momee Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 What are your best tips for: I. living with kids/homeschooling while house is on the market (how reasonably clean do you have to keep things? What is reasonably clean? No pictures of family but what else do I do to stage a house with kids?) II. packing to move the stuff to go to storage while living/homeschooling :) (I am decluttering like CRAZY - pretending that we are moving to a rental next week - only the stuff we absolutely need stays out. Everything else gets a) thrown away B) b) donated c) put in a stack to eventually be packed up and moved to temporary storage. Don't know where that is yet but we will need something.) III. Before I pack it all up would it be crazy to go BACK through the stuff and pare it down even more or is that anal? (I think I mean will I be decluttering when I'm unpacking at the new house as well? I mean, how ruthless should I be? I would describe our house as fairly clutter free and I definitely take time each season to go through rooms and get rid of things. We just! got a new kitchen and schoolroom so those rooms are very much cleared out.) Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. I'm sure a lot of it is common sense...I just don't have much of that available mentally right now, lol. We are moving (all 5 of us) our in-laws up from another part of the state. Both of them. Each of them older than 85 :) I get to do this very thing TWICE. Our home and theirs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
An Unexpected Party Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I packed up and sold a house a little over a year ago. We had very little notice before it went on the market and it was far from market ready. The only thing that saved me at all was that I had been putting a lot of effort into decluttering that summer. Declutter ruthlessly now. If there is a chance you will jettison it in the new place do not let it take up time, energy, or space any longer; get rid of it now. All of our trinkets and photos got boxed and moved to friend's houses. The less you have in the house the easier it is to get it show ready in half an hour. That's about the notice I had for about half of our showings. If you can afford it, bring in a cleaning service to help with some of the heavy duty cleaning, either in your own home or in one of the other homes you will be getting ready to sell. I invested in a swiffer mop and duster, cleaning wipes, and I always had two or three packages of vacuum bags handy. It wasn't the normal way I cleaned but it was fast and I never found myself suddenly unable to finish vacuuming ten minutes to showtime. I did use the Amazon ap on my phone to create lists of which books were in which boxes once it came time to pack them. You make a wishlist titled with the number of the box and you end up with an inventory for when it comes time to unpack. It's been a year and I still have most of my personal library packed, but most of the time I can fish a specific book out of a box when necessary. Good luck :) ETA: I packed the homeschool stuff last, but the reality was we just eventually had to take a break from homeschooling for a while and deal with the house. We went later in the summer to compensate. It wasn't ideal, but getting out of that house and into a new one was the priority at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammi K Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I've been married almost 30 years and have lived in 17 different homes. From experience, I will say, "Do it NOW!" When you get to the new home you will be so busy settling in, that, despite your best intentions, you will not declutter then. You will let things sit in boxes. In your garage. So that even though you live in Alaska, in the city that had the highest recorded snowfall EVER last snow season, you will park outside, instead of your garage, having to scrape snow off of your car every day, because you still have boxes all over the place in the garage, although you moved in 3 years ago. Because, really, you mean to get to those boxes. You even have a plan. Open a box, decided if it is keep, toss, sell, or donate. And you will do one box at a time, systematically, until each and every box is sorted and eliminated. Yes Sir, that is what you will do..........Oh wait, that's me.... :huh: Take it from experience. DO what you can now. It will make life on the other end so much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I'm currently house-hunting with dd. (she's excited, buying her first house.) get some crates for "stuff" so even if it's out, it's not spread all over when buyers come through. reduce clutter as much as possible. we watch property brothers (and boy do we want jonathan. we found a great possiblity, hop-skip-jump location, the siding is THICK cedar bevel - but needs some major work before she could even move in. we suspect the mstr bath floor is rotten in places. a deck next to the front door is rotten.), and it seems most people are very superficial in what they see. they don't see potential - they see clean or dirty, nicely decorated or frat house. as a buyer, some things I want to see - daylight. shades and curtains should be open. lightbulbs in fixtures (why does the dining room chandelier only have one lightbulb? is there something wrong with the wiring? all the lights should work.) if lightswitches are in odd places - put up a sticky note directing to the switch. include pointers for phone jacks, cable jacks, and internet ports. (dd requires high speed internet. while she expects to have to have it installed, some houses have it already.) can you see the house from the street? or are shrubs blocking it? can you walk to the front door without being eaten by shrubs? has the walk been swept, or covered with debris? dead branches should be trimmed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 I've been married almost 30 years and have lived in 17 different homes. From experience, I will say, "Do it NOW!" When you get to the new home you will be so busy settling in, that, despite your best intentions, you will not declutter then. You will let things sit in boxes. In your garage. So that even though you live in Alaska, in the city that had the highest recorded snowfall EVER last snow season, you will park outside, instead of your garage, having to scrape snow off of your car every day, because you still have boxes all over the place in the garage, although you moved in 3 years ago. could be worse. my brother had boxes in his garage that he packed when he was living in miami. four locations ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mumto2 Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 We are in the middle of our move right now. Declutter as much as you can. We gave a huge load of stuff to friends who just moved over from the States a few weeks ago. So glad that is all gone. Major renovations happened at new house. I am not sure how old your dc's are but I signed mine up for a couple of coursera courses each during this busy time for me. The classes are free and they love it! Has mads life much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tammi K Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 could be worse. my brother had boxes in his garage that he packed when he was living in miami. four locations ago. Uhhhhhh, we got married and two years later, moved to Germany. Then we came back and moved to Maryland. Then we moved to Australia, then back to Maryland and then Hawaii. There are a few boxes that were packed for that original move to Germany 20 some years ago that have never been unpacked. The movers just keep taking off the old sticker and putting on new ones as they load the truck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jillian Posted October 22, 2013 Share Posted October 22, 2013 Lots of ruthlessly quick military moves here. Declutter now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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