Back in the USA

by Rosemary

While we were gone, Southern California experienced a very rainy winter, ending over seven years of drought. When we arrived in Los Angeles in January 2019, the surrounding hills were so green, I was reminded of Ireland. Unfortunately, my photos from L.A. were accidentally deleted.

We had sold our car in May 2018, just before heading to Europe, where public transportation served all our needs. Back in the US, we needed a car, so after a series of rentals, we bought a RAV4 hybrid. We lived in an extended-stay hotel while taking care of various business and financial matters.

Eventually, we packed our suitcases and drove north. In southwestern Washington, we moved into another extended-stay hotel and went house-hunting. It took our realtor only about three days to find a house that matched our wish list. We wanted property where we could plant a vegetable garden and some fruit trees. Our sellers already had a great garden and several trees. They were kind enough to show us around and share some of their harvest with us. After a 30-day escrow, we took possession of the house, but we weren't quite ready to move in. We began planning renovations and ordering furniture. Steve started doing yard work, enjoying the riding mower that came with the house.

It's a beautiful neighborhood.

This county is notorious for its extremely slow permit process, and, of course, renovations always take longer than expected. Contractors here are extraordinarily busy; we weren't able to get estimates for our project until mid-August. Work began, slowly. Summer passed, and then Fall. During this time, we did some sightseeing in the area, and enjoyed a few visits from friends and relatives. We got new driver's licences and registered to vote. We met some of our new neighbors. The building permits finally came through, and work was completed. The pod containing the possessions we had kept when we sold our old house was delivered. Our good friend Carlton came up from Los Angeles to give us a hand. He and Steve unloaded the pod, moved boxes into the house, and assembled our new bookcases and desks.

Finally, on November 10, we spent our first night in our new home.

One Step Closer

by Rosemary

With escrow about to close, we went back to our old house to enjoy the view one last time. We had dinner on the patio and shared a bottle of champagne at sunset.

We snapped our final photos, took one last look around, and said goodbye.

That was Monday night. Early Wednesday afternoon, the house officially passed from us to the new owners.

Thursday morning I felt as though we ought to be doing something - checking on the pool, perhaps. Then I remembered that it's not our responsibility any more; someone else is taking care of things now. We can relax.

With just a few little things left to do in town, we're eager to be on our way. Every day brings us one step closer.
 

Ready for a New Chapter

By Steve W

With our house in escrow, we have still had some work to do to complete the sale. The home inspector found a few items, with only some minor electrical work to be done. Unfortunately, the termite inspection showed evidence of the little buggers and we had to have the house tented for fumigation. One of our neighbors took the picture below and said, "Somebody turned your house into a circus tent."

When the tent was removed, we were amazed at how the subcontracted termite people had left the property. A floodlight was broken, a piece of carpet used to protect the roof was not removed, parts of our garden had been disrupted, a brick had been knocked loose from the stairway, and a door leading to a storage area (that we never locked) was locked with a piece of metal inserted, jamming the lock.

Our termite inspector fixed a few things and took a bit off the bill, but this was an annoyance we didn't need just days before closing escrow next week.

That said, we are almost at the end of this chapter of our lives and more than ready to begin the next. Given that we are taking only one suitcase each, we are tweaking our wardrobe to accommodate our travels and the different weather situations we might face across the US.

While we still have a few appointments in LA, as soon as they are done, we will begin our journey and post regular updates. We are excited, and appreciate the feedback and support from our friends.

Watch this space!
 

Sale Pending!

By Steve W

At the end of the last post, our estate sale was still going on. Late on Sunday afternoon, April 2, we went back to the house to see what was sold and what was left. As we expected, some last minute shoppers came by to try to get a bargain on the items still remaining. Since our philosophy was that anything not sold would be donated, given away or thrown out, some lucky buyers got some great deals.

At one point, two young women came by to view the sale but also asked if the house was going to be sold. When told it was, they asked to look inside the house and we agreed, giving them a brief tour. They then left and the estate sale was over.

Over the next couple of days, we went through what was not sold and made some decisions about what we thought could be donated or what would go into a dumpster. Once we began to see vacant walls that we had not seen since we moved in 17 years ago, we decided that it would be more attractive to buyers if the house was painted. Painting was to start on Monday, April 10 and would take seven to eight days. Since our original date to list the house was supposed to be April 17th, we called our agent to let him know about the painting and moved the listing date to April 24.

So on April 10, the painting started. However, that afternoon we received a call from our agent that a potential buyer wanted to see the house that night, even though it had not yet been listed. We agreed and met our agent and the potential buyers at the house at 7 PM that night. As it turned out, the potential buyers were the people to whom we had given the tour at the estate sale. Our agent showed them around the property and we were there to answer any questions they had. After the viewing, they were still talking to our agent as we drove away.

To our great surprise, we had an email the next morning with an offer at full purchase price! We had suspected that our house would attract buyers quickly once listed but this was unexpected. Even though we thought that there might be a bidding war to drive up the price, we also took into account that, if we accepted their offer, escrow could close by the end of May. This meant that we would not have to find another place to live after our Airbnb ended May 31, not pay rent for another apartment or hotel, and not make another mortgage payment for June. In addition, the buyers had signed an agreement that our agent would also represent them, which would save us a full point on his commission.

Given all of these savings, we decided to accept the offer so that we could avoid uncertainty, save time, and not have to incur extra costs.

So as this is written, we are in escrow to close by the end of May. The sale is still contingent on their home inspection, and they will probably find minor things that need fixing. But once this contingency is lifted and a termite inspection and any repairs are completed, we expect the deal to go through.

Once the payment hits our bank account, the journey officially begins!

Stuff, And What To Do With It

By Steve W

We saw these playful foxes on a trip to San Juan Island, Washington in 2008.
We plan to see much more of America on our upcoming trip.

Once we decided to sell everything, including our house, in order to travel, we had to decide how to do it. We knew that there were certain things we wanted to keep, but after over 30 years of marriage and 17 years in this house, we had accumulated a lot of stuff. Aside from furnishing a 2,500 square foot house, we had a large yard where we entertained, with patio furniture, a gas barbeque, bars for serving, and lots of decorative items, like metal, ceramic and cement animal figures.

If were just moving from Point A to Point B, and had bought a house already, we would know what items would fit into the new house and yard and what kind of décor we would have. Anything we were unsure about, we could just take with us and deal with later.

But since our plan is to travel for a while before relocating and buying a new house, we needed to examine every item we owned to see if it passed the "stay or go" test. Some things were easy: for furniture, we knew that we would be keeping our Sleep Number bed and a couple of bronze coffee tables. There were guitars, some clothes, many books, and lots of artwork that we also knew we were keeping. After that, our rule was that anything either of us really wanted, we would keep. Everything else was optional.

As we were storing our items in a POD, everything we wanted to keep had to fit into it, so space was limited. So we set about parsing our other possessions, clothes, kitchen items and furniture. We were amazed at how much stuff we had, as it was all neatly stored away and out of sight in cabinets and cupboards or mostly out of the way in the backyard.

Packing took several weeks and finally everything we wanted went into the POD. Realizing that we still had some room, some additional "optional" items also were stored, and a few days later, the POD was picked up for storage.

Then came the planning for the "estate sale". For lawyers, an estate is what is left behind when someone dies, but the term is now used for large garage sales that include higher quality items. We contacted a company that organizes and handles these events, who came in and sorted all our possessions and priced them. Although we knew that these items would be sold relatively cheaply, psychologically it was a bit disconcerting to see the prices on things when we knew what we paid for them.

But since the goal was to get rid of as much as possible, we had to let go of those feelings and let the professionals do their thing. After all, anything not sold, we had to get rid of either by donating or putting into a dumpster. As of this writing, the estate sale is still going on, so we don’t know how successful it was, either financially or in terms of what is left for us to deal with.

But this is just one more step in the process of getting the house ready to sell so that we can start traveling right after escrow closes. Stay tuned!

 

The Long Vacation

By Rosemary

Here we are in 2001, about to enter Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

We love to travel. We've managed to visit some interesting locations, but those yearly two-week vacations are never enough.

Last year, we decided the time had come to retire, sell the house, and move to a new place. But instead of just going from this house to the next, we are taking a long vacation in between.

With no work schedule, no concerns about caring for a house and yard, and no reason to be in any particular place at any particular time, we can go where we want, when we want. Steve says we'll be homeless in the best possible way.

The process has begun. We have put a few things we want to keep into storage. We're about to have an "estate sale" to divest ourselves of all the furniture, housewares, clothes, and random stuff that we don't need any more. As soon as our house is sold, we will be on the road.

Watch this space.