Fear and loathing - moving house after more than 30 years

Parent Cafe
61

We aren’t moving any time soon, but I would like to finish the basement of the house we are in. I haven’t done that yet because there is too much junk, but for some reason I expect to talk DH into getting rid of most of it. A girl can dream.

The basement work would increase the value of the house, but not pay for itself. The point is just to make it a nicer place to live. And really, filling up a couple of dumpsters would make it a nicer place to live whether we re-do the basement or not.

Good luck with the move. A former colleague told me you need to move or have a fire every 10 years. Arson sounds pretty tempting some days.

62

“One move is worse that two fires.”
Grandpa, your words of wisdom are the best. :slight_smile:

63

Granny dishes are in again. Many trendy restaurants use them. It was white for awhile, then the handcrafted look. Now it’s vintage pieces.

One of the design websites had a New Year’s article and stated that formal dining rooms were trending again, too.

So you never know…

64

I also have seen some articles about the stark industrial look starting to fade in favor of modern Victorian and other more ornate styles. Having lived long enough to know that everything comes back in style, I smiled, knowing my prediction of pretty things again being valued is coming true.

However, the downsize was a nightmare. I knew it would be, and knew that only with a horrible deadline ahead would I find the wherewithal to get the job done. I could never retire (single, in a high property tax town) in the old and large place, and so it had to be done while working. I found my downsize house, thought the move would take 4 months, and ended up closing on the old one 6 months later. Those months were invaluable, doing construction and having painting done on the new place, while cleaning out the old. I was working, going through a work crisis of new software which led to far too many hours at work. I decimated my vacation time.

Several groups of friends chose to help with certain projects. Moving the bikes, moving the art work, the canoes, cleaning out the expired food in the kitchen, going through the fabric collection. I tossed plenty, let go of the kids art work, and had the good fortune to move into a place with a large and dry basement. Yes, there is still sorting to be done, but one of these days I will be retired. Anything in the basement is in a bin, for the most part. I was ruthless with books, held onto instruments and art supplies for the future retirement. At the end I was sleeping 5 hours per night and sleeping on the floor of the old house on a mattress to be tossed to the curb. But I made it to closing as the kids were doing the final sweeping of the old house and rounding up the cats for the move. I find Marie Kondo interesting, however some of us who have moved a great deal and have widely spread out family take a great deal of comfort from familiar and loved objects around us. But I also don’t have family heirlooms, which perhaps makes things easier.

Wishing you the best, and know that it is far easier now than in your eighties!

65

Just saying… I did not mention in my post that I had a major surgery and a grueling licensing exam in the middle of getting our House1 for sale and finishing monitoring some structural work on House2. I survived and passed everything with flying colors, so it is doable!!!. :wink:

66

My parents have family heirlooms that have no practical use any more. She keeps offering us her sterling silver coffee service, for example. I feel bad about getting rid of things like that, but no one lives that way any more.

(We also have a silver-plated service ourselves that my MIL gave us that has been taking up space for over 25 years, and that will be purged soon.)

67

Good luck. Cleaning out a house of so many years is an emotional experience.

We moved from our first home after 13 years. It was difficult to see it empty and the only thing that helped was I really liked the new home we were moving to. For 2 years I referred to our old house as “our other house” and couldn’t bring myself to drive by it. Now go by it once a year and the new owner hasn’t taken care of it the way we did. It’s still hard for me to look at it. I guess I’m just sentimental.

68

You probably can get a little money for Sterling. Take it to one of those places that buys gold, silver, etc. You won’t get much, but you will get something.

Put the silverplate in the dumpster. Unless you know someone who wants it…if so, give it to them.

69

We plan to downsize in 5-6 years and are starting the decluttering process now. We have a 4 bedroom house with large basement and attic and both are filled with stuff that needs to go. Bins of outgrown kid clothes, empty appliance boxes, books, kids’ art/school work, old luggage, even a few boxes that haven’t really been opened since we moved into this house 10+ years ago. It all just needs to go!

If you are on Facebook, check out if your town has a local “Buy Nothing” group. Its an easy way to get rid of items that may have value for someone else: furniture, clothing, artwork, decorations, appliances, toys/games, books, etc. You post it and choose who gets it. It can be a great way to meet new people in your community, or you can just leave the item outside in your mailbox or in a bin to be picked up. For some reason its easier for me to let go of certain items knowing another person in my community could use them.

70

As others have noted, sometimes there is a hurdle for an individual. Y’know, ugh I don’t want to lug this stuff to the donation center.

Know thyself and look for what you will actually do!

We live on a busy street and have had very good success putting things on the curb before garbage day & almost always, someone has stopped and put it in their own car or truck.

I had been lugging bags of culled small items & clothes to our local donation center until I discovered an organization that will come to the house, even for a small pick up. It’s so easy & convenient.

71

I have not had to face this yet. My parents still live in the same house about 55 years ago and Dh and I still live in our first home.

My parents hadn’t necessarily planned to stay in their house this long but realized they could easily age in place because their home is completely one level (no basement, no stairs). I have been blessed that they have always been the opposite of pack rats, both of them. They don’t save anything! I was sick to my stomach (and incredibly upset) when my father decided a few years ago to scan the photos in almost all of their photo albums and tossed the photos without telling even my mother! I mean, I’m thankful for the electronic photos, but I would’ve loved to take some of the albums. When it’s time to move them out of their house or sell it upon their deaths, we fortunately won’t have too much to worry about.

This is in stark contrast to my MIL. About 6-7 years ago, she moved from dh’s childhood home of about 45 years. She is a complete pack rat, albeit a very organized one. Her home was about 3500 sq feet. She was not only a collector but also a saver. And when FIL passed away almost 20 yrs ago, she shopped and shopped away her grief. Despite living there alone, she had at least two storage units for years. As an teacher for 40+ years, she saved all her bulletin boards, art projects, supplies, etc. As a mom of 5, she also saved all of their childhood momentos. Even though they had a devastating house fire when Dh was in college and lost quite a bit of stuff, the amount of things she still had when she finally moved was mind blowing. She even hired a professional organizer and purger to come help her. I felt bad for two of dh’s siblings who, for at least two years, tried to help her get rid of stuff.

And yet…she still has stuff. I can’t tell you how much postage she has wasted mailing us crap we do not want or need (and this is after Dh flew home before she moved to take the few things he wanted). I am not joking when I tell you that despite giving us several boxes of dh’s childhood Christmas ornaments when we married, she is STILL sending them. We just got another box this year (Dh hasn’t even seen them and I’m considering donating without him knowing). Every time we would go visit her, we’d both come home and do a purge at home, not wanting to end up like that.

I will say, that the last time we visited her in the house before she moved, Dh was going thru some childhood momentos, like some stories he wrote in elem school, etc. It was cute to read and see some of the things, but it was the first he’d looked at them in 40 years. And then promptly tossed them. It made me realize that there really isn’t that much worth saving. I have a large Rubbermaid bin for each kid and that’s it. I regularly go through our things b/c with four kids, it adds up. I’m not quite as anal as my parents. I think I could be, but inevitably I toss something and then Dh goes looking for it and annoyed that I tossed it. Thankfully he is nothing like his mother in that regard and after witnessing her habits, refuses to be like that.

We will definitely have some culling to do when we finally move from this house, but thankfully it won’t be too awful. We don’t really have any basement storage which prevents us from saving too much. At least once every six weeks or so, I schedule a charity pickup of donations right from my front porch which makes it very easy to get rid of things others can still use.

72

I am amazed at the amount of stuff that people have. Almost all of the houses near us have 3 car garages. More people are unable to park 1 car in the garage than can park 3. And about 1/2 the people do not do their own yard work or clear their own snow so its not because they have a lot of yard equipment in the garage. One house they have to walk out their front door because there appears to be too much stuff in their garage to even walk through it. I walk a dog around the neighborhood a couple times a day which gives you a good sense of how people live. I suspect that the insides of their houses/attics/basements are similar.

Our trash pickup is in the afternoon of the allotted day. There are usually a couple people driving around in trucks looking for stuff to pick. I have helped people load things from the street into trucks from our house. If you can find a use for anything, have at it.

73

A few thoughts that may or may not be useful to OP, but are on topic.

When my wife’s grandmother moved out of her house to assisted living, she made sure to ask everyone if they wanted anything, and I think for a year before she moved we couldn’t get out of town without a box of stuff. Still had a sale for a bunch of things at the end. She was a bit of a packrat, with a big house.

Trophies - donate them. S went to a wrestling tournament when he was maybe 10 or 12. The club putting it on had a ton of old trophies donated I’m guessing by parents. Whenever a bracket finished, kid got to pick a trophy. Some were for drag racing, basketball, 4-H shows, you name it. Was lots of fun especially for the younger kids.

Someone else told me that his were actually worth something, I don’t remember who he sold them to or how he got rid of them. I was surprised but it might be worth looking into instead of tossing them in the dumpster. S literally has totes of them in my storage shed.

Take pictures of kids’ art. Maybe if your kids are artistically talented this would be harder. My kids tried, but all of us know that our talents lie elsewhere. But for sentimental reasons we took pictures of some of it before it got tossed.

Most stuff isn’t that important. This summer we had flooding and lost some stuff in our house and a bunch in a storage building. FYI putting your stuff in totes sounds safe, but if the bottom one floats it dumps the ones on top of it into the water. It was a bit painful for me getting rid of so much ruined stuff. S18 said if he knew that was all it took to clean things out he would have tossed a garden hose in the building years ago. Now that it is 6 months in the past, I realize that 90% of it was junk and he was right.

74

I moved a few years ago from a house we had been in for 15 years. I also helped clean out my mother-in-law’s house (35 years) and parents’ house (50 years)and all were huge packrats.

First, decide if you really need the money from anything you might be able to sell (besides obviously valuable items like jewelry). I say this because if you get into the mindset of “I’ll sell that instead of giving it away, I paid good money for that” it can be paralyzing with making any real progress. Selling items takes time to photograph, list, field interested buyers (half of Craigslist people usually flake) and then because so much stuff is undesired you often only make pennies on the dollar. Being determined to sell as much as you can will add months if not years to the process. I’d sooner hire an estate sale company to come and give you an estimate. But if you don’t need the money give stuff away.

You can have a garage sale, but one thing I learned is that people expect things for nothing, and can be very ugly if something doesn’t meet their expectations. And it’s painful to see things you loved be sold for pennies. When you give things for free it changes the whole mindset.

Besides Goodwill or other charities I find giving things away on Craigslist the fastest process (there are other local sites too). When I last moved we gave our kitchen table, bar stools, and two sets of couches away. Some recent college grad guys were just starting out after moving to our city and had nothing. They were thrilled and came with a truck and dismantled everything and took it away. It made me happy to see our stuff be used and appreciated and it got everything OUT super fast. Also, lots of thrift stores will not take used couches or soft items due to the issue with bed bugs. I gave away tons of old toys, household items, etc this way. Saved me so much time.

And lastly, getting a dumpster is also a necessity if you want a fast cleanout. No matter how much we want to believe we can give all our stuff away, because so much cheap made-in-China stuff has taken over our culture the truth is most stuff is just garbage. A dumpster helps tremendously.

75

When I moved after 20 years I hired an acquaintance to help me dispassionately sort into keep/donate/sell/trash piles. Worth every bit of that $ to have company and someone to keep me from keeping too much.

Now I am getting rid of almost everything to travel longterm, so “keep” is a very tiny bit of stuff going to a family member’s, temporarily. Everything else is going.

I find listing larger items on the Facebook selling wall is a great solution - people come and take big things away for me, and I get a little cash out of it. I’ll do a big run to charity after everything else is out, in about a month.

76

I talked to a woman today - she is 67 and her H is 73 - who I met because she was donating some materials to my program as part of her house clean out and getting ready to move to a retirement community villa.

She told me that her process has been to 1) Ask the kids/family what they would like. 2) Take the things that have some meaning to them and find a place to donate them to (which is how I came into play) 3) An auction company will come in and take what is left that they aren’t taking. I don’t know if the auction will be at the house or if they will just take the contents for a lump price but she was very excited that all will be squared away with not too overwhelming effort.

77

OHMomof2 – where are you headed and for how long? :slight_smile:

78

When we move in a few months, we will have some furniture that won’t go to the new house. Not sure what to do with it. We live in a gated community, so we can’t have any kind of garage or estate sale. I wouldn’t want to move it to the new house and have an estate sale there either-people damage the neighbors’ yards when there are garage sales and such, and we don’t want to start out on the wrong foot in our new neighborhood. May just have to donate it and have an organization come and get it.

I have a lovely black baby grand piano that will not be going to the new house. I’ve read here on CC how hard it is to even donate a piano as it seems no one wants them anymore. Makes me sad…

79

A lot of pianos! I totally forgot about ours. I guess it’s just a permanent piece of furniture. It was D1’s largely and I think when she gets a house - and if she has the room, she and her likely partner would like to have it.

80

Getting rid of our piano was probably the saddest part of downsizing. Only S2 plays and his living situation didn’t afford him the space. The person who we hired to clear out unwanted furniture found a family that wanted a piano but couldn’t afford one, so we donated it to them. The crew that moved it wasn’t professional piano movers, so I have no idea what condition it was in when they got it, but I like to think that it made it OK.