We began moving in to our renovated house after a year in early Feb. I’m really organized with concepts but am hopeless with physical objects. I can’t really pack and can’t organize things. We now have an enormous kitchen and neither ShawWife nor I can figure out where to put stuff.
@tkoparent, we are so happy moving in. @silpat, we did go to several stores that have designers to try to figure out living room furniture and the person most helpful was actually a person who does rugs. She made a rug from one of ShawWife’s paintings in exchange for the right to use the design for other customers. It is the centerpiece of the living room and we ended up buying an entire set of furniture for that room. (We ordered on black Friday and it was delivered on Feb 17). It is lovely. We start every morning drinking coffee in the LR and then having breakfast on a little table there while looking at the river.
My office has windows on three sides overlooking a horse farm, a view down the river and another view to our yard on the river/the river itself/ and the neighborhood ducks who ask us for breakfast every day. My assistant helped me with the first cut at organizing the stuff in my office. I’m happy whenever I come up here – it is the only room that we currently use that is not on the ground floor.
ShawWife is going to hire a friend of our daughter’s to help us figure out where to put stuff in the kitchen and probably elsewhere. The room we are designating as the gym still is full of stuff that needs to be placed in the house. And, we have a storage unit we will empty as soon as the weather gets nicer.
ShawWife created two floor-to-ceiling plaster pieces to cover pipes on either side of the fireplace that we uncovered as walls were stripped way. And, she is making a chandelier from fiber optics and some kind of very lightweight clay and that relates to one of the plaster pieces. The architect is probably going to see if she can get an article written about the collaboration between the architect and the artist (the architect also did a great job on converting an external garage into ShawWife’s studio). Probably a great photoshoot after we hang some of ShawWife’s work.
I’m with @ChoatieMom on never saying never. We have designed this as our forever house – just roll us in the river when we expire. But, it is not inexpensive to run and it is not in a walk-to-town area – we can’t see any neighbors except for the wildlife. So, I’m planning on having autonomous vehicles or using Lyft/Uber when we can no longer drive. If it becomes hard to live here, we might have to move, though the place is well-designed for aging in place.
Our architect is single and having total knee replacement surgery. She is single and has a multi-story urban house. Not conducive to recovery from TKR surgery. So, she will stay with us post-surgery as we have a ground floor room (actually two) other than our MBR that could be bedrooms. We will need to move a bed down there. [ShawWife is an extremely generous person/friend].
Congratulations on moving into your completed home.
I had to laugh when you talked about organizing your kitchen. I was a personal chef at one point in time and have cooked in at least 20 different home kitchens. When we redid our kitchen I thought I knew EXACTLY how I wanted it set up. Now, 12 years later, I just reorganized a good chunk of it. Never say never is right and there is no such thing as perfect when it comes to kitchens.
Your post was just what I needed to read today. We have been living in a nearly empty apartment for a week now, and it is very pleasant to think about where we will put our stuff when we see it again several months from now. (We’re told to expect two and a half months.) We’ve done this before, “camping out” while our things are enroute, but I realize we always did it in the new location. Doing it on this end is really strange - I keep reaching for phantom plates in phantom cabinets. The dog is very happy, though, lots of room to play ball.
This thread has made me mentally revisit my moving journey from last year and I suspect it was the subconscious cause for the moving nightmare I had just before 5 am this morning As I woke up I realized my dream was about revisiting the home I had sold for last sweep of possessions and finding lots of stuff left to be moved or otherwise disposed of. The kind of dream that fits right in with what I call post-move trauma! For the most part, the settling into the new home phase has been delightful as my condo was move-in ready so that I have only made small, relatively easy changes.
We moved into our current [slightly downsized] house ten years ago and immediately renovated the 1963 kitchen. I recently realized I didn’t need to keep the salad bowl that serves 20, or my grandmother’s crystal glasses, or the spare set of slipcovers for the family room couch actually in the kitchen itself. Luckily I have a nice big basement, so all that stuff went there. IMO, organization is good, but reorganization years later is better.
When my parents asked me to design their retirement house, at first they thought they needed the formal dining room, but then they realized they actually didn’t want one at all. We created space in the kitchen that could seat about eight at a table with a great view, and when they had parties they set up tables in their enormous living room.
This sounds like the conversations H and I have had. He’s annoyed that we still don’t have the cars from The Jetsons. We hope that other transportations options will eventually be available so we can stay here at least until the grandchildren complete high school.
I’m impressed that your rug designer chose a ShawWife painting for a new rug design. That will always be a family treasure.
We’re here because of our grandchildren, but I have to remind myself of that when finding suitable furnishings is frustrating. There’s no formal living room - it became our den/computer room. It’s very different from our former home and that’s mostly good, particularly when it’s time to vacuum or mop; then I’m very glad we downsized.
Oh my, you dreamed our current reality! Our apartment is now empty except for some furniture and appliances we need to get rid of and bags and boxes of clothing and other things we hope to give away. And, out on the terrace, many plants we’ve had for years and years. It is providing surprisingly hard to find anyone who will help us dispose of the leftover furniture and appliances for anything like a reasonable price - yesterday one disposal outfit quoted more than $10,000! It’s weird to realize we actually could have shipped all of this stuff to France for less money given there was still some space in the container. We thought, for example, about bringing our king-size bed with us but decided against it both because it is old and because it would be a nonstandard size in France. I thought it would be stupid to continue importing sheets from the US, but now, I have to wonder. And then there’s the Salvation Army, who aren’t picking up their phone these days. Maybe in the end we’ll do a stealth run and just drop everything off in front of their Tokyo headquarters. But the plants are my biggest concern. We have a ten-foot ficus in the dining room and, out on the terrace, rose bushes, plum trees and orchids (both currently blooming), azaleas, wisteria, blueberry and blackberry bushes and so on. Throwing them away would be painful - and wasteful - but we haven’t found a solution. Last year, I wrote about our Christmas tree, which was almost part of the family. Somehow, it sensed what was coming and gracefully died last fall. So at least we don’t have to deal with that.
@tkoparent - I was able to rehome my plants via my local Buy Nothing group. I also asked a few friends and my neighbor ended up taking a few and another friend now has my beloved lemon tree (it’s thriving!).
Sending good wishes @tkoparent. I was in a similar position after my garage sale last summer when I wanted to donate a china cabinet to a local charity that would pick up furniture only to find out next available pick-up date was 3 weeks after my move date. Finally lucked out by donating piece to a local church that provides furniture to those in need. Not sure who needed a mahogany corner china cabinet, but they took it and were most professional in getting it out to their truck gently and intact. I had kept pretty good records of what I was donating for tax purposes until the last few weeks, but at that point I started loading the car for trips to the Salvation Army with not a care as to a tax deduction. Just wanted things to be gone. I have only wished for 2 or 3 things that I parted with and none to a degree of thinking about them more than in passing.
I hope you are successful in getting rid of things in your final push towards your big move and that you and your H are very happy in France! Your summer should be delightful
We are trying very hard now to actually empty the huge storage area in the basement. We have plenty of things there that we will never use…and our kids don’t want. So…we are donating a LOT. Nice to have space on the shelves for the things we actually do use.
My next house will not have a basement. It just becomes a place to store things never used. Don’t need or want that. But I know that sometimes things have to go there. The Orrefors crystal we got as a wedding gift is boxed up in this storage area. I’d get rid of it today, but DH says…no.
Well, the stuff I mentioned is stuff we use, but very infrequently. Regardless, yeah, there’s a lot of crap in my basement. And guess what – it’s not mine; it belongs to that person I live with.
Are you allowed to use it at a party? There might be some clutzy friends in the bunch.
Apologies if I’ve told this story before. Some college friends gave us a nice set of six gold rimmed wine glasses for our wedding. We hardly used them, usually opting for our cheap wineglasses. A few years ago the husband, who had been one of my husband’s closest friends in college, died unexpectedly. We decided to start using those wineglasses more and pull them out almost every time we have guests over. If the gold wear off, so be it.
Curious if many folks are planning two homes for the downsized/pre-retirement/retirement era?
This damp, overcast winter (in the northeast) made me appreciate the option of a warm-weather locale (finally - hub has been campaigning for this for a while!). But I also love the mountains and my adult kids live in a gorgeous western state that I would love to live in at least part of the year.
Hub thinks it would be prohibitively expensive to have two places - but I’m definitely interested in exploring the possibility, rather than limiting ourselves at the outset!
Wondered if others have explored - and there were any pros/cons?
We have not really considered 2 homes, bc then you have upkeep and maintenance on 2 homes (unless you want to pay a property management company and rent one out I guess).
Also, we want more funds available to travel to different places. If we owned another home we would likely feel compelled to spend more time in each place and less traveling to other places.
I hate this stuff. The wine glasses are the size of cordial glasses now…and the water glasses are maybe the right size for wine…but why bother? I have plenty of nice wine glasses.
We had two homes for a few years because of my H’s job. We enjoyed it but there were definitely some headaches, costs, and pressures to go there over other places. Overall, I agree with 1214mom that I would rather keep those funds to travel but, there is a possibility that my D could land full time in CO at some point after her ELDP rotations are done. We’re avid skiers and we could see getting a ski house…especially if there are grand babies even in the picture.
That said, my parents were snowbirds for nearly 20 years and loved it. I don’t like the heat so that wouldn’t be my thing, but skiing/mountains…that’s a different story ; )
I think a lot of people would have this arrangement.
I’ve been looking at real estate in warm weather places lately and the prices are high! I would have to have a lot of disposable income to afford two expensive homes.
Florida is getting expensive! Home prices, insurance costs, have gone up by quite a bit.
My mom sold her small house to someone who is using it as a second home. $350,000 for a 1400 square foot home in Tennessee. Since Florida is getting so expensive, I think people are looking at Tennessee as another no state income tax state. Small houses, in golf course communities. Not quite doubled but about 40% more
My “second home” will be renting someplace nice an warm for a few weeks…and different warm places. We have friends who have done this instead of buying one second home. They have been to Sedona, Savannah, New Zealand, Australia, San Diego, San Antonio, Sanabel, Key West…you get the point. They go back to some places because they like them…but they aren’t tied down to one snowbird location.
As I woke up I realized my dream was about revisiting the home I had sold for last sweep of possessions and finding lots of stuff left to be moved or otherwise disposed of. The kind of dream that fits right in with what I call post-move trauma! For the most part, the settling into the new home phase has been delightful as my condo was move-in ready so that I have only made small, relatively easy changes.
