Friday, May 14, 2010

House For Sale Soon ...

Sorry to have not posted since Sunday this week. It has been very hectic around here with one daughter graduating soon from high school and getting our house ready to get a market evaluation.

Met with a Realtor today. After the meeting I became a little nostalgic and of course started second guessing myself. Putting our house on the market has been on my mind for over a year now... for a lot of reasons. For one, Mr. Fanatic and I are not getting any younger. Not that we are THAT old and ready for a nursing home ...but since we are die hard control freaks DIYers, this house has always felt BIG and the yard is very large. We came from a 1,500 square foot home in California where the entire lot it sat on would fit in my FRONT yard to a 3,200 square foot home with a 2,000 square foot unfinished basement and almost an acre lot. Many people in our neighborhood hire people to do what we do ourselves. We mow the lawn ourselves, paint the deck, landscape the yard, build patios, paint rooms, install molding, do electrical and plumbing, ... oh, and this little thing we do every week called cleaning 3 floors of our house. I guess we are just control freaks because we do everything ourselves -we aren't going to change. We are getting older and we don't have as much energy and we are getting to the point where we want to spend our time elsewhere. That was only reason one!
Reason two is: many nights and weekends we are home alone ... our girls are our either working or out with friends. Makes the house seem really BIG. (Let me just say here that it's a good thing we still like to spend time with each other after 24 years of marriage...loving each other is a given)
Reason three is: paying the heating and cooling bill in the winter and summer when there are only two people living here.
Reason four: If we downsize to a (please don't hate me to all of you living in this size or smaller home) 2700 to a 2800 square foot home on a little less than a half an acre we can get rid of the mortgage, our taxes and insurance will be less, the utility bills will be smaller & I'm estimating that we will be spending about $1,500 less a month! Oh, and don't forget I have a kid going to college next year and another one the year after!
Reason five: the house has three floors which means always going up and down stairs for something ... and did I mention we are not getting any  younger! I would rather conserve my energy for other things!
Ok. So why am I getting a little sad about selling our house? That I can show you in photos. My favorite spot:

Oh how I love walking up and down this path.

... and sitting on this patio and looking out onto the path that goes to the creek behind our property.

I love how spacious my Master Bedroom is.
and let's not forget my newly tiled Master Bath.
Not to mention all the fun times we had with sleepovers and birthday parties, etc. And to top it all off we have great neighbors! 
I feel incredibly blessed to have lived in our  house for ten years and for my kids to have spent most of their childhood here. So, even with the reasons above for wanting to sell, there is still a little sadness with that decision because it's been a wonderful place to live.
Again, I apologize for not posting this week and for not visiting your blogs much and  definitely for not saying hello if I did get a chance to visit your wonderful blog!

This weekend we will be finishing up painting and organizing the garage. The gray paint sure is pretty. It looks a lot better, but we still have a lot of stuff!
We will also be doing a lot of small fix it type stuff that needs to be done before we put the house up. Maybe if I get a chance I can update you on my youngest daughter's room. It's looking pretty good (although not finished). Both my daughter's rooms are looking good because, they actually cleaned their rooms pretty well with the Realtor coming, but it was only under the threat of putting anything that was on the floor in the trash! Gotta love teenagers!
 I will try to get to everyone's blog this weekend to say hello! Hope everyone has a terrific weekend!
Thanks for stopping by,

Pam

7 comments:

  1. It is hard to move from a house that holds so many memories and rooms that you made nicer, but want it be fun to decorate a new one!!

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  2. I bet it would be Hard Pam. All the memories you created....they will never go away though, and you will have new ones along the way. I do not blame you. When my son Alex goes off to college I think the same way it may be time to downsize...we still have at least four years left. I was just thinking about you today and wondering where you have been.

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  3. We moved 5 yrs. ago for all the same reasons. Our problem is we moved to a place toooooooooo small. It's about half the size we moved from. I am still trying to get used to it. l860 Sq. Ft. may not be small to some, but to me it really seems tiny. Just don't go tooooo small. Hugs,Marty

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  4. Oh what a lovely home and yard! It would be hard to give all of that up, but I so get what you are saying. I only have 2 floors and I think I am ready for everything to be all on one level... then we sit in our yard and think... why would we want to give this up...

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  5. You have a BEAUTIFUL home and the outside landscaping looks just as BEAUTIFUL Pam!!I know it will be hard leaving but try to imagine how much fun it will be starting all over again and decorating a new place where you will make more memories with your family.

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  6. Pam, don't worry about not posting this week...I didn't post that much last week myself do to a little thing called surgery...anyways...back to your home...It's just lovely...we do all of our maintance work as well...just don't feel like it's done unless one of us do it...so I know right where you're coming from...when are you putting in on the market? Best wishes for a speedy sale. Take care, Robyn

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  7. Sounds like a lot of work, but looks like you are almost there! I am always sad to move away from memories, but new homes are exciting! Thanks so much for sharing this on Favorite Things Friday!

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