Bettiboop, Start now today eliminating everything you dont want or cant use, It is an endless task and you will be grateful you started the elimination process early. We started a good year before we sold the house and we still had TONS of stuff at the end that we didnt know what to do with.

Julie, that was such a wise statement about not accumulating more in the meantime. I LOVE to shop and buy cutsie things and it was so difficult not to buy new things, but I was tough on myself and didnt buy anything new in the past year knowing it would just be one more thing to drag to TV. Unfortunately , I still cannot let myself go crazy now that we are here because there simply is no room for anything new.

I will have to direct my energies into exercising and dancing instead of shopping, much more beneficial in the long run. Wow! this sure is a whole new lifestyle.

Thanks Julie! I'm hoping things will turn out where I don't have to wait the 2 years...thus I'm trying to downsize now so I'll be ready - just in case.:D

How soon are you going to make it to TV? I agree with you on waiting to purchase things when you get to TV. The less that has to be moved, the better!

:agree::agree::agree:

We don't plan on being fulltime residents till 2013. I have already started getting rid of stuff and I will probably still have way too much when it is time to move. Nonie you are right there is not room in our house in TV and I'm not buying anything else. I'm on the "Eat it or Wear it Plan" if we can't do one or the other we don't need it.

Thanks, Nonie. I'll just take it one item at a time and try not to feel overwhelmed. I know it is just a necessary "evil" that I have to go through but at least there is a nice bonus at the end...TV!! I'm so looking forward to being much more active with exercising and dancing, etc. Without a doubt it is going to be so good for me!

Halle, I like your "Eat it or Wear it Plan"...that is a good way to look at it. ;)

Betty, as luck would have it, OUR HOUSE FINALLY SOLD!!! Or rather I should say, it's in escrow which is set to close November 2nd.

We plan on taking a week or two driving cross-country touring America while we're on our way to TV, the promised land.

Congratulations Julie!

Im so happy for you! How long was it on the market?

Fantastic, Julie! It won't be long now! Have fun on the cross country drive. That sounds like fun!

Thank you nONIE and Betty!!! Our house was on the market 8 long months. Selling a home in this real estate market was frustrating, to say the least.

Tomorrow we have all the home inspection people coming over to the house. I'm fairly certain it will pass everything which includes the overall home inspection, the chimney and something else that I can't remember right now. I'm hoping to feel less anxious following all of these inspections. :1rotfl:

Congratulations, Julie!!! The best is yet to come!

Julie,

I sure know what your going thru. Its a real rollercoaster ride trying to sell. Ours was on the market 7 long months and the excuses people gave us were just unbelievable, from her grandmother falling down a set of steps like ours and breaking her neck to 3 acres not being enough property to take walks while saying the rosary. The excuses for not wanting it got old very fast!:ohdear:

We were thrilled to find a nice young couple who thought they died and went to heaven when they found our old farmhouse. Theres a home for everyone thank goodness!!

nONIE,

I'm jealous of you and Jeanne Beannie. Both of you have already made it to TV while I'm still stuck here in upstate New York for another winter. I've only just started to get rid of all the accumulated stuff in my house. Then I still have to put it up for sale and go thru that hassle.

Well, I only have another month at work and then I can retire and will be able to work on this project full time.

Niels

nONIE, Don't even get me started on those excuses...we had one family that came in five times and ultimately said our baseboard wasn't high enough. :shrug: (the baseboard was installed previously to our owning the house) WHATEVER!

Thanks Champion. :)

This has been quite a read. I see myself already running into some of the issues raised.

I'm a recovering pack-rat. Because I moved around so much when I was a kid, I clung to everything I possibly could. When my adoptive mother died in 1990, moving into her house was, in a sense, one of the worst things I could have done. I combined moving into the house of a pack-rat (there were suitcases in the basement that had stuff in them from 1968) with my own pack-rat-ness and having gotten married 3 years earlier to a woman who also kept *everything* (though I didn't know it at the time).

I knew I had a problem one day, years later. The house I've been living in since 1990 is a 10-room house with a 2-car garage and shed. 3BR upstairs, one on the main floor where the living, dining and family rooms are in addition to the kitchen along with a complete basement that had a 'summer bedroom' (no heat but nice and cool in the summer, window on the backyard) that later became my now-ex-wife's "dog shop" where she did grooming. That should paint the picture of how big the house is - and there were four of us living there - us and our two daughters.

I heard my wife say "Maybe we should get a storage area".

That's when I finally started breaking my habits. Not completely and not all at once. But when four people can't live in a 10-room, 2.5 bath house, something is WRONG.

Years pass, stuff accumultes to the point where we're not too far away from becoming one of those families you see on "Hoarders". I give up on cleaning because, no matter what I do, 2 days later it looks like I haven't done anything. We no longer have friends over. I can't even repair the house because the wife won't let anyone in the house. It gets so bad that tax appraisers can only do "drive by" appraisals since she won't let anyone in the house - all while arguing with the towwn clerk to take her word for it that the house isn't worth what they say it is.

Around my 44th birthday in 2006 she moves out, hoping (among other things) that she can have a better relationship with her boyfriend (who subsequently moves to Florida). A week later I hire an appraiser for a walk-through. The appraisal comes back $84,000 less than the tax appraisal. The following year, I actually get a check for $1000 back from the town as a 'rebate' of property taxes (I filed for an abatement and let an assessor in for the first time since 1994).

For three years I've been working on this house that has suffered from the benign neglect of the situation for 15 years. Cracked foundation, broken heaters, doors, painting, floors, most recently new roofing over the garage. All while trying to reclaim the house and make it liveable.

In early 2009 a heating pipe burst causing over $20,000 in damages. Because it took weeks for me to notice (due to the location of the break), there was mold all through the basement ceiling. They called in the guys in the bunny suits to work on the house. I filled two flatbed dumpsters with trash from what was destroyed and contaminated in the basement - and yet still my basement is cluttered (still working on it).

I still have a couple of rooms to be done. The divorce was finalized lasty year and this past weekend the last pass through attic crawlspaces got the last of the stuff that my ex wants. She hasn't changed her ways. Now she's paying some $300/mo in storage rental fees.

What wasn't done by professionals, I did in the only way I knew how based on all the moves I had when I was a kid. You work on one area at a time. Clean THAT ONE SPOT. If the spot is a room and will take more than one session, then attack it in order. Start somewhere and go clockwise or counter-clockwise around it. Do it until it's done. Then don't touch it. Heck, put up yellow tape if you have to.

I now have one daughter who's graduated college and one who's about to graduate high school. Those two rooms (one now 'unoccupied') still look the way they did the day their mother left. My older daughter has learned some and hasn't replicated things in her apartment. My younger daughter still can't budget her time to allow for cleaning.

It's not easy. Each thing you put your hand on has memories and triggers all kinds of reactions. It's slow going and not always pleasant (especially when you've gone through a divorce).

I'm 47 now. My finacee is my age and now we're looking towards retirement as something we need to decide on - at least for what we want to try to accomplish. She's got all her stuff too (raised 3 kids) - but it's boxed up nice and neat unlike how mine was!

I have the luxury of time. Don't rush it. Set small, reasonable goals - things you CAN accomplish so you don't get overwhelmed and feel defeated before you start. It may be a huge job, but it can be broken up into little jobs.

Good luck.

Do what we did
 

Sell the "STUFF" with the house, problem solved....Yea!....We only packed our underwear!....No really, we gave most of the junk to Habitat (one mans junk is another's treasures) and of course there is the "Garage sale" call it an estate sale and it will be gone tomorrow....giggle......j

I just want to thank all of you....at this very moment, there are movers bringing stuff INTO my house, my husband had 3 tons of stuff in storage!! Since we can't have a garage sale here in our city, we brought a lot of it over to my inlaws. with the remainder here so I can see what I want to keep and what to give the kids....hoping to have the good weather last long enough to have a sale next weekend at the inlaws. I took a break from it all to check TOTV and noticed this thread...feels so much better knowing that everyone has gone thru this and survived...Thanks again..now...back to work :)