περιπλάνηση: March 2023

The week I was in Houston, Bob got the final offer to come work for Colorado State University.

That meant we were a go for getting the house ready to sell and packing up 16 years of stuff to move to Loveland. It meant doing that, including continuing to work from home, while getting out of the way for all the things we needed to have done (painting, repairs, deep cleaning, staging, professional photos...) AND being ready at a moment's notice to pick up work and three dogs and get out of the way of showings for who knew how long.

So the stress level was off the charts through February and March. Our target was to have it listed March 15 but managed one day early, on a Tuesday, the 14th. Within an hour, Kerry, our realtor, was calling asking if there was any way we could accommodate a showing at lunch time that day.

Thankfully, our dear neighbor Corinne, had told me to come on over with work and the dogs any time I needed, so we sat on her back porch for an hour. Another realtor was piggy backing on the first, one after the other. While I was out there working, we got another showing request for later that afternoon.

That night, the first showing of the day came in with an offer, 10K over asking. Boom, done. Within 24 hours we had an "under contract" sign added to the for sale sign and it stayed there for the next month as all the closing hurdles were cleared one after anoter.

That left us scrambling to find something quickly so we could possibly stack closings close together and get moved out. Our buyers were not coming until June and agreed to let us rent back from them if we needed the extra time.

All the homes I had marked to look at turned out to all be under contract. The market was just that tight. But Kerry sent us a listing that wasn't coming up on my regular websites on Thursday morning and at lunch Bob met a Loveland realtor to make sure the photos were actually what we were getting. We put an offer on the Empire house that very night.

And so, within three days we both got our house in Highlands Ranch and the new one in Loveland under contract.

In the meantime, life went on with sunrise walks with the pups, and endless packing.

I'll post separately the "show" photos of our old and new house.

These are the pictures I took in those chaotic months when I knew after sixteen years, these were the last walks along those so very familiar trails and in that house where both my kids matured, graduated, and left, and returned to visit, for so long.

ENTWINED

In the midst of packing and planning, I came across a dinette set on FB Marketplace. Since we were selling the giant heavy mission style dining table and 12 chairs before moving, I had been searching for something much smaller, although I still had no idea what space I would be working with as we hadn't even listed our house yet.

I ended up placing it in the center of the new house's "library" which is also the Disney room and craft space.

visiting Pap and Mimi for the first full day (of three) of painting the entire interior of the house

Things are getting thinned out! The garage is filling up and the walls are entirely white.

With all the staging stuff getting put in, one of my main projects was going to be to make the "white" bed up before showings and then put it away so we didn't end up with little black dogs hairs all over. Remi still managed to sneak in a few times.

Tuesday, March 14: Live Listing, Four Showings

During that first lucky showing that resulted in an offer that night, while we kicked back in Corinne's yard, my hawk friend landed in my backyard's tree and sat there the entire time.