Well…

That was a shock.

Different plans
R mentioned that we want to stage the house for sale when or before he moves. Yes. I thought that was a great idea. Then he mentioned that to do that, we need most of the furniture in the house to be in the house.

So I was planning on leaving him with a mostly empty house and he was planning on me having a mostly empty house. How did we miss those very divergent expectations? I don’t know.

Thinking through taking little
Instead of taking most of our furniture, his plan is for me to take very little of it. But if I take very little of it, how am I going to entertain my students? I guess they can sit on the floors. There will be plenty of space there. We’ll have to split some of the kitchen cooking stuff. He cooks more when he’s not totally busy, but if I’m there by myself, I really want to cook more.

Also, his plan is for most of the stuff to stay here to stage the house. But if he is planning on being done in March (which he was) and putting the house on the market in March… Is he not planning on moving until May now?

Also, we were going to have the carpets redone and the painting done. I thought we were getting rid of all the furniture so we could have that done. But I guess he’s just going to move that furniture around?

What does “taking little” actually mean?
If we move the way R was expecting, what will I be taking with me?

My desk, my china cabinet, a few chairs, my grandfather’s closet, maybe the chaise lounge (since I need a couch of some sort), all our bookshelves. Probably the wardrobe from our room, because it takes up too much space (though I am not sure where he plans to put it in the new house) and, maybe, the cedar chest, too.

I am also going to take the things I “inherited” when my folks moved into their condo: the pool table, a bedroom set, a breakfast room set.

Furniture: 21 pieces of furniture (including eight dining room chairs) and the bookshelves–however many bookshelves (We have 19 but were thinking of culling down to 12. However, we have talked about using the less attractive bookshelves to do other things with.) So at most 40 (!) pieces of furniture.

Okay, that sounds like A LOT!

How much furniture do we own?

How much am I not taking at all, ever?
Teen rm: 5
Breakfast rm: 1
Bedrm: 1 HUGE bed
M rm: 3 (or maybe only 2 and bring one)
media rm: 5
E rm: 1
Laundry rm: 3
That’s 19 that we are getting rid of here for sure.

How much are we taking next time?
our rm: 1 or 2 (cedar chest IS coming, just not sure when)
bkfast rm: 1
kitchen: 1
living rm: 3 (all fairly substantial)
M rm: 0
R office: 2
E rm: 2 (big bed and dresser)
media rm: 3 (including a couch)
dining rm: 7
Next time: 20

Yes, I own 79 pieces of furniture. Obviously I have too much furniture. WAAY too much furniture. I do. I own way too much furniture, even for my house and my parents’ house. But, yes, definitely way too much furniture for our new house.

Man, I have been blessed beyond measure– or at least my ability to measure. A lot of the furniture we own was given to us. We have purchased (that we still own) 25 of those pieces, including the dining rm table and chairs and most of the bookshelves. I’d never really figured out how much furniture we have, although I did know we own too much now (since my parents moved last summer- although none of that furniture is currently at our house since it is still in theirs to stage it).

Besides furniture
Boxes. Lots of boxes.

The books I have not managed to donate away (126 boxes maybe? really? that many?), the Christmas stuff (4-12 boxes), 8 boxes of family photographs + 2 of ours, the fancy dishes from the Harry Potter closet and pantry and kitchen, my collection of blue glass and silver. So how many boxes of dishes? (20? I don’t know how much space the dishes will take. It could be as little as 20 or as much as 40.) Some other kitchen things (toaster oven, silverware, plastic stuff, some pots and pans) maybe 2 boxes.

The art? I think most of the art should go with me.
lesbians in the rain
2 Treby
blue pear
R’s pic of 2 Benfields
whatever art is on the wall in teen rm
Deb and Betty painting from Breakfast rm
violin lady
Grama’s watercolor
Christmas Tarkay
R’s grandmother’s pics (2)?
Blue mountain castle
Dutch girl
Do I really want the Northwoods? No. I don’t. Does J?

How to move if most is staying here
I was wondering if I could hire someone to pack and load all this stuff and then I would drive it myself or if I could find a small company who will pack and load it and drive it up and unpack and unload it. I know which would be easier. The problem would be expense.

Would the people that I hired to move my sister’s bedroom set to our house do it? At $60/hr for the 7 hr trip that’s $420, plus probably another $420 for loading, but QUITE a lot cheaper than a regular moving group. Even if I have to pay another $420 to get them home again. But, then again, maybe that’s only local moving. I’ll have to a) figure out what group I hired and b) call and ask them about rates or recommendations. They did a great job of moving the bed.

Pool table moving
Okay, just getting the pool table disassembled and put in a truck by a pool table moving company is going to cost between $400 and $800. That’s not including getting it to my new town. And pool tables weigh about 1000 pounds, so I’m adding A LOT of weight to the move. One of the places said they would move a pool table for $1.00 a mile beyond 60 and the other said $1.20 beyond 60. That’s about $800 more for a round trip, not including the set up again on the other side, about $300. So the pool table itself might cost me $2000. Of course, it’s a $25,000 pool table, so $2000 is cheap for that… That assumes that one of the two services here in Houston would be willing to take it across the state.

Do I know what I am getting into?

Can I change my mind and just stay here?
It would be a lot easier and cheaper. Even losing the $1000 for escrow on the house.