Member-only story
The Ordeal of Having an Estate Sale
Part 1: The Prep Work
Oh. My. God. I’m downsizing, and I’ve come to believe that it’s called that, because with all the work involved, you’re going down for the count at some point (or several). When I remarried over twenty years ago, I owned my own house, and so did my husband. He had more equity in his home, so it made more sense to sell mine, which I did. I’d only lived there a few years, and the little profit I made on it went into making my husband’s house more … habitable. We got rid of that beautiful orange shag carpeting and replaced it with tile, and several other upgrades. You can imagine how challenging it was to fit two houses worth of stuff into just one.
Unfortunately, my husband was later diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and died about ten years after we married, and I’ve stayed in the house all this time. It’s too big for me now that he’s gone, my kids are grown and have homes of their own, and it’s just me and my shih tzu companion, Joy. I’m buying a smaller house which is being built and will be ready in mid-April (please, God, let it be ready on time!).
In the meantime, I’ve been sorting through everything I own and deciding what to move with me and what to get rid of. I began with the idea of donating, but it became apparent pretty early on that there was too much stuff, much of which I couldn’t…
