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Moving Forward…

My mom’s move is progressing at a slow pace. During the past week or so, some things have actually been accomplished. Probably because the realtor has initiated the process. Painter’s came out and painted the outside of the house and did some minor wood rot fixes that have been a long time coming. It’s a little strange seeing the house a different color. It was this pale yellow with white trim for about 25 years. I remember when it got painted that color. It was during the 80’s and the entire house was getting a makeover. New peach carpets had been laid—to match the purple, peach and teal pillows on the new sofa, the kitchen had new oak cabinets put in, with nifty butcherblock patterned formica countertops and the house was painted that yellow color.

The original yellow was pretty bright. In fact, once the house was covered in it, we had to be promised that it would eventually tone down to keep the neighborhood from showing up on satellites. Originally, the house was beige with brown trim. The yellow and white was a big change. It stayed that was for the next 25 years, getting lighter and lighter until it was almost completely white. Now it’s a darker colored green with white trim.

Remodeling has been a consistent theme ever since we moved into that house nearly 30 years ago. She’s never been happy in that house and has had some kind of house project going on every year of that timeframe. Carpets put in, carpets torn up, hardwood put in. Paint, repaint, paint again, more paint. Sometime changing her mind on the paint color within a couple of weeks. In fact, there’s so much paint on those walls that the square footage of the rooms has probably started to decrease. The bathroom has been updated about four times. The kitchen about three. The family comes over during the holidays and walks around the house trying to find what’s been changed or updated. It’s been a lifelong, never-ending project. I think we’re all ready for it to be over and for her to move on.

Over the weekend, I repainted the kitchen and bathroom for the open house that will eventually happen, while Wifey™ helped with a garage sale to get rid of some of the extra stuff. The more we can get rid of, the less we have to pack and move. And there’s a lot. My mom is attached to everything in her house and it’s extremely hard to get her to part with some of the stuff.

My mom is hesitant to actually start packing things, which is understandable. The problem is that it’s going to take at least a month worth of weekends to get the house packed up and we can’t go over there every weekend. So, we’re going over next weekend to pack up the stuff that isn’t going to be used for the next few months. I’ll also be removing wallpaper from the dining room, which is the last room that needs to be updated prior to the open house. My cousin, her realtor, said that all of the wallpaper needed to be removed to maximize the potential selling price. So we’ll be there on Saturday to do what we can.

Once the indoor projects are completed, there is still packing and then outdoor sprucing up to do. The backyard was completely landscaped a few years back, but needs some TLC to make it really shine. As with all of my mom’s projects, they look good at first and then she just sort of neglects them to the point where they don’t look good anymore. The pond hasn’t worked in a couple of years because the pump broke and she never had it replaced—it’s now just filled with some kind of biohazard that we aren’t even sure how to clean out. The flagstone desperately needs to be powerwashed. And there are odds and ends of broken pots and old patio furniture strewn about the need to be discarded. The backyard will look great once it’s cleaned up because she’s got a great base to work with, but it’s just getting to that point that’s going to take a whole weekend to get done.

As the weekends tick away, it’s going to get harder to sell the house. The optimal time is summer when most people are looking for homes. As we move into the fall and winter it’s going to start to get harder because, who wants to move during the holidays. Also, as rates continue to go up, fewer people will be out looking for houses. As it is, people are kind of sketchy about buying, and units in our complex are on the market for two or three months before selling. That means that if her house goes on the market in July, we’re looking at maybe September/October before it actually might sell. And once we hit October/November we’ll be right in the middle of the holiday season and it could be impossible to sell the house.

Anyhow, my mom isn’t as proactive as I’d like her to be. She gets easily overwhelmed and when that happens she shuts down and doesn’t want to do anything. We’re trying to keep the ball rolling but at the end of the day, it’s really up to her to do what needs to be done. We’ve got our own home and projects we need to take care of, so we’ll see how it goes.

Tags: moving, real+estate, home, sell

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