De-Personalizing

Where shall I begin? One thing is for certain, there has been not a stitch of sewing going on around these parts since last we met!

So, here's our plan...

Close on the condo, and fix it up ASAP so that we can move our things into it before July 15 rolls around and Mr. and Mrs. Peck, with Baxter in tow, begin the long journey to Vancouver. Sounds pretty ambitious, doesn't it? I couldn't agree more, but we are going to do everything in our power to make it happen. Our realtor is going to do everything in her power to sell our home before then, which would be icing on the cake.

Which means, I've been out shopping in between cleaning, and de-personalizing our home, both of which are painful. That said, I haven't done all of the cleaning myself, Bruce did some major tidying up in his garage on Saturday morning. It looks ever so much better than this now.

He made that work bench many, many years ago and it will be very hard to leave; we are so hoping the new owners will want it. I have a super crazy idea to turn that giant metal cabinet into something more for our new place because storage is definitely at a premium over there. I'm thinking of having it painted at an auto body shop...what do you think?

Meanwhile the window washers came, and not only did they do the windows, but they cleaned the gutters and fascia as well. Everything looks as good as new. I read online that during the open house I need to bring the blinds up, and it does let in some lovely light.

In the room above I removed the quilt on the end of the bed, along with everything, leaving only one thing on the dresser and nightstand. I do see in the photograph that I've left an old photo of Jon boy, taken by Matthew for a high school photography class on the shelf, and you know what? I'm leaving it there!

Most readers of Camera Crazy know that if given the choice between cleaning and sewing, well, make that anything else, I would choose the later. My house is tidy, but super clean, not so much. I spent hours and hours cleaning on Saturday morning before we met the condo owner in order for Bruce to take measurements and draw out the floor plan. A remodel budget has been established. We have become experts at renovating around our things, mostly because we've had no choice, but here we do have a choice, and we are seizing our opportunity to make it nice before we move in. Dave is talking to the owner in this photo of the circa 1986 kitchen which will not be looking like this in a month or so.

Some folks take down the whole wall behind the fridge, move the appliance and cabinets to the other side  of the room, opening it all up, however, we may not get that crazy. Instead we are thinking of lowering that ledge Bruce is writing on, and extending the counter top to make a small seating area on the other side. As well, some of the wall will come down, opening it up to the living area. Here is where some folks have moved the fridge.

I've said it many times before, but I'll say it again, Orlando is really a small town.  Chuck's Dad lived in this condo for 26 years along with his wife, I believe her name was Pippa. Chuck lives in the same neighborhood as our old neighbor of 18 years, another Chuck! They know each other! Not only that, but our friends Bill and Roxanne have been in this condo before! Further, when the twins were teens, they had a friend named Robby, and get this, Pippa was his grandmother! Chuck said he felt like his folks would be looking down on us with approval, which was super sweet. As to the space above, I'm thinking of putting a booth there!! That will wait until we return though.

As to the countertops, if you have even remotely looked at a design magazine, or watched anything on HGTV you know that all of the designers are using marble these days, which looks great on television, and in print, but actually living with it, that's not for me. I don't want to be worrying all of the time about my countertops. After picking up a sample of wood for the floors, I visited Mystic Granite nearby.

I don't want anything too busy, but I have had granite for about 15 years and it has performed flawlessly, so why change? It was super interesting watching them move those heavy slabs!

Thursday night Pam had the "girls" over for dinner and painting of wine glasses. I had dinner, however, no wine glass for me. NOT, of course, because I don't drink wine, but the last thing I need to do right about now is bring something else into our home.

Here are two totally off topic things...this newspaper article reminded me of how people sometimes have not a lick of sense. A rat named Princess....are you kidding me???

Number two on this list...books I returned to the library, three of which were good, two were started and stopped.

I could not get into either The Real Liddy, or The Wives of Los Alamos. Maybe it was just me.

Back to the business at hand....

One of the nice things about the new place is we actually have a back yard and don't have to worry about maintenance!

This is taken about 1:30 in the afternoon, and I'm glad I am looking at it just now because I am trying to choose a wood floor, and this is a big help. I brought home something lighter than what we have now, but then thought it was too light. Now, after looking at this, which, btw, I've just downloaded from my camera, I may have been on the right track after all.

Lake Pineloch Village is filled with lush plantings and gorgeous trees like this one, so you know what that means....birds!!

Lynn, who is both our realtor, and a family friend, asked me to remove everything personal for the photographs which are scheduled for tomorrow at 2PM. I began that process yesterday morning, and I can tell you, it was not so easy for me. Now, instead of my magnet filled refrigerator side,

it is merely a blank wall of gray. I'm not much of a souvenir girl, however, wherever we travel, I pick up a magnet, and my kids do the same for me whenever they go somewhere. Now they are tucked away in a box. :(

I needed a basket for storage, so I cleaned one out that still had some stuff from my business. Although it pained me to do so, I threw my "title" book away.

Whenever I would have something new printed, I'd dream up a title, jotting it down with the number I thought I might sell over time. Each week, I'd erase the first number as things sold. Now it will just be a memory. I have my huge inventory of prints that I have no idea where they will end up.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning and de-personalizing most of the rooms,  and this morning I had our young neighbor George come over to help me move my sewing table against the wall, which not only shows off the pretty floor, but shows off the room size better.

Not nearly as practical, but I'll have to get used to having it against the wall in our new place. The scrappy quilt is pretty much the same as the last time you saw it! My sister Nancy thinks I should remove the glass jar of scraps, but I can't bring myself to do it unless Lynn insists. We shall see tomorrow, won't we?

She plans to hold an OPEN HOUSE this WEEKEND!! So, not only does the inside have to look good, so does the outside. Wouldn't you know it, our new lawn guy could not come this week so I did the mowing yesterday, and mostly everything looks just fine. Those sparkling windows help.

Finally, and I include this sorely for posterity, we finally had some rain. Fast and furious, we wish it were more, and sadly none has fallen since I took this probably last Friday.

I cannot remember the last time my house has been so clean.

yours truly,

Gail