Logistics: Or, A Packrat's Lament

The bedroom and its associated closets and bath are basically done! Just some random crap here and there that needs to be dealt with at the last minute. That makes five rooms done and three rooms at about 80%. The two big projects left now are M's office, the dining room and the garage. We're getting there!

There is one big snag we're starting to face, however.

We've been piling up boxes and such in each room, and trying to group things by what's going into storage and what's being given away. This is all well and good, except that I'm not sure how we're going to wrangle the giving away stuff. We've hired some folks to load the storage pod, so most of the big furniture and the storage boxes will be cleared out, but I'm not entirely sure how we're going to manage everything else.

I'm hoping that we get some folks (either y'all or some Craigslisters) to haul out the bigger stuff where it sits, but I'm not sure how to best handle the other stuff.

Our intention is to have a garage sale, but there's just SO MUCH stuff that I don't think we can manage hauling it all out and setting it up like that on our own. Have you ever seen garage sales where people are just invited to roam the house and grab what they want? Because that's looking like our best option at this point. I'm not sure I can even be arsed to put price tags on any of it.

The house will feel somewhat emptier after stuff's been loaded into the pod, but even after that, there's going to be a ton left over, and I want it gone, else I'll be tempted to set fire to the whole lot. I'd prefer that it goes to someone who can use it, whether that's one of y'all, a garage sale customer or a charity, but whatever happens, it just has to go, so we can get started on the fixes the house needs.

I'm honestly not sure how this really works. All my other moves have had only a few things left over--enough to just throw in a car and drop off at Goodwill after it's all said and done. Having something like four rooms worth of boxes and bags that need to go is way, way over my head.

Any bright ideas?

Bubble, bubble

So, late last week I saw a couple of nice houses in Kenmore come on the market. I went looking at them Thursday and we stopped by yesterday afternoon. Three out of four of them were pending as of then.

What the hell? I thought we were supposed to be in a slow market?

This has been happening to other places we've looked at, too. Two weeks after listing, they're gone. There are plenty of houses that have been around for a lot longer, but the nicer new construction in our price range is just utterly evaporating.

The good part of this is that it means we should be able to sell our current house pretty quickly. The bad part is that it means we need to get on that ASAP so we have cash in hand (or at least the possibility of such) to be able to get what we want.

I'm sure some of this is just the usual spring/summer upswing, but still, I really don't want to be stuck in a bidding war or something. Part of why we're doing this is to find a bargain, but I guess everyone else is looking at that, too.

What this really means is that I need to light a fire under my ass and hurry up and get the damned house cleared out and spiffed up so we can get it on the market. This is really, really taking much longer than it should. I could just throw everything in boxes and be done with it, but I want to clear out the excess and not be stuck with it forever.

Sad

So, part of today's house tasks involved cleaning out the closet where the formal wear and other gussying-up gear lived. I ended up tossing out the vast majority of it because it just didn't fit me anymore. Some of it is stuff that hasn't fit me in 15 years, and was horribly out of fashion, but some of it really was gorgeous, and it's quite sad that I can no longer wear it. Not that I ever have the opportunity to do so, but the option would've been nice.

One of the things that readily went in the box, though, was my old wedding dress. From my first wedding. Why I'd been hanging on to that scary old thing, I have no idea.