Still here …

~ Liz A

Our house is no longer a home. Staged for selling, family photos removed, extraneous artwork banished, all signs of (real) human habitation hidden from sight …

Including stitch, which has been tucked away. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore. But since I can’t bear the thought of getting out everything needed to finish the edges (and having to put it all away each time we have a showing), I’m just shadowing motifs on P’s coverlet …

Thanks Jude …

21 thoughts on “Still here …”

  2. The suspense and break from routines must be hard. I’m glad you found a way to keep some cloth work going. It might help steady you through a major and disruptive transition.

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    1. Dee … we also have had some fun along the way … going to the rom-com “Yesterday” (a movie about a world without the Beatles) … and a trip to a local handmade ice cream parlor …

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  3. (((Liz))) one of my best xmas cards was made in the middle of our last move, the old place was up for auction so we had people coming through as well as packing, my eclectic art collection certainly didn’t help the owner with the auction, it didn’t get any bids over the owner’s reserve so he rented it out again at $100 a week more than we had been paying and sold a couple of years later.

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    1. Mo … ugh, we haven’t gotten to the packing stage yet … and how wonderful that your last move resulted not only in a great Xmas card, but the finding of your current abode

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  4. A tale of selling a house with the preamble that one realtors advice is not universally accepted !

    When we got ready to sell our home in CA in 2002, we interviewed three agents. The first was adamant about getting rid of personal photos, items, and wrung her hands at my rock and bird nests displayed on the living room coffee table. She didn’t get the listing.

    Second agent not so fixated on staging but felt we needed to fix our fencing and redo our landscaping. No listing there either.

    Third agent, a wife/husband duo loved our photos, loved our rocks, birds nests and even suggested that we make a photo album highlighting our gorgeous backyard, showing family and friends gathered around the pool, the table. In other words, showing how a family lived in this house. They got the listing and I decided to go ahead and create an album of good times.

    Our home was built in the 1950’s, 3 bedroom 2 ba on 1/2 acre. We lived in it for 18 years so the back yard was ringed with 18 very tall beautiful Monterrey pines, one for each Christmas spent in the home, as I loved live trees. The house had an old fashioned kidney shaped pool with a slide and we created two gardens, one for veggies, one for flowers. Two date palms anchored the paved way to the pool.The front yard had eucclauyputs trees (fire hazard but they came with the house. We took out rose bushes because I’m not a rose kind of gal and planted large rosemary in between some large river rocks, we also planted a photinia hedge near the street, a juniper tam hedge on one side and along the three wooden pillars that marked the entryway, hopseed bushes. (Hopseed bushes are wonderful, they are green and turn purple in autumn plus their seedpods are wonderful to use as decorations.)

    Well it came time for the first open house and I dreaded having to keep the house spotless while continuing to live in it and having to leave every time someone can to see it. In 2002, the real estate market was really heating up so there was a lot of interest from buyers. Anyway, off we went to the movies on that day, returning 3 hrs later to find our real estate agents smiling and telling us that the house had sold on the first day! A young family just loved seeing the photos of all of the good times that we had in our backyard…Now you would think that this is a story with a happy ending…but it was not to be. The young couple lived in the house for six months, got divorced and the house was then bought by a couple who completely tore it down and built a two story McMansion monstrosity….

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  6. My condolences for the displaced, neither here nor there of real estate marketing. May the subsequent steps of your move go smoothly.

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  8. It looks lovely but I know what you mean about the not really a home feeling. Have you started looking for your next nest? We leave Thurs morning for most of 3 weeks. Good luck with showings & stitching when you can.

    Connie

    Sent from my iPad

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  9. Liz~ I think it still looks warm and welcoming! If you don’t know what was there, you don’t know what to miss, right? The choices on the walls and the cozy furniture & rugs gives the impression of a place to gather and relax. Good things I think!
    My only time living in a house on the market was when my children were teens, I was a single parent and the house belonged to my parents (I’ve only been a renter)…so there was no messing up there,a s they needed to sell the house they bought with the intention of my EX and I buying from them (obviously that never worked out!). Imagine keeping teens towing the line during a listing!
    I ended up moving out before it was sold as I had found the little duplex (that I just moved out of) and my parents said to grab it. Once we were out, they painted and put in new carpet throughout and fixed up the rotten old blinds too! ha We lived in the rugged version, not the pretty clean one! Same thing going on with the duplex right now!
    (((sigh))) LIFE

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    1. I can relate … we’re looking at getting some fogged windows fixed (the seals have been broken for a while) … wondering why we didn’t do it sooner so we could enjoy a better view

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