooding the bedroom with light. Anyway, she bought another door and installed it herself. This included mounting the door and installing all the hardware, and drilling the hole for the doornob. So pretty impressive all things considered. However, the door she bought was a quarter inch too wide for the doorway, so for five years it has never closed all the way. Oh well, no biggie, it is really just meant for a little privacy. Of course, now that we were selling the house, that needed to be fixed. So we looked around. Interior door can run as much as $150 and most of them won't be cut or measured, or given hardware. So that sucked.
But we went to the Habitat for Humanity Reclaim center and found a used door ($25) that seemed like it would fit. We did the whole operation to get it installed. And no, it wouldn't fit. So we went back, and tried again. Still no luck. Our confidence in our abilities was waning rapidly. Eventually my cousin's husband Andy came by and planed the door down, and helped line up the hardware. I painted it and went to hang it, and it still wouldn't close and lock. It would close, but not lock. The lock was half and inch off. Sigh. I took out my router and played with it a little until voila! the door would shut and lock. A small success after many many fumbles. Remember that every trip to Habitat or Home Depot means lugging two kids in 98 degree weather, so every little extra step seemed agonizing.
Andy and I fixed the storage room door with speed and reasonable precision, so long as don't look too closely.
Years ago I was toasting some pita with oil and the toaster oven caught fire. I was able to extinguish the blaze with mostly cosmetic damage. On one of our laminated cabinet doors the laminate bubbles and shrunk from the fire, but we figured we'd get around to fixing it some day. I spent hours calling, trolling the interwebs, and driving from one home store to another, from one cabinet maker to another trying to find a replacement door. The results. They don't make them, can't fix them, and generally would prefer that I stand somewhere else unless I was serious about remodeling the whole kitchen.
However, having stared at the door for countless hours, I eventually decided I might make a repair of my own. My initial though smacked of homeopathy. If fire did the damage, surely heat could repair it! So I planned this complex use of a clothes iron, and various other implements to coax the laminate back into place. Part of me still thinks that might of worked. But instead I opted for Gorilla Glue and strapping tape. It took three tries, but the damage is pretty much invisible, and certainly no worse than the wear elsewhere in the kitchen. I consider this, my greatest victory in the realm of home repair.
By July 1st, we had the house in reasonable shape, the POD people came to take the PODS away. Carly had spent many dark evenings in the garden and doing other landscaping so the house had real "curb appeal." And we were ready to roll. Well, the house was ready, we were panicking. Nevertheless we met with the realtor, settled on an embarrassing low asking price (given what we just put into the house, and what we originally paid for it). That Monday we put out the sign, and opened the doors to strangers.