Stick House Knows We Are Selling - Montana Owners Club

Parrothead · 02-12-2007, 04:54 AM

Everything is breaking all at once. I know it must be bad karma. First the drain pipe in the main bathroom developed a leak, the stopper broke. Ed thought he had it fixed but we had a ton of water in there yesterday so he had to put all new pipe in. Thursday the faucet in the master bathroom broke and we had to buy a new one. And because there are twin sinks, we had to replace the other one also. So $130 later and a lot of bad words (Ed), they are fixed. We thought we were on a "up" roll as my Mother's house finally sold and we closed the deal last week. We have to get the "up" back. I just put about 2 thousand dollars worth of suits and shoes in boxes for Salvation Army to pick up. And I have been throwing stuff away like crazy. We are going to make it!
Happy trails......................

rickety · 02-12-2007, 06:16 AM

Stick houses seem to know when they are on the "short list". Our
Maytag Neptune in the stick house broke two days after it closed, The heater went out 1 week after we closed. The well pump quit 7 months after we left. You're right, they know....eerie

simonsrf · 02-12-2007, 07:11 AM

Sue, (and Ed)

Hang in there its just a matter of time, after it sells....who cares!

Getting rid of the stuff is the hardest part....and the biggest relief! We have found very few THINGS we wish we still owned. We had so much STUFF for Goodwill! I know what you say about giving away valuable stuff...it is hard, but well worth your effort.

Looking forward to seeing you at the Lake Siskiyou rally and comparing stories.

sreigle · 02-12-2007, 08:37 AM

Hang in there, Sue and Ed! It WILL all happen for you and it will be worth it.

adelmoll · 02-12-2007, 10:43 AM

Just keep on going and don't look back Sue. You're gonna love it.

Helen

Montana Sky · 02-12-2007, 10:53 AM

Remember these are just little bumps in the road. Your home is giving you its going away present; stories to tell all the folks you meet on the road about how you made the transition from home owners to full timers. Some of the greatest things I read on the MOC are from folks who are selling it all and hitting the open road. It is only going to get better Sue!

Connorsmom · 02-12-2007, 12:23 PM

One thing I've noticed...in over three weeks on the road, there isn't one thing from home that I wish I had here. Yikes...at least now I know I really don't need all that "stuff" I've accumulated back home. Time for a MAJOR clearing house soiree!!LOL

Jan

stiles watson · 02-12-2007, 12:24 PM

Those stick house contractors just can't be trusted!! I think the quality control on stick houses really needs to be improved. Why do they have problems with the water piping and valving system? Don't they use quality materials? And I just can't believe that the appliances need to be replaced after 10 - 20 years. Those electrical systems seem to get squirrelly after awhile. Why can't the housing industry make these stick houses to last until you sell them?

Oh, excuse me. I had a mental lapse. I thought I was on a stick house forum. Heh, heh, just couldn't resist the parody. Congratulations on your progress toward escape to the land of the nomads.

Ozzie · 02-12-2007, 12:29 PM

We have a similar scenario in that we are also going through everything and getting ready to sell our house. What a chore that is!
Me being a (former?)contractor, I have lots of leftovers in my garage.
I've been building things out of that pile of wood for many years...LOL

We're not quite ready for the full timing thing though...one more custom built home and that should do it.

Oh...I think our house did talk to me too...I put a pot of coffee on, got side tracked and forgot the pot...coffee all over. Our counter started to grow! If I hadn't performed emergency clampage to the counter I'd have been replacing it all.

Congrats on making the move! I am so jealous...

melnjoy · 02-12-2007, 02:16 PM

Sue, look at it this way.... It can only get better from here on out. Once it is all said and done, you'll wonder why you hadn't done it sooner. Good luck.

Stiles, thank you for the chuckle!

Joy

bob n pam · 02-12-2007, 02:20 PM

You'll make it! Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and your path to fulltiming will get shorter and shorter.

stiles watson · 02-12-2007, 03:01 PM

For all of you that are sorting it all out. When we moved out and sold out, we found an estate liquidator. They said, "Don't throw anything away." We just got out of the way and let them sell everything, bucket of old nails, building materials, old clothes, books, yard maintenance equipment, and someone even bought a large portrait of our family(???).

They took 20% of the proceeds, but our 80% was far more than we could have gotten in a garage sale and without all the hassle. Whatever was left over (not much), they arranged for charities to pick up. They cleaned up everything when finished. The place was ready for whatever was necessary to make it salable.

All we did in preparation for them was get the Monty loaded with all we were going to live with, give the kids all they wanted, stored a few items (and sorry we did) and got out of the way. It was a smooth transition.

exav8tr · 02-12-2007, 03:23 PM

I'm thinking of doing the same thing Stiles. 37 years of Cathy's crap and my stuff (as George Carlin would say). Have to shop around in Anchorage for one of those guys......

Phil

Parrothead · 02-12-2007, 03:55 PM

Stiles,
We do plan on the estate sale thing for the furniture, dishes, etc. But we still have a lot of my parents stuff we need to get rid of also so we are going to do one more garage sale and then that is it. We have to store some things and then we will take a look at that in a couple of years. I have a lot of valuable family heirlooms and some of my kids don't have room right now for extras. Our next project is to start putting things in the Monty we know we want to take and see how soon we have to stop!
Happy trails...................

sreigle · 02-13-2007, 05:08 AM

Stiles, we did the same thing. A garage sale might have netted more for us at far more hassle and with leftovers to get rid of. We just boxed everything up, had them pick it up and send us a check when done. Nice. Besides, a garage sale in Kansas in March is not likely to be well attended.

CanDo · 02-14-2007, 02:44 AM

Sue and Ed, we feel your pain! We put our house on the market yesterday - the sign goes in front today (well, if the realtor can make it through the 2 inches of ice and snow!). The inside of the house looks like someone threw in a frag grenade - boxes and "stuff" everywhere! I have several different projects to work on when we're not sorting and packing. Like going through my cookbooks and finding the 2 or 3 recipes we love and adding them to the cookbook I'm putting together of recipes from my cookbooks (confusing sentence). I'm still working so haven't weeded out my work clothes yet. The first batch will go when winter is over. Then when I retire in May, the rest will go. Dave has already gone through all his work clothes, and the VietNamVets and AmVets have received a TON of stuff already. Dave's biggest chore will be going through his work shop and putting together the tool box for the Monty. We've kept several MOC posts on what to take and he's added his own things to the list.

Wish we had the new Monty here so we could start loading. That would sure make the family room and garage show better! We have piles of stuff from the old Monty plus some new stuff just waiting for the new home!

On one hand I think it would be nice to just wake up one morning and have everything done. On the other hand, we've really enjoyed sorting through some of our things and taking "treks down memory lane," especially when we come across artwork or schoolwork when the kids were little. Those things will go in my mother's cedar chest, and I'll keep that.

Happy sorting! Chris and Dave

vickir · 02-14-2007, 03:22 AM

Sue and Chris ... Don't envy you all you're going through now ... been there, done that. However, I can almost guarantee that you will end up off-loading quite a few things that, as you stand in the midst of your stuff now and try to anticipate everything you might possibly need or want and are absolutely sure you'll need in your new life, end up being unused and adding unnecessary weight and taking up space. Unless you have a crystal ball or can read tea leaves, there is no way to avoid this. So, try to make sure you have a little extra room in your storage area for future off-loads.

Enjoy your sorting and your strolls down Memory Lane as you get ready for the next chapter in your lives.

Longwell · 02-14-2007, 03:39 AM

I'm SO jealous - lol. I wish I were crying hard right now about what I had to throw out or give to the Salvation Army in order to get into our Montana. Instead, I'm shoveling 8" of snow off the sidewalk and having a humidifier installed on the furnace. Poop!. (oops)

I hope it all goes well for you. Final decisions are always tough.
We're planning to do an estate sale when our time comes, like Stiles mentioned. Sounds right for us.
We hope to see you down the road.
Larry

simonsrf · 02-14-2007, 03:50 AM

Sue and Ed,

We feel and know your pain. It took us 18 months to move everyting we owned into a 5 x 10 storage and the rest to Monty. Going through everyting and making a decision is tough stuff!

Garage sales were nothing but a real pain. I was so amazed that people would want you to reduce prices....The garage sale was just barely worth our time. Goodwill knew us on a fist name basis.

Craigslist was a miracle worker for those items that we knew had value, I'm pretty sure that in your area "things" could go fast. Just make sure you sell only locally....wait 'till ya get the stupid emails! very laughable stuff.....might make the hassle easier. With your computer skills, this should be a real easy task, I was actually able to list 10 items a day...the trick was to keep it all sorted.

And finally, we are NOW fulltimers, and have found so few things that we wished we had kept or brought with us. When we get back to Washington in the summer, I am confident that the 5 x 10 storage will get a bunch more room.

Hang in there, we had instant relief from the turmoil when we turned the key on the truck and drove out of town.

We don't look back!

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