Selling Everything We Own!

What a grand idea; owning nothing. So let's get on with it. Sell the house and it's contents. Sell the cars. Sell the motorcycles. Sell. Sell. Sell.

Two things I found out very quickly is that nothing happens quickly and that my man changes his mind as much as a woman.

Getting Ron to put the house, cars and motorcycles up for sale just wasn't happening. I picked up vibes from Ron that he needed an address, a place to lay his head until we leave and when we finish the ride. My sister, Claudia, has property in Silver Lake, by Mt. St. Helens not Seattle. My brother, Cal, had a fifth wheel on Claudia's property for sale, we bought it, left it where it stood and made arrangements with the two of them to keep an eye on it. We now have an address and a place to lay our head.

While getting ready for our sale, I soon learned that any self respecting human being never gets rid of tools...Ron worked in the past as a mill wright and has a 2000 pounds of tool box and tools. They must be stored! New dilemma...storage costs money...So we bought a ship container and put it at Silver Lake with the fifth wheel. Sounds easy enough...Not so. There was ground preparation, fill dirt and rock brought in and cat work. Thanks to a cousin Gary Gardner who sold and delivered fill and rock on a Sunday, my daughter's half brother Shannon Kretz who sold us used railroad ties, and my brother Cal who did the cat work we were ready for the container delivery the next day.

In case you don't know a container is 8ft x 40ft And 8ft tall. After the tool box is in place Ron says there'll be plenty of room to store stuff we will need when our trip is over. Like two motorcycles, our motorcycle trailer and a car.

We arranged an estate sale with Ray George of professional Estate Services in Richland (509) 948-3906. For 25% he brings in display tables, prices, advertises, handles the sale, and sends what doesn't sell to a local charity.
He required that we put everything we didn't want sold out of the house or secured in a separate room and because of the extra room in the container, what we decided to keep is now quite abit more and requires a U-Haul.

The sale was successful. The new owner bought some of our furniture and left it in the house so camping out in an empty house until the house closes isn't to bad.

Selling the house has been it's own experience. We tried For Sale By Owner and you would be surprised at how early or late people will come to view a house. We decided we needed some control over the viewing time and listed the house with Laura Harris- Hodges of Adams Realty. Listing a house puts a key outside and then you have people coming in without knocking. I have shown our house when it was as cluttered with newspapers, dirty kitchen, bed unmade, laundry on the floor. We were caught lounging in the living room in pjs and robes, coming out of the bathroom and in the back yard. I am sure my mother turned over in her grave a couple of times.

But the house is sold and the sale is over...Now let's see, what's left to do before we can leave. Move the keepers to Silver Lake, stop all the utilities, close on the house, finish packing for the trip...piece of cake!