A very overdue update (including our new departure date)
It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve written here. That’s mostly because we’ve been so incredibly busy and there has been so much happening so fast. But it’s also because there are more emotions than I know what to do with swirling around my head and if I come here I might actually have to confront them. The great thing about being so busy is that I don’t have time to think about anything.
But I really do want to share (and process) all of this journey that we’re on. So while some of the emotions going on right now might have to wait, I do want to at least share all of the updates happening.
But first, the biggie. Those who we’ve seen in person probably know this already, but we’ve changed our timeline. When we originally planned our move we said we would leave in February. We had a friend’s wedding scheduled for October, Thanksgiving with my family in November, my Dad’s birthday in December, Christmas with Chris’ family in Colorado, and my grandmother’s 100th birthday in January. We also planned a “farewell tour” to see our friends and extended family this fall/winter, and to enjoy all the things we like about Durham this summer. The timeline made sense at the time.
But that was pre-Covid. When the pandemic first hit, we reluctantly acknowledged that it might push us back, and it might be summer of 2021, or even later, before we could get on the plane. Never did we consider that the pandemic might make our timeline move the other way.
By late June, pretty much everything we had been staying for had either drastically changed or been cancelled outright. Additionally, everything that we love about living here, mainly seeing our friends and family, had been taken away. So we said “Screw it. We’re leaving now.”
Here’s our new timeline:
August 3rd - listing our house for sale (yes, that’s less than 1 week away)
Once we go under contract on the house and have a closing date, I will give my notice at work and wrap up what I can.
When we close and officially leave this house, we’ll move to my parent’s house in Winston-Salem for a week or 2 to wrap up everything before we leave NC.
When we’re done with everything here, we’ll leave North Carolina and drive to Colorado, see Chris’ parents and my sister and brother-in-law and stay there for a week or so. We’ll leave our car in Denver and rent a car to continue our drive. We’ll also have to take the dogs to the vet in CO because they have to see a vet within 10 days of arriving in Hawaii.
We’ll drive to Los Angeles. We’ll put the dogs on a cargo flight to Hawaii and we’ll follow them the next day.
We expect (and hope!) to be in Hawaii by late September.
Our families actually took the news of our early departure better than we expected. My Dad said, “well that makes sense” and my Mom was good with it once I told her that we will be staying with them for a week before we head to Colorado. Chris’ parents also understood, having already figured that we wouldn’t be getting together for Christmas. The person I was most worried about, my brother, also took it in stride (after I promised to come spend several days with my nieces before we leave). So that was a big relief.
Of course, telling everyone made things much more real. Luckily, again, we’ve been too busy to process this. On to the updates about the house.
We’re on week 4 of painting. The exterior has been painted and is (almost) done. After being unable to make a decision about the paint color for almost a week, we finally made a decision (well, I made a decision, because Chris was like “it’s not going to be my house, I don’t care.” Cause that was super helpful) and the painters moved ahead. They’re now working on the inside and are almost done with the downstairs.
The painters removed all of our old, damaged, super ugly brown gutters and we had new ones installed.
The exterior upstairs kitchen door and the staircase down to the yard has all been removed and walled over. It finally looks like I think the house was supposed to look on the back. In our 11 years in this house, it’s my favorite update we’ve made. Just in time to leave. *sigh*
Chris and I ripped up the floor in the downstairs bathroom, found a huge leak, realized the only thing still supporting the toilet was the sewer pipe the toilet sits on because all of the subfloor and floor joists surrounding the toilet had rotted away, repaired the joists and added extra supports, replaced the subfloor, added a 2nd layer of subfloor, and laid the luxury vinyl tile. Chris did about 75% of it. It was quite the project and made us rethink that whole “buying a fixer-upper in Hawaii” plan we had.
After the huge project in the bathroom, we decided to hire out laying the new floor in the kitchen and it is the best money we have ever spent. It took 2 guys (who knew what they were doing) 17 hours of work to lay the floor in the pantry, kitchen, and refrigerator room. I’m guessing it would have taken us close to double that time.
TROSA came out yesterday and worked on our landscaping. Both the front and back yards look better than they have the whole time we’ve been here. They were amazing and we wish we had hired them to do our yard maintenance the whole time we’ve lived here. Also money very well spent. If you live in Durham, you should hire them.
The 3 new windows that we bought should be installed tomorrow (crossing every finger and toe), and hopefully won’t mess up any of the exterior paint. *Update: the windows didn’t arrive to the warehouse so they won’t be installed tomorrow. Maybe Thursday??
We emptied out our shed and between all of that, the debris from removing the exterior stairs and landing, the tile from the bathroom, and all of the trash we have carted out of the house, it took the Junk Kings 2 truckloads to haul it all away. Those guys do not get paid enough.
And now we’re in the final push. We are exhausted, both mentally and physically, and ready for this part to be over.
I have so much to share, and have many posts planned, but time is simply something we don’t have right now. Luckily I took off work this week so I’m able to work on the house. And we have reinforcements coming soon. My sister Lillie, who is a professional photographer, gets in on Thursday, Mom comes Friday and Dad comes Saturday. Our original plan was to have everything done by Friday so Lillie could shoot the house so we could get the pictures to the realtor by Saturday, but that isn’t going to happen.
I saw a survey recently that said selling a house is the most stressful event that a person can go through. It ranked higher than buying a house, having a child, or getting married. Not sure I completely agree (I did have to take the Bar exam, after all), but I understand the sentiment.
There’s lots more coming (including all the photos of all the work we’ve been doing to the house), so stick with us. Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy in these bizarre and scary times.