Aaaahhhhh! We have our first showing tomorrow at 4 p.m. so we’re trying to figure out what to do for an hour with a dog and 2 cats…but that’s the least of our problems! Not that we have a lot of “problems” per se, but selling a home, buying land and building a home is stressful! Exciting and fun, but none the less STRESSFUL! Not that we’re the first ones that have been through this, but everyone has their own unique set of circumstances and we definitely have ours.
Along with a chronicle of our journey, I wanted to document some lessons so if anyone else wanted to get a sneak peak of what it’s like to downsize your home and upsize your land in your mid 40’s and live tell about it, I would be able to give some advice…so here goes:
- Start early! – it’s never too early to clean closets, clear clutter, and set a vision. Harry and I knew many years ago that we would be trading our home’s square footage for land acreage. As much as we tried to stay clutter free, our closets filled! It has taken months to go through storage boxes, closets and cabinets to de-clutter. Seriously, a Guess jean jacket with a starburst on the back is so destined for Goodwill!
- Be kind to each other – we’ve shared this space for 10 years, we each have our favorite spaces in our home. As our home slowly becomes a house we wish to sell, there are certain things that are hard to take off the walls and/or put in drawers. What may seem like a trivial piece of 7th grade art to you, represents a special time in life for another.Respect that.
- Know that there are so many moving parts, and be ok with that – we have to sell our house before anything happens…that being said, things are in the works to get a bank pre-approval for a construction loan, we’re almost ready to make a contingent offer on the land we want to purchase, we need to pre-pay our builder for preliminary plans on our new home, we’re still figuring out where we’re going to live when our house sells! It’s a chess game of sorts. Be strategic but flexible. We’re trying our best to go with the flow.
- Keep things in perspective and enjoy life – we continue to balance the hard work of getting (and keeping) our home “show ready” and enjoying down time. We make sure we take at least 1/2 hour each evening to sit on our front porch, throw tennis balls for our dog to chase and talk about our day. We accept invitations to weekend gatherings and are even planning our son’s high school graduation party next weekend. Know that life goes on through this process. Don’t stop time, enjoy the process and be sure to keep living in the moment. Time is all we have.
That’s all for now, wish us luck as we have our first showing tomorrow and then an open house on Sunday!
To be continued…be healthy, be well
Meredith
