We’re doing a lot of fixing up Chez Modesitt-Landy, because we’ve come to the decision that it’s time to put the family manse on the market.
We love our house, it really HAS been a home and a haven for us during a very difficult nine years (NINE YEARS?) It’s been nine years since we moved into this house on Feb 17th, 2007, and we’ve worked every inch of this house for all it’s worth!
But with Andy in college and Max on the way out the door, and looking toward the next 10 years, we realize that we need to downsize and eliminate as much debt as possible. We’d rather move on our own terms than be forced to make a decision because of circumstances later.
We’d also love to find a rambler or some house with most of the living on one floor. A basement (for the dyeing biz, which still isn’t big enough to warrant a separate facility) is also a necessity.
So yesterday I started us rolling with a general clean up of our front porch. Today Max is scraping and sanding the upstairs bathroom vanity so we can paint it to match the rest of the room. We’ll be sanding and painting our stair hall, the basement stair, the basement floor and main area walls, two of the bedrooms and the kitchen woodwork. Wow, that seems like a lot.
What a difference it makes this time around, nine years later, with a strong teen son to help with the work!
When we bought the house, we had no idea that Gerry had cancer. We just knew that he had a bad, bad backache, and thought it had a lot to do with how much he hated his job in New York. We figured, “As soon as he starts doing freelance video work, or finds a job in Minnesota, he’ll be happier and in less pain!”
Wishful thinking.
Along with the Multiple Myeloma that was discovered mere weeks after our move, Gerry also had a terrible bout of recurring Ulcerative Colitis.
At that point the house had ONE working bathroom (upstairs) and the new washing machine we’d purchased wasn’t working, so I had many, many unpleasant trips to the Sel-Dale laundry those first few months.
We’d planned on updating the kitchen when we first looked at the house (that was part of our budgeting) so we altered that design to make the kitchen a bit smaller and add a ground-floor bathroom/laundry room. Later we framed in and dry walled a bathroom in the basement (best shower in the house!) and my office down there, so we HAVE made some nice improvements!
We’re hoping all of this will help with the house’s value. We know, though, that we purchased at the top of the market in late 2006 (damn!) but we’re hoping we can get at least what we paid for it back when we bought it.
So whenever I have free time over the next weeks, I’ll be taping, scraping, painting and cleaning. And looking for our perfect next-phase-of-life house. With a nice, unfinished basement…
Annie, I feel for you. We’ve been in our house for 36yrs. & need a ton of clearing-out. Such a difficult task!
So much emotion & so many memories! Good luck in your search.
Annie, it will be an adventure! I hope you get top dollar for your house.
I’ve been in your house, and it’s lovely. If I lived in the area, I’d be tempted! Great neighborhood, too. And you’ll find something that suits the next phase of your lives. Adventure! (I remember when you moved to this place, too.)
Annie, good luck with the spruce up. I downsized a few years ago and let go of half my ‘stuff’. Get a friend to help you stick to the purge.
Four years ago we moved from our home of 23 years to the newer house next door. I made a bunch of trips to the dump and completely filled a 6-cubic yard dumpster. Two years later, we moved from the “newer house” to an apartment. Well, we moved and about 1/4 of our stuff didn’t. I still have too much.
Good luck with the purging and cleaning. But I do have a question. Are you painting the kitchen cabinets or just the wood trim? I hope it’s just the trim because those cabinets are super.
Oh, good heavens, NOT the cabinets! We just had them put in 7 years ago, they’re still lovely! We’re just painting the white wood trim on the walls!
I would make the same decisions if I were in your shoes, but oh! What a lot of work! It makes me tired just to think of it. 🙂 I’ll send every good vibe I have for a smooth transition.