Today is a huge day for us...the day when our house got a "For Sale" sign hammered in front of it! And now it has hit the open market, showings are booked through the weekend and is primed for selling. There is a bit of a frenzy right now in Boulder's housing market, so our only concern is having too many offers to sort through. But in reality, the highest offer (with the best financial situation) will win.
Selling the House and Purging
With our boat bought, more-or-less, and our house practically sold, the next thing on our docket is the getting rid of possessions. We have actually been working on this task for well over a year; endless donations and a never ending stream of Craigslist posts; yet we still have things to get rid of!
The Process of Purging
The first part in this process was to get rid of things with the most value, that we no longer want, need or will use. Sort of like the fruit hanging by the lowest branches. Things like large pieces of furniture, music gear, electronics, kitchen appliances, outdoor equipment and anything else that is in more-or-less unused / new / or amazing condition that still retains its value.The second part started with going through all the smaller things - usually all the stuff that gets lost deep in closets, drawers, cabinets, etc. you get the idea. Most of the small stuff that we deemed under the value of $10 we put in the donate pile. That actually amounted the A LOT of stuff...even things that probably were worth more than that, we still thought about how long it might take to sell something of that nature and for the most part it also ended up in the donate pile! This part of the purging process definitely took the longest since it went on several times throughout the last year that we lived here. But in the end, we wittled it down to a pretty bare-bones situation.
The third part of the process hasn't yet happened, but basically it will occur as soon as the showings are complete. That is the getting rid of the last large pieces of furniture - bed, desk, kitchen table, couches, patio furniture, grill, rugs, etc. We decided that it was more important to keep these things in the home for showings, because that tends to make people visualize the living spaces better and ideally create a larger emotional bond to the house (and hopefully want it so bad they will pay much and more for it!). So the last part is still underway, but we have a plan to put most of the stuff on craigslist, or sell it to friends who have already staked a claim on one or several pieces.
*Update 4-10-15 It turns out that we don't have to get rid of any large pieces of furniture, because we sold our home fully furnished. It worked out so perfectly and frees up time so that we can focus on getting everything in order before we depart in 5 short days!
The End Goal
The end goal when we started this task is to move aboard the boat with what we can fit in ONE van load. Knowing the boat is fairly small, it has been really important not to go overboard and stuff the boat to the gills so to speak! Note: We will do a separate video blog on the stuff we are taking with us More on that to come!
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