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.
I'm so guilty of the out-of-sight stashing. That's m,e even when we're not trying to make the place presentable. And that is such a beautiful thing you did for your daughters, the ritual of saying goodbye is so important. Without it, we leave so much in limbo. And oh man, the 5-hour prep for the showing - it will take me five hours here, I think, just to catch all our cats! I'll be sending you solidarity and warm thoughts as you navigate letting go of what sounds like such a magical home.
This is so true. When we radically declutterred our house in preparation to sell, it was finally the serene minimalist space I’d always wanted. I could have had that all along!
Exactly! I had the same moment of "finally!" Why we wait to give ourselves what we want and need, I'll never know -- maybe because we're tired, and have too many legos.
Great idea. Will I do it? Probably not. But I’ll think about doing it!
Thoughts become things!
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.
I'm so guilty of the out-of-sight stashing. That's m,e even when we're not trying to make the place presentable. And that is such a beautiful thing you did for your daughters, the ritual of saying goodbye is so important. Without it, we leave so much in limbo. And oh man, the 5-hour prep for the showing - it will take me five hours here, I think, just to catch all our cats! I'll be sending you solidarity and warm thoughts as you navigate letting go of what sounds like such a magical home.
This is so true. When we radically declutterred our house in preparation to sell, it was finally the serene minimalist space I’d always wanted. I could have had that all along!
Exactly! I had the same moment of "finally!" Why we wait to give ourselves what we want and need, I'll never know -- maybe because we're tired, and have too many legos.