Adventures with EliJoin Eli (along with Susan & Dave) on his adventures and travels!

We did it!

We are completely and totally(*) out of the house, and just in time – the first wave of our tenants arrived today, mere moments after we got the truck loaded with the last of our boxes & bags!  Tenant Dad and son (and dogs!) arrived in Middleton after driving practically non-stop from California, and were ready to rest!  Sounds like Tenant Mom and the other siblings will be flying in mid-week, and the truck with the stuff should show up in a few days, as well.

(*) Ok, we still have to pick up our bikes. But other than that, we’re totally out!

Preparing the house for rental was much more work than I anticipated, but I think we did a good job – we had it cleaned, we had the carpets shampooed, I installed brand new smoke alarms / carbon monoxide detectors / fire extinguishers. We put a door on the basement room to make it an official legal bedroom. We patched & painted the nail & screw holes in the walls.  And I finally finished a few minor items that had been on my to-do list since the day we moved in.

It’s interesting — all of those things on my to-do list that were never enough of a priority to actually get done, until the days before we’re moving out!

Unfortunately, I don’t feel quite as relieved as I hoped – the reality is, in our mad dash to get things out of the house we ultimately just shifted some of the work to the camper. Don’t get me wrong – we got rid of a LOT of stuff in a couple of trips to donation centers (like St. Vincent de Paul’s and Goodwill) and a big trip to the landfill (Susan’s first dump experience!).  And we took advantage of some very generous friends who offered us some some storage space to store some of the items we really wanted to keep that just didn’t make sense in the camper.

But we also just moved a lot over to the camper, and now we’ve got the next few days to get it all organized.  To find a home for everything and to get rid of stuff that we decide we don’t need after all.

And to “finish” the projects I’ve started in this home, before we get too far down the road. Wish me luck 🙂