Category Archives: Moving

Moving in a blizzard…

I could take a picture, but it’s dark outside an I’m too lazy. And too tired.

Of all weekends for a blizzard to hit western Minnesota, it had to be the weekend we were moving. My brother drove up here yesterday in a 24′ U-haul Truck, and the original plan was that he would spend the night, so we could take our time loading up the truck. But we kept an eye on the weather… and some how we (well, mostly my brother and Chris) filled the U-haul in 4 hours, and sent him on his way!

Chris left an hour later with the dogs and a cats… and left behind a pretty big moving mess, and waaayyy more stuff than I could possibly fit in my truck.

If they hadn’t left last night, they would have been stuck here until Monday. The blizzard was rolling in right as Chris left, and it hasn’t let up at all. I shoveled a good 8″ deep path from the house to the garage, and spent the entire day cleaning and packing, unpacking, repacking my truck. Now I’m all alone in an empty house. I really hope that the storm lets up tonight because I need to be out of here by 10 tomorrow morning!

Developments

Click on the picture!

It’s about time I posted an update.

Pictured above is the house that I offered a huge chunk of change for yesterday. I don’t know what the owners think of my offer yet, but they have already purchased a new house so they are itching to move out.

Jumping ahead of the gun? Oh yeah. That’s right. I sold my house! Well, not QUITE sold yet – the pending sign isn’t officially up. But the inspection was last night, it went well, and things are moving along nicely so we close on December 15th.

Back to the house above:

It’s in Ramsey. It’s also the only house I’ve looked at that doesn’t need thousands of dollars of work up front. Just over an acre, with a marshy pond in the back.

I realize this probably means mosquitos. Aside from that, the worst thing we could find wrong with the house was that one of the bathroom sinks was dripping just a bit – the plumbing needs to be tightened up. It also has a circuit breaker that was put in by a company who went out of business after being sued for causing fires – we’re asking for that to be replaced before purchasing.

And, it has an AMAZING deck and patio. Absolutely beautiful inside and out. The down side is that it’s a bit farther out than we were hoping – but for the price, it’s really hard to pass up something like this.

I may be jumping the gun a bit by posting – I don’t know for sure yet if this is where we will end up living. But it’s pretty exciting!

… we’re still here.

Niko & Puck

Niko and Puck, just waking up.

Unfortunately, we haven’t had a house showing in two weeks now… this is getting a bit frustrating, and we’d like to move before this winter.

We’ve changed our criteria a bit. After looking at houses we can afford on 5 acres and seeing the shape they are in (one said “DO NOT ENTER FOR YOUR HEALTH. HAZARDOUS MOLD.”), we decided to look for slightly more expensive houses on one-acre lots in the Twin Cities Suburbs. Blaine, Coon Rapids, etc. There are a lot of nice places in Ramsey – so there’s a possibility.

But… I think we need to put off the house hunting until my house starts looking like it’s going to sell. Blech.

A house in Zimmerman

17.jpg

Last weekend I looked at a few more houses. Chris is taking a second look at this house today. It’s a modular home, on 5 acres of land about 6 miles out of Zimmerman. The house itself neds a lot of work – the people who owned it before were obviouslly in the process of updating it when they were foreclosed on. But the price is not bad, and we might just be able to put in hardware floors before moving in. Mostly, the work that needs to be done is cosmetic… paint, carpet stretching, trim, etc.

The proprety line actually goes back quite a bit farther than I am standing taking this picture. Here’s an aerial view:

zimmerman2.jpg

“Don’t Forget Us!”

Don’t Forget Us!

Niko and Kallie got wind that moving plans had started, and wanted to make sure they got packed as well. They’ve been pretty good packing helpers, really.

My house is on the market! Finally – a month later than I was hoping, but it’s listed. Here’s the online listing. It’s priced to sell – I may have been able to get more out of it, but then 10% of the houses in my town are for sale. We had one couple look at it yesterday, and they stayed for 1 1/2 hours. Someone else is coming tomorrow morning to look at it. Our Realtor is very optimistic that it will sell quickly – we’ll see.

It’s kind of nice having the house super-clean all the time. But it’s a pretty big production to get ready for a house showing: remove extra clutter, put the cats in a dog kennel in the garage, put all the cat and dog stuff in the garage… and take the dogs to the park.

I’m determined that we’ll get an offer on it this week. Chris is sure we’ll get multiple offers, which will drive the price up. Gee, that would be nice!

Home Staging

Dark paint?

Brown walls in the living room? What do you think?

I had a Home Stager come through our house on Saturday morning. I used to host her website, but she’s “unofficially” doing the staging now, so cancelled it. I like doing business with people who do business with me – so I gave her a call. And I’m really glad I did!

You look through Home Staging websites with before/after pictures and think, “Hey, I can do this myself.” And I thought I could too. But having someone else go through your home makes you realize things you never would have noticed – every-day things that you’re used to living with and wouldn’t think buyers would be turned off by… little things that make a huge difference. I had my list of things left to do, and the stager sent me a loooonnnnggg list of completely different things! And here, I thought she was just going to come tell me where to position the furniture.

For example – we painted the old 70/80s brown panels in the basement a few years ago. The stager said we should also paint the trim and metal support beams (there was an earthquake in Morris in the 50s, did you know that?) to match the walls. It was a tedious job – but it made a HUGE difference.

She suggested painting the living room REALLY DARK, which surprised me. I picked up the closest color sample at Ace Hardware, just to see. Here’s another picture:

brownwall2.jpg

… It is WAY DARKER in person than the photos seem. Actually, the color she suggested is a bit lighter, and less red. Here’s the paint card – she suggested Wheat Ridge, but the closest pre-mixed sample was Wicker:

card.jpg

So, I don’t know. We finished painting the kitchen today, with the color she suggested. I like the color. I think I will like the dark living room color, but I’m afraid of what potential buyers will think.

… we have a lot of work left. To make matters more difficult, I have a TON of food co-op work to do, and TON of website work. I told the co-op board that they need to find a replacement by July 1st… but that’s another whole saga.

Now, back to work!