The last two weeks in the Olde House

The showings are all history, the open house has passed, the five offers all in, negotiated, and one accepted. The inspection is done and minor repairs all but complete. The moving companies are giving quotes. The modest House Cooling Party is due to start in three hours. The house is quiet and eager contentment is thick and rich in the air.

The new rental house in CCTX

We've done a huge amount of packing already and have plenty of time to complete the remainder in the days leading up to Truck-Loading Day, Sunday, March 10th. The plan is to clean the house as they load, and be ready to toss our essentials and Wichu in the vehicles, and drive down that evening for our First Official Night Living in Corpus Christi. 

The truck will arrive and unload our belongings the next day, and we'll switch our focus to where in the world we fit all this stuff in that small two-bedroom house. 

This blog will then become reflections on living together in Corpus Christi on weekends and in separate cities during the weekdays, as Ray completes the remaining two months of his university contract.

Life is so sweet.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
~ Barack Obama

Time to leave you, Luckenbach Lane

Finally on the market, and much excitement on the street as potential buyers flock to see it.

It's so rewarding to sell in a seller's market, and Austin's market is on fire!

Time to leave you, Luckenbach Lane.

Alese's long-postponed update

I give up.

I'm too much of a storyteller to keep up with all that's been going on in this tiny island of my life the last few months.  I keep drafting reports of all the remodeling news, only to abandon them as the actual doing takes me away from the telling.  

Here's the abbreviated version.

Mid-November through January

Phase I of the remodeling came to a close, ending our banishment to the master suite from the main house. We moved furniture, possessions, and selves back in, careful to chose on the barest of esstials, leaving everything else packed in the attic and garage.

We took advantage of the unseasonally warm weather and wood-filled, sanded, and painted the vertical and horizontal surfaces of various porches, and prepared the non-hardy potted plants for their annual indoor sanctuary.

To fill my spare moments and demonstrate that I am beyond insane, I took on sanding and painting four mismatched bedside tables, doing two of them to "match" for the master bedroom. What fun to sand away the ugly old stain, reveal the hidden wood, and antique them in various layers of golden colors. The garage was chilly, quiet and isolated, the hands busy and the mind free, until the cramping back would remind me I'd been enjoying it for too many hours without a break. 

January



Phase II meant giving up the master suite, which meant packing and moving everything from our closets, bathroom cabinets, and bedroom. The contractor helped to move the zillion-pound sleigh bed headboard and old-school TV cabinet into the living room and dining room (the garage is too dusty and potentially damp). They joined our king-size mattress and boxspring already in place there, stationed in the middle of the living room. We opted to crowd in there rather than move things upstairs, which is painful, scratches walls, and annoys the laws of gravity. What fun! Another cozy space to spend the last normal month before we move everything back into its carefully staged position for putting the house on the market. 

Then came the cold and dust phase. Despite covering the hearter's air intake from the construction area, dust from sanding snuck into the vents and deposited a thick coat of dust everywhere throughout the house. Everywhere. The sanding increased and painting time came, so we opted to turn off the heat till that stage end. Ms. Climate Change decided to swing to unseasonably cold temps, so we enjoyed the gas fireplace for warmth. We woke to some mornings of 50 degrees.  Inside.  

February

Now the remodeling is DONE!  FINISHED! BEHIND US! The house is gorgeous and we met our timeline goal.  

We signed with the same realtor who sold my parents' house in three days a few years back, and he was here yesterday taking 132 photos.  It's due to hit the MLS on Monday or Tuesday, and I'll give you that link then.

This feels fabulous and I'm delighted to see the results of so many, many months of hard work and planning finally be realized.  I'm luxuriating in the pleasure of a huge project well done.  Oh.  And did I mention that I have the finest partner a person could ever hope for.  Thank you, Raymond.  Now it's your turn to write. 


Alese hit the high points, but what she didn't talk about was all the organization she was doing.  There were lists, and lists, and sticky notes with each item, so they could be moved to the next week if not accomplished or tossed in the trash when completed.  We couldn't possibly have gotten this done on time, and with the house so beautiful without her OCD!  :-)

Little tidbits about living in the living room -- the fireplace was great.  Without the heat on we ran the fireplace a lot.  It was the last thing to be turned off at night and the first thing on in the morning, and on weekends it was nice to luxuriate in the bed and watch the flames for a while before starting the day.  

What Alese hasn't said about the house is that the realtor has been blown away by the renovations and the staging.  He said he might bring some of his other clients by to show them what to do when they put their house up for sale.  We know he can't put 130 photos up in the MLS, so he probably has other plans for some of them.  Today we'll have a sign up in the yard -- Coming Soon.   MLS maybe Tuesday, and open house next Sunday.  It will be a good day for an open house because the football season is over!

So, just to reiterate, this wouldn't have turned out so great and on schedule without Alese.  She is an amazing partner!