I highly recommend that you pretend to sell your house. Even if you want to stay, even if you love your house, just pretend. Pretend you’re going to let it go and see what happens. Make yourself a realtor worthy list of to-dos; throw some caulk on that gross spot behind the faucet, paint the door, clean the windows (inside and out), buy a wreath, wipe down the cupboards, finally hang that painting, and box up the toys no one has played with all year. Give yourself a deadline - a week is good. Suddenly, the place will look fantastic, and you’ll feel lucky. How did you score such a great place?! You’ll look around, deeply satisfied. All that hard physical work will mean that even though it’s only 3 pm, you’ll be exhausted and ready to think about what’s for dinner. You’ll try and make it easy on yourself; rice and beans, you’ll hear yourself say. But the house looks so pretty that you’ll make the beans from scratch, the Rancho Gordo bag you bought with the king city pink, and the rice with a cilantro lime juice so it’s green and fragrant, and maybe just a quick pickle for those ginormous bright glowing red radishes that you need to eat up. You’ll hear your partner say, “We should have done this years ago.” And you’ll wonder, “Has it been years?” It has. For two years, the little peeling gray spot behind the faucet has simply been a place to look at while you brushed your teeth. It made you sad, but you didn’t make it better. And you know he’s right, and you promise yourself that next time, next time you’ll do it all sooner.
Great idea. Will I do it? Probably not. But I’ll think about doing it!
I was gonna mention that earlier... how as soon as you get it ready to sell, you fall in love with it again and don't want to move. I'm selling my parents' home of 42 years, which I've lived in for the last year and a half. It took me 5 hours to get it ready to show yesterday and I vowed afterwards to try and stay ready, because I love the house that way. Pick up after myself. Just spread out one project at a time. But don't stash stuff in weird places just to get it out of sight. When I sold the house that my daughters grew up in, we had a saying goodbye ritual. I gathered plants from our land (sage, rosemary) and put in little cloth bags, and we went into each room, lit a candle wrote our memories of that room and read them aloud, then blew out the candle and went to the next room. I'll have to find a special sweet way to leave this house in the foothills with its own pond, native grinding holes, and a redwood in the front yard.