RV Switch Move Jul 2015:
It seems obvious that we would need to move stuff from the original RV into the new one, it was NOT as obvious what additional moves would need to happen to inch our way toward our dream. Who thought this was a good idea?
Fastest Move Dec 2015:
We weren’t counting on having our basement flood 6 months after getting the updated RV and 6 months before putting the house on the market! Least favorite move of all was to quickly grab soaking-wet treasures and furniture from the flooding basement to stow in the garage as the water continued to advance and soak into the remaining items. The water even floated my oh-so-clever plastic protective boxes and threatened the contents with silty, muddy water. The remediators came to cut out the wallboard to prevent mold and there was a slight oops! My original framed watercolors and other artwork were still on the walls and had to be moved to the protection of the living room. At least there were a few extra hands that day to help move them, but hourly workers were not as interested in art curating so I was doing most of the work! Hey – the universe was just helping us downsize a little early! IT WORKED!
Basement Staging Feb 2016:
Since the flooding was so widespread in the area, it took 3 months to get the basement put back. The remediators strung out the jobs trying to give everyone some progress but it was painfully slow! Items were cleaned up and moved from the garage into a spare bedroom. Planning to sell the house meant putting a few items back into the basement for staging purposes.
Purging Moves Feb – Mar 2016:
Moving items back to the Garage for sale prep and moving again for thrift store donations, and to deliver to relatives or consignment shops.
Apartment & Storage Moves Jun 2016:
When the big house sold in June 2016, we moved into an apartment for the last few months of work life. We were not quite prepared for the ridiculous amount of stuff we had accumulated and thought we were really organized. Ha! that is a laugh! Vacating the house meant stuffing whatever we wanted to keep into a small garage and closets at the apartment.
Storage Move Sept 2016:
Just before sabbatical in Sept, we took storage items to our house near Phoenix where our daughter was living. Not wanting to make two separate trips with a moving truck, we took everything that we knew we wanted to keep that was not going into the RV. That meant not much left in the apartment! We used folding chairs and a cooler in the living room and only kept items there that were either going to donation or going to the RV. That was a SAD time. We do like our stuff and we like to be comfortable in our home — that last month and 1/2 after sabbatical was like waiting for a bus. Uncomfortable and knowing that it was going to be a while.
Switch keeper items to RV Sept/Oct 2016:
We wanted our new home to have our favorite kitchen and linen items so we moved everything out of the RV to review and exchange and put all the keeper items back into the RV. Those were some interesting days, we couldn’t fit the RV into the parking lot at the apartment so we made too many trips to the storage place to set things up. We kept too much stuff so every cupboard in the RVwas a jenga puzzle, everything layered on top of everything else. Putting anything away required skill and find anything required opening at least three cupboards.
Temporary Housing Moves and more Jan thru Jun 2017
Throw in a few additional moves from temporary housing and moving Ian from hospital to hospital and then from apartment to storage and back to his permanent housing, that’s a lot of packing!
Would I do it again? Yes, but I would start purging much earlier and eliminate the flood (haha)! No matter what, it’s complicated to plan the stages without giving up!
