Downsizing the Family Homestead Pt 4

Downsizing a multi-generational home can be somewhat daunting! Breaking the process down into more manageable steps can help!

Part 4 Thyme to Let Go-

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I changed my target date (originally March 1, 2019) for getting the house on the market several times.  Once the tenants moved out at the end of March, I realized that my parents’ house really needed repainted and spruced up a bit.  The walls had never been painted since they moved in in mid 2001 except for one of the bathrooms had some special sponge painting.  The wallpaper border in the kitchen needed to come off because it was showing some age especially around the kitchen range area.

I also decided to tackle some things at the Farmhouse that needed to be done.  Once they were done, I wished we would have done them years ago!!!  I removed the wallpaper border in the entry way.  You can read about it here:

I also decided to remove the wallpaper border in the dining room and touch up the paint.  If you would like, you can read about it here:

I finally talked Dave into pulling up the carpet in the office.  Oh, how I wish we would have done that years ago!  I couldn’t convince him to pull up the carpet in our bedroom.  That really needed done.

We decided we would go ahead and put a new shingle roof over the front porch and the kitchen addition at the Farmhouse.  I had already put a red metal roof on my parents’ house in May 2018.

In between the projects we did on the houses, I kept sorting and packing.  I sold a few pieces of furniture by listing them on Facebook Marketplace.  I sold a few others by contacting a friend of a friend who paints furniture and resells it.  We took numerous boxes to the local charity resale store.

And we squabbled over what else to take to Florida.  I am sure by now you are wondering “how much stuff could be left?”  A lot.  At this point, I still hadn’t tackled the remaining items at Makin’ Pizza.  I had a little gift area set up that I called the Rustic Room as well as a work area in the back that was full of flower shop necessities.  And the upstairs at the pizzeria was full, too.

By mid March, I was reexamining the whole auction versus estate sale.  I contacted an auctioneer from Paxton and he and his assistant came out to the farm one Saturday.  They looked around and they thought there was enough stuff to have an onsite auction.  We decided to plan for early summer.  While they were there, they loaded up some of my more primitive items that they would include in a primitive auction they were having later in March.  They also bought a few farm related things out right.  They found some interesting things that the mice hadn’t gotten into in my Dad’s workshop.

A quick recap of what I had done so far:  had a 3 day estate sale, sent 30 boxes of “fancy” things to an auction, sold several pieces of furniture on Facebook Marketplace, donated items to the local charity resale shop, sent several items to the primitive consignment auction, taken a 19 ft U Haul down to Florida, sent at least a dozen boxes of “stuff” to Florida via UPS and the USPS, and had movers take 60 boxes and 9 pieces of furniture to Florida.

We finally got the houses ready to be put on the market.  The realtor came out to take pictures and the houses went on the market July 2, 2019.  Shortly after the 4th of July, I checked with the auctioneer to go over the details.  I asked about his commission rate and other costs involved.  I found out that he charged quite a bit for advertising the sale so I changed my mind about doing the onsite auction.  While I wasn’t expecting to get rich from the sale, I wanted to at least break even and I felt that I wouldn’t be able to do that with the types and amounts of items I had for this sale.

I started searching again and weighing the pros and cons of estate sale, auction, have the sale myself.  I finally decided to go with an auctioneer out of Deland, Il.  He charged a flat commision and would come pick the items up for an additional charge.  We were also trying to figure out how we were going to get the rest of the stuff we wanted to take to Florida down to Florida.  With the houses on the market, we were using the pavilion as a holding area for the items going to the auction and the items for Florida.  I had the pavilion marked off so one side was auction and one side was Florida with a row of boxes that needed to go to the charity resale shop.

In the midst of all the packing, sorting, renovations, cleaning and decision making, I was also in the process of selling the pizzeria to my manager.   We finally got the deal done at the end of July 2019.  She let me leave some of the items in the back area and the upstairs.  I had Two Men and a Truck come again to help move some big pieces of furniture out of the pizzeria.

The auctioneer from Deland mentioned that he could actually move the rest of the things to Florida for us.  We decided that would be an ideal situation.  We agreed on a price and a date.  I spent part of August and September in at the pizzeria trying to get things somewhat cleared out.  I managed to make two large piles of primitive items that would go to the auction in Deland.

We moved to Florida on September 24, 2019.  The auctioneer/mover got there on the 26th. When Jim, the auctioneer got back to Illinois, he picked up the items at the farm and at the pizzeria that were going to be auction off.  I believe we ended up being part of three different auctions that he held in the late summer/early fall.   I knew that I would need to go back to Illinois at some point because I still had a lot of things in the pizzeria building, one storage unit in town and several outbuildings to still go thru.

We spent the next several weeks trying to get things unpacked and organized at the Florida house.  We had a couple of weekend trips in October including flying to Indianapolis for a family friend’s daughter’s wedding.  Then we left on a 5-week trip of a lifetime.  It was our reward for surviving the downsizing process and to celebrate our 26th anniversary.

We spent Thanksgiving Day 2019 in Dubai, UAE.  To me, Dubai was like Las Vegas and New York City had a baby.  There were lights, modern buildings, high end retail stores, and expensive cars everywhere.  It was a bit overwhelming!  It is a long flight back from Dubai.  I believe we were traveling for 26 hours. By the time we got home, we were exhausted.  I ended up getting sick with a bad upper respiratory infection.  We think it might have been Covid – 19 but that was way before they were even talking about it.

We celebrated our first Christmas in Florida December 2019.  Having just recently visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Christmas had an even greater meaning for us.  It was an amazing experience.  Unfortunately, it was so crowded we couldn’t really see where Jesus had been buried.

For New Year’s Eve, we went to Fisherman’s Wharf and ate overlooking the water.  It was a bit chilly but still much warmer than celebrating in Illinois would have been!

 

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Part 2

Part 3