Selling, Moving, & Buying
A Big Move Deserves A Tiny Painting
Something big happened last week: my parents sold the house I grew up in.
They’ve been planning to do this for a while, so it’s not a shock or anything. It’s also not as depressing as it could be since they’re selling it so they can move to Richmond (right now they’re about 2 hours away in Northern Virginia). My parents are both retired and have been planning to downsize for a while now. They picked Richmond for a bunch of reasons, including that four of their five grandchildren live here. So all in all, we’re really happy about the news.
But there’s still something major about the closing of this particular chapter, so allow me to be sentimental for a moment.
My parents moved into this house in 1979 (forgive the not-so-pretty winter pic above). It was a new construction home at the time, so they – along with my two older sisters – were its first (and up until now only) occupants. If you’re keeping track that’s two years before I arrived, meaning this is the house they brought me (and later my little sister) home to after we were born. So as you can imagine, a lot has happened in this house over the 32 years they have owned it. Including my mom taking annual pictures of us on the porch for first days of school and for our birthdays (note the homemade banner taped to the storm door behind me).
When we heard they accepted a buyer’s contract early last month, we took the first opportunity to gather there one last time for a family portrait. My sister Emily even made an homage to my mom’s birthday sign tradition for us to pose next to. Here’s the “original” six Petersiks (aka, the “Petersix”)…
…and now with our expanded family of spouses and children (can you tell that it was POURING rain during these shots – fortunately my bro-in-law the professional photographer knew how to handle it).
In addition to these pics, my sisters and I wanted to honor this big moment with a gift. After debating a few things, we decided to get them a drawing or painting of the house. They already own a pen and ink sketch of it, so (thanks to some suggestions from you guys on Twitter) we landed on getting a painting of their front door from artist Kal Barteski (she calls her series T+A - tiny and awesome). So I sent Kal this pic of the door…
And a couple of weeks (and $100 – split four ways among me and my siblings) later, this arrived. Tiny and awesome indeed.
It’s actually 5 x 7″, so it’s not that tiny. Kal paints them on thin onion skin parchment paper which is why it looks a bit wavy and textured. It threw me off a little at first, but when I read that she does it so your painting looks truly like original art – not a print or a replica – it won me over as quite charming.
The onion skin paper is also translucent so she invites people to mat her paintings on colored or patterned paper to customize them and add even more texture. We had fun trying a few colors & patterns underneath but ended up going the straightforward route and putting it on white card stock since we thought my parents would like it best that way.
We finally presented it to my parents this week and they LOVED it. Woo hoo!
Oh, and since some of you might be curious – my parents got very lucky when it came to selling their house. Before it was officially listed on March 1st, they had a preview showing at the end of February and that person put in an acceptable offer on the spot. Not bad right? Since it happened a bit faster than any of us expected (including them) they have around six weeks until they can officially move into their new house in Richmond. In the meantime they’ll be bouncing around between their Delaware beach house, my sister’s house in Northern Virginia, and my sister’s house here in Richmond. But we can’t wait for the day that they can officially call our city their home.
Psst- The babyproofing adventures continue over on BabyCenter where we’re sharing how we anchored a giant wall mirror in our bedroom (thankfully it wasn’t rocket science).
Did We Make A Profit Selling Our House?
Are you kidding? In this market? Of course not. We managed to sell it for around $5k more than we bought it for back in 2006 (in “the bubble”) and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we spent more than five grand on improvements (we estimate that we spent around $35K on new bathrooms, a new kitchen, new flooring, new windows, a new roof, a new patio, a paved driveway, and upgraded details like crown molding and wider doorways). This is where a “wop-wop” sound effect would come in handy.
But we’re sleeping like babies and are downright giddy about the sale of our house and the purchase of our new one. Why? We’re 100% convinced that the time was right and everything happened the way it was meant to. Are we crazy? Maybe. But here’s our thought process:
- Our monthly payment for the new house is $200 less than what we’ve been sending in for our old much smaller house thanks to historically low mortgage rates and a great deal on the new house (which we never could have afforded in a better market – our offer was well below the asking price and they went for it). More house in a better neighborhood for less money each month? Yes please.
- The unimproved houses in our old neighborhood (which look a lot like ours looked back when we purchased it) are selling for 30K, 40K, even 50K less than ours sold for. So not only were our projects fun and fun to enjoy while we lived there, they seemed to help our house retain its value and even improve upon it (even though we bought it when the market was amazing and we sold when the market was -uh, not).
- We got an offer within just a few days of being on MLS, so that’s a lot to be grateful for in this housing market.
Want more details? Sure. You know we like to talk…
We’re not house flippers, we’re house lovers (hence the blog name). We never moved into our old house intending to flip it or upgrade it for any other reason than to enjoy it and make it the perfect home for ourselves in the time that we spent there. And it was. So the fact that by doing those updates we were also able to keep the house from dropping a lot lower into a price range that actually may have made us cry ourselves to sleep at night really does feel like a blessing. And we can’t forget the inexpensive backyard wedding that we were able to host thanks to diverting our venue rental budget into a new paved driveway and cobblestone patio that were around long after our big day ended. Or the kitchen renovation that spawned a blog that spawned a business that now affords us the opportunity to both work at home with our spawn by our side (sorry for calling you “spawn” Clara- it’s a terribly un-ladylike word).
Plus, it’s easy for us to see the rewards that the new house holds. After all, we’re not just sellers in this buyers’ market – we’re buyers too. And boy is it a sweet time to buy. We’ve scored our new larger house in a nicer neighborhood at a serious discount (we paid over 40K less than it was valued five years ago). Plus since interest rates are awesomely low we’re potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars in interest over the term of the loan. And since we had some nice equity in our old house to roll over into the purchase of the new one (and thanks to that lower interest rate) that’s how we got to that lower monthly mortgage payment that we mentioned above.
Plus we figure that when/if the market recovers in who-knows-how-long, there are greater rewards to be had on our new house than if we had waited around to sell our old one (which might have gone for more money in a few years, but at that point our new house might have been waaaay out of our price range just like it was five years ago when the market was doing gangbusters). And of course we can’t ignore the most important facts: that this new house satisfies our passion for DIY, offers more room for our family to grow, and helps fuel our business. Which is really the day to day stuff that helps with the whole sleeping at night thing.
But let’s revisit that whole 35K spent on improvements, only 5K of which we actually made back in the sale price. The good news is that it’s not like our improvements didn’t serve us at all. Similar houses in our old neighborhood are now selling for muuuuuch less than ours did because they don’t have any of the updates that ours has. In fact a similar ranch on our old street (only about three houses away) that’s notably bigger than ours sold this summer for 50K (!!!) less than our house did. Which makes us feel incredibly good about the improvements that we made to set our former casa apart so that it would not only hold its value but would even creep up 5K since the good ol’ days of the bubble. So although on paper it might look like we lost 30K based on what we paid, how much we put into it, and how much we sold it for- we like to look at it like this: by making the improvements that we did, not only did our old house not drop 50K in value in this bum economy, it also slightly improved by 5K. Call it looking through rose colored glasses if you’d like, but thinking about it that way really helps keep things in perspective.
Oh and here’s another interesting house-for-sale point that our lender made. He has noticed that what homeowners aren’t getting back financially from their improvements, they’re getting back in sale speed. For example, a buyer might not pay much more for your house because it has granite counters, but you’ll get an offer a lot faster than a similar house down the street that’s sporting laminate. And that has certainly been our experience. We were on MLS for 2 days before getting an offer while a similar larger house down the road is going on 4 months without a bite. And it’s listed for $30k less!
Do we wish the market were better? Sure. But we’ve got zero regrets. Some may accuse us of seeing the glass as half full (and we definitely don’t think everyone would make the choice to sell at this time), but these are just a few reasons why we’re so glad to be in our new house just in time for Clara’s first Christmas. Speaking of which, we’ve got some boxes to unpack…
Odd little house made of money in a pot image from here.
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Empty
We promised pics of the old house all vacant and ready for the new owners so here they are (brought to you thanks to sitting in a booth at Panera to get WiFi since we can’t get that stuff hooked up at our new house until tomorrow). As for yesterday, we hoped to share more updates and info for you guys, but as anyone who has ever tried to coordinate a “domino” closing (when one person closes on your house, you wait for the funds to come through and attempt to close on a second house in the same day) knows, there’s usually nothing easy about it. The buyers of our house had an unexpected delay, as did we, which resulted in us not actually getting to close yesterday (thank goodness we did this morning). But the previous owners of our new house were so kind to pass along the keys to us anyway (since they knew we had nowhere to go and a truck full of stuff). Love them. Oh and did we mention that we got a surprise snowstorm (which actually caused quite the adventure when it came to physically getting things from one house to another- more details on that later).
Long story short, after hours of unpacking and trying to settle the bean and the pooch we collapsed into bed our mattress on the floor at around 1am. And although we’ve never been more tired, we couldn’t stop perma-smiling. There’s nothing like the first night spent in your new house. And thankfully Clara and Burger appeared to feel the same way (so far they’ve been varsity adjusters to the whole thing). We’ll have more details about moving day and some pics of the new house just as soon as we can get them together for ya (maybe this afternoon?). But for now, let’s feast our eyes on the former Casa Petersik in its first-day-as-compared-to-last-day glory. First here’s a look back at the old exterior to compare to our snow pic above:
And here’s what the living room looked like when we moved in:
Here’s what it looked like when we closed the door that final time:
And here’s the kitchen then:
And now:
The den then:
The den as we left it:
The master bedroom then:
And the master bedroom now:
Here’s the office/guest bedroom/playroom then:
And that room now:
Here’s the room that was a formal dining room when we moved in:
That we left as a nursery (after removing Clara’s beloved light fixture and curtains- the only light/curtains that we just couldn’t leave behind):
And here’s the sunroom back when we moved in (sorry for the terrible angle- we had no idea we’d need a good before shot when we snapped it):
And here’s the sunroom as we left it:
So although it was a little sad when that door closed (believe it or not, I didn’t even cry!) it was amazingly wonderful to open a new door (both literally and figuratively) to our new house. And we couldn’t be more excited to share that next chapter of our lives with you guys. More pics and details as soon as we can sling ‘em your way!
Psst- Ack, and we have to change our header and the name of the House Tour tab (to “Old House”- and add a “New House” one full of befores). Here’s hoping we find a moment to do that in the next few days…
I Like To Move It Move It
Do I get a point or two for a second moving post with a 90′s song reference in the title (here’s the first one)? And since it’s Friday, we figured we’d toss a video in. Oh but there are some bouncing booties on blast, just in case you’re at work or have an old-enough-to-ask-questions kiddo on the ol’ lap. You’ve been warned.
We’re about 90% packed, which is a good thing with moving day looming around the corner (we’re packing the truck on Sunday and officially moving on Monday afternoon if all goes well and our closing doesn’t get bumped to Tuesday). Cross your fingers for us!
Here’s how we’re doing on our little to do list that we shared on Wednesday:
- remove every single item from the wall and patch/paint every nail hole in the house (this was actually about 500 times easier than I expected- just remove all the nails at once, spackle everything at once, and then paint room by room. It’s a lot faster than doing those three things in each room before moving onto the next one since you’d be opening and closing the spackle and cleaning the putty knife about a million times).
- transfer all of our utilities so they start over at the new place on move-in day
- pack the entire bathroom (except for travel sized shampoo & conditioner, our toothbrushes, and the shower curtain)
- pack all of our frames, mirrors, books, ceramic animals, and 80% of the breakables (still need to do our dishware – yikes!)
- rake the yard so the new owners don’t think they’re moving into a giant leaf pile
- oversee the completion of a few random inspection items (some flue work is being done by a pro)
- get our oil measured for closing (new buyers pay for the oil that’s left in the tank, isn’t that a nice fair way to do it?)
- wave goodbye to our tan slipcovered Pottery Barn sofa in the den (someone from craigslist is supposed to be picking it up)
- pack the rest of the kitchen along with about 10% of the other rooms that still need to be done
- clean the oven and the fridge (can’t really do this until right before we go)
- vacuum/sweep before locking the door with a tear in my eye
Not bad right? Just that last 10% of packing along with some cleaning is left and we’re on to the new place with a spring in our step (ok, maybe no spring if we’re carrying heavy boxes). After a long and stressful day yesterday – all the last minute closing details and papers are keeping us on our toes! – we went for a drive over to the new house and just gazed at it through the car windows. Even Clara and Burger looked. It definitely got us back into the excited state of mind that we’re trying to live in for the next crazy few days. Ah new house, how do we love you. Let us count the ways…
And for those who love to see our house tore up from the floor up, here’s how things are looking right this moment:
Oh and since a few people have been wondering, here’s what is conveying (staying) with the sale of our house:
- all the appliances both in the kitchen and the laundry nook
- the storage pieces and cabinetry in the basement
- the built-in wardrobes on either side of our bed & the bed frame itself
- the floating shelves in the dining room
- all hardwired light fixtures and the plug in swing-arm lamps in the bedroom (except for the chandy from Clara’s room, which we replaced with a standard light)
- all of the blinds, shades, curtain rods, and curtains in the house (except for the curtains in Clara’s room- I’m just too sentimental to walk away from those)
- a folder of manuals and house info along with all the exterior & interior paint (labeled by room)
We’re actually really happy to leave those things behind (they added up to a nice quick sale and an offer above our asking price). Now for another bulleted list (I’m on a roll here). These are a few packing things we’re doing that seem to work well for an obsessive type-a gal like me:
- John came up with the genius idea to use blue painters tape to mark boxes that are breakable so we can easily identify the ones that we should be extra careful with
- He also decided to put a piece of painters tape on the cabinets in the kitchen that aren’t empty yet (so we don’t keep opening all the doors to see which ones are done and which ones still have to be packed)
- We’re using a sharpie to write what’s in nearly every box (so if we have to find Clara’s bath stuff in a snap, we know where it is).
- Thanks to lots of recommendations, we hit up our local wine store for a few more boxes (they’re free, sturdy, and some even have handles).
- We’ve packed a “vacation stash” of clothes, toiletries, baby stuff, etc that we’ll rely on for the next few days here and the first few days at the new place (so there’s no rush to dig through boxes for the essentials).
- We also packed a “good to have around” box for the new house that we’re keeping in the car (with toilet paper, paper towels, hand soap, cleaning supplies, cups for water, and a few other things we’re sure we’ll appreciate having right away for our friends & family members who are helping us move – and also for ourselves once they leave).
So far so good. Eye on the prize (aka: the new house). Eye on the prize…
Pack It Up, Pack It In
Look how spiffy our house is looking these days:
With less than 5 days until the big move, we’ve learned that packing is no joke. But we’ve got our eye on the prize (our exciting new digs) so we’re trying to keep our spirits up, stay hydrated, and play some good music for dancing as we go (the dancing is for Clara- gotta keep the baby entertained or packing progress can screech to a halt). Oh and we got many of our “secondhand boxes” as we’re lovingly calling them by trolling craigslist and freecycle (and even driving to a local reader’s house when she offered some up to us on Facebook). But admittedly we did have to grab a few from Walmart when we ran out of pre-used ones. Oh well, at least they’re made from 100% recycled material and we can craigslist/freecycle them when we’re done so they’ll live on like Leo’s memory in Titanic. Sidenote: anyone else still have a grade school crush on Leo?
Our to-do list is pretty nuts, but so far we’ve managed to cross these things off:
- remove every single item from the wall and patch/paint every nail hole in the house (this was actually about 500 times easier than I expected- just remove all the nails at once, spackle everything at once, and then paint room by room. It’s a lot faster than doing those three things in each room before moving onto the next one since you’d be opening and closing the spackle and cleaning the putty knife about a million times).
- transfer all of our utilities so they start over at the new place on move-in day
- pack the entire bathroom (except for travel sized shampoo & conditioner, our toothbrushes, and the shower curtain)
- pack all of our frames, mirrors, books, ceramic animals, and 80% of the breakables (still need to do our dishware – yikes!)
- pack all of the clothes we won’t be using in the next 7 days (we created a little “vacation stash” of everything from clothes to baby supplies and toiletries that we’ll appreciate having on hand instead of needing to unpack a million boxes to find those necessities).
As for what’s still on the list, here’s what we’ve got on the agenda:
- pack the rest of the kitchen along with about 20% of the other rooms that still need to be done
- rake the yard so the new owners don’t think they’re moving into a giant leaf pile
- oversee the completion of a few random inspection items (some flue work is being done by a pro tomorrow)
- get our oil measured for closing (new buyers pay for the oil that’s left in the tank, isn’t that a nice fair way to do it?)
- wave goodbye to our tan slipcovered Pottery Barn sofa in the den (someone from craigslist is supposed to be picking it up at 4)
- clean the oven and the fridge (can’t really do this until right before we go)
- vacuum/sweep/scrub the house spotless before locking the door with a tear in my eye
Assuming all goes well, the new owners are supposed to be closing on our house on Monday morning and once those funds come through we can close on our new place on Monday afternoon. So for a few odd hours in the middle of the day we actually won’t be homeowners at all. Weird, right? This necessitates an airtight moving plan, which doesn’t exactly sound easy but we’re sure we’ll somehow get ‘er done. We’re planning to move all of our stuff into a giant U-Haul by Sunday night and are paying to keep the truck overnight so it’ll essentially become a huge storage locker on wheels until we can unpack it on Monday afternoon at the new house (where our alarm system will be getting installed at the same time). Should be interesting total chaos, especially since we’re used to a few trips back and forth when it comes to a big move like this. Thankfully we have John’s awesome family helping with the loading and unloading. Did you think we’d hire movers? Come on, we’re total cheap-os. Besides, we love a good DIY adventure. Here’s hoping it has a happy ending and none of my ceramic animal friends have to die for the cause…
