There's a Reason Why It's Called "Pulling Up Roots"

What's the Difference?:

Moving out of our house in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1995 had been a nightmare.  We had raised our 7 children in it.  So It had a full basement which we had finished to have 3 bedrooms.  So, all together it was an 8 bedroom house.  As an observation on life: Have you ever noticed when children leave home they leave all their stuff behind?  The house was packed to the gills with their stuff plus (how to put this kindly), Irene is a "collector."

**** JOKE 1 ****

What's the difference between an “eccentric person" and a "crazy" person?

THE SIZE OF THEIR BANK ACCOUNT!

**** JOKE 2 ****

What's the difference between a "collector" and a "hoarder"?

SEE THE ANSWER TO JOKE 1

So, Irene and I had moved into this somewhat downsized 3 bedroom home.  I promised her (mainly to “maintain domestic tranquility” is the way James Madison phrased it in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America) that we would never move again. 3824 Pershing Drive, Lafayette, Indiana would be our "Final House" and so we “put down roots” ... again!  Since we didn’t have children living at home with us (initially) the other 2 bedrooms as well as the finished 1/2 basement became areas to “store stuff.”  We had lived in the house for 18 years when we moved into our Trekker in June of 2013.  We had been gone since September, coming back only for Christmas, so there was a L-O-T of stuff that had been “stored.”  We made the decision to go “full-time” in the RV in 2013 and that meant selling the house.  This month of April 2014 was the time we set aside in our schedule to “give it away, throw it away, or carry it away (in the Trekker)."

When we arrived at the house on March 31st, we arranged to have our realtor, Toni Slaughter (through whom we've bought or sold more than 6 houses [mainly rentals] through the years) come to take a look around the house with us to tell us what "upgrades" might be best to make to improve its sale-worthiness and increase its value.

The house looked like a tornado had torn through it.  Before leaving in September we had given away most of our furniture.  The only "problem" with that is it meant that all the clothes that had been in the bureau drawers were taken out and put in piles on the floor.  All the items that had been on desks were put in piles on the floor. 

(One additional problem was that in May of 2013 we were called by our niece that was house sitting for us that there was water coming into the house through a light mounted in then ceiling of the family room. UH OH, this can't be good!  But, we had to wait until we got back home at the end on June after our 2 Sojourns - 1 in Truth or Consequences, NM and the other in Kayenta, AZ on the Navajo Indian Reservation to do anything about it;  That necessitated the roof being replaced; a wall between the master bedroom and family room being torn out;  The ceiling in part of both of those rooms being torn out;  AND (at absolutely NO ADDITIONAL EXPENSE TO US - to destroy them) it had soaked the ceiling in one of the rooms in the basement and about 1 foot up on the drywall in 3 rooms in the basement.  All of that had been torn out and replaced ALONG WITH the carpet in the family room and master bedroom and new drywall was installed and taped and finished out AFTER it was all "Mold Mitigated" to assure there were no future problems.)

So, as I was saying - House - TORNADO - PILES OF STUFF E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E - and we have 1 month to get it all packed up; thrown away; given away or put in the Trekker.  We would begin on April 1st (Were we the ones April Fooling ourselves about being able to do this).

That morning in walks our realtor to walk through the domestic carnage.  I tell her it will be ready to list by May 6th.  She did an excellent job of hiding her incredulity!  She said it would be good to replace the appliances; rugs (duh!); Light and Plumbing Fixtures (ours were 1980's dated brass fixtures - "rubbed bronze is the ticket now" we were assured.  PLUS, Wood Laminate Flooring in the Dining Room and granite countertops would be a good ideas.  Fresh paint was a must!  Toni left (rolling her eyes, no doubt).

I now had my list of upgrades to get done.  Irene and I divvied up the work.  I was the trashmeister,  - in charge of clean-up - and general contractor in charge of upgrades.  She would be responsible for figuring out what items fell into which category: pitch it - donate it - give it to someone else - migrate it to the Trekker - pack it for the move to Mission, TX and our home to be completed there in late September - a sort of "Domestic Triage" if you will.  

I ordered a 10 yard rollaway dumpster immediately.  Irene enlisted the services of Kelly Pitzer and my sister, Charlynn Wise to help with the Domestic Triage that would occur.  (We need to say here that without Charlynn and Kelly and Marilyn Malmgren's help with our domestic "extraction" the 1 month deadline to have the house on the market could have N-E-V-E-R been met.  Thanks Ladies!)  

Next, I started calling vendors for flooring, appliances, countertops and fixtures.  Since I had been a general construction contractor in the mid 90's, this wasn't my first rodeo.  I knew the items that would need to be done first to last and the items that would take the longest to accomplish.  I gave the ladies until April 21st to have the house packed and ready for painting.

I called the painter I had used to get a rental painted that we had owned in Frankfort, IN.  His name is Francisco Castenada.  He does an excellent, conscientious job.  If you're in that area and need a painter, I highly recommend him.  Call - 317-506-7794.  Tell him you got his name from Jim Gordon.  He came by that evening to look at the job.  "Mucho Trabajar, Señor. (Much Work, Sir).  He assured me he could start on Monday, April 21st. CHECK - Painter Arranged!

The items that would take the most "lead time" to come in and therefore would need ordered immediately were the flooring and granite countertops.  So I headed to Henry Poor for their "Home Works" decor center for the countertops and to Flooring Express for their Rugs and Wood Laminates.  I made my selections and scheduled the flooring installs (rugs and wood laminate flooring) for installation beginning Tuesday, April 29th and the Countertops to be installed May 1st.  The Appliances were ordered from Lowes would be installed on Friday, the 2nd of May.  The plumber would come to hook up all the new sinks and dishwasher and refrigerator water line on Monday, May 5th.  It would be ready to put on the market Tuesday, May 6th the day before we would leave for South Africa.

The other thing we did was decide to use U-Pack for the move.  Joel and Brenda had used it when they moved from Jackson, MS to Midland, TX and recommended it to us.  They bring out a 26 foot trailer to your house and you pack your stuff in it yourself.  They charge you PER FOOT for the amount of footage you use of the 26 feet.  We were concerned 26' might not be enough.  I arranged for the trailer to be delivered April 18th and for a bunch of guys from church to help us load the truck on Saturday, April 19th.

All attention now turned toward the extraction.  Kelly and Charlynn were responsible for bringing items to Irene for her determination of what their end was - pack it; pitch it; donate it ; give it away or set it aside to take to the Trekker.  After the determination they packed it if that was its lot.  I hauled stuff to goodwill on more than one occasion.  Irene has brought a LOT of clothes to South Africa which (unknown to them) have made a one-way trip here.  Kelly is going to have a MONSTER BIG garage sale (after its all picked over by a certain unnamed lady in the church at Frankfort).  Some things Charlynn took home with her.  There was a TON (probably 3 or 4 actually) of stuff that found its final home inside that 10 yard roll-away dumpster.

The ladies did an excellent job of determining and packing.  I'm extremely proud of Irene.  This couldn't have been easy for her.  There was some slow, melancholy-laden moments as she took the final look at many items.  To my shame - on 2 different occasions I explained to her that she couldn't look at every item and needed to pick up her pace.  I was wrong in doing so.  She and the girls kept plugging and the piles kept shrinking.

Here we were just 1 week into the extraction and I could already start ripping up carpet and padding delivering that also to the 10 sq yd. dumpster screaming "FEED ME! FEED ME!" I could now begin working on exposed subfloor.  (Squeak and creak elimination is now my specialty).  I re-screwed every inch of floor which was under carpet with 2 1/2" deck screws every 6"-8".  We would move all the piles over to one side of a room and I would cut the carpet and pad and haul it to the dumpster and the sorting and packing continued unabated in another room of the house.  The dining room and entryway had to be done first.  They would be having the Laminate Oak Flooring laid on them.

We decided to use the family room as our staging area for the boxes packed for shipping to Mission, TX on our U-Pack trailer.  It began to fill even as the rest of the house began to echo with emptiness.

When Irene wasn't on determination duty, she was manning the shredder.  Man did we have a LOT of papers to shred.  Taxes from the 80s and 90s and early 00s.  Bills and Payments and checks from the same period.  Anything with an account number or social security number had to be shred to assure our identity won't get stolen.  We have a shredder that would make Oliver North proud.  It shred stuff into 1/16 inch square confetti.  There aint no reconstructing stuff that gets put through this baby.  Unfortunately the more you shred the more likely the shredder is to overheat.  Then you just have to wait until it cools down again.  There was a LOT of waiting having to occur.  Kelly and Charlynn just kept chugging and chugging on getting Irene's determinations and packing.

I'll be honest with you.  Toni wasn't the only one that thought it would be an impossible task to dig our way out.  Irene had some real concerns too.  Especially over the first 3 or 4 days.  Then about day 4 she said "I think we can make it."  THAT'S THE SPIRIT, LOVER!  I knew we'd make it even if I had to order a bigger dumpster and be more pro-active in the "pitch or keep" decision-making.  We couldn't put off getting the house to market because our next shot wouldn't be until NOVEMBER because of our sojourning schedule for the year.  May is the best month for selling a house in Lafayette.  We HAD to hit our target date!

By Wednesday, April 16th the girls were on "mop up duty."  Packing and sorting the little things that didn't fall in any category (i.e. - Dishes; Clothes; VBS material, etc).  All the first floor was done and it was time to attack the basement.  The basement wasn't nearly so bad as the upper floor.  Things by and large were in boxes.  SOME, were in the boxes that had been put in when we moved from Chippewa Dr in West Lafayette to Pershing Dr., in Lafayette some 18 years previously!  Now THERE'S A "COLLECTOR" FOR YOU!!!!!! So much of the basement got done in a single day.  Just bringing up boxes and either giving them to Kelly for her garage sale; pitching in the dumpster "en toto" or donating.  There wasn't a lot of "keepers" downstairs.

The 19th of April was "packing day."  Irene (and to a degree me also) was worried whether or not all of our "stuff" was going to fit into a 26 foot trailer.  We had about 8 people from church, my sister Charlynn and son-in-law Steve show up to help.  Tony Rose and Phill Garvin worked the truck.  Phill handled all the "tie-down" work with 300 feet of 1/4" nylon rope.  Phill is a truck driver, so I figured who better to know how things in a truck need to be secured to travel.  Tony ended up being our "spatial engineer."   What I didn't know is that Tony had worked for some length of time at Frito-Lay in Frankfort loading semis.  So he knew how to maximize the utilization of the trailer's space.  It took us less than 2 hours to load everything into the truck AND, thanks to their abilities, we only used 16 feet of the trailer.  That right their saved us over $1000.00 dollars (10 feet @ $105.00/ft.)  

I took pictures of our now EMPTY house and texted them to an amazed realtor.  She couldn't believe what we'd accomplished. "Oh, ye of little faith, how long shall I have to put up with you?" is what my text said.

So, now we were packed and the floor was all super securely tied down to the floor joists and it was time to start painting.  Painting began on the 21st of April.  We had hoped that Francisco could get the job done by Sunday the 27th.  Some workers not being able to show up for 2 days kind of slowed him down.  I wasn't concerned though because I had put a "buffer day" into the schedule - Monday, April 28th.  I had scheduled nothing that day thinking the painting might need the extra time.  I proved to be correct.

The next thing that happened was problematic.  I had specifically told the flooring people that they had to start flooring on Tuesday, April 29th.  I got a call Monday morning while the painters were still painting the basement that they were loading our flooring and would be over to begin shortly. "Uhhhh, you aren't supposed to start until tomorrow!  I have painters in the basement of the house painting right now."  They told me they'd go do another small job they had to do before coming over.

They arrived at about 11:00 and started on the laminate oak flooring in the Dining Room and entryway.  The painters, being in the basement stayed out of their way.  That afternoon the painters finished in the basement and that only left the garage.  We determined they could come back and finish that over the weekend.

Due to having to jerk their schedule around on monday morning, the Carpeting people were kind of slowed down.  Their 2 day job ended up taking almost 4 days.  They also had one guy not show up one day.  GOOD HELP IS HARD TO FIND NOWADAYS!  This means that they were still there when the countertop people came to install our new countertops on Thursday, May 1st.

The countertop installation went flawlessly U-N-T-I-L we realized that they had brought the wrong sinks with them.  They brought white sinks.  I had ordered bisque (beige) sinks.  "UGH! TAKE THEM BACK" I COMMANDED.  "EVERY SINK AND TUB IN THIS HOUSE IS BISQUE COLORED!"  They called to tell their bosses.  They would change them out but it might be a week before they are back in the Lafayette area, I was told.  I told their boss I would be up for 3 bisque colored sinks on Friday afternoon.  "No problem," they said.

On Friday the appliances were installed - new stove, refrigerator, microwave and dishwasher.  They fully installed the microwave and range.  The fridge they got plugged in and in its place.  The dishwasher couldn't be installed because the sink faucets were being changed and the old ones had already been removed.

That only left the painting and plumbing.  Piece of cake, everything is going fine.  The painter showed up Sunday, May 4th and painted the garage.  That was off the checklist.

On Monday, May 5th Schomers plumbing showed up to install the new sinks, plumb in all the new rubbed bronze sink fixtures and install the dishwasher and connect the ice maker line to the refrigerator.

This is where the biggest problem reared its head.  In the 18 years since we had built the house sinks had gotten DEEPER.  2 or 3 inches deeper.  That meant that the drain lines as originally installed were not deep enough for the new sinks.  This was "CHECKMATE" unless we could replumb the waste lines or find undermount sinks that were only 5 inches deep.  Luckily we did - at Lowes.  So the plumbers were off and running again. They finished in 6 hours.

At the same time that the plumbers were there I had employed a woman to give the house a thorough cleansing from basement to ceiling.  The basement had cobwebs that were over 10 years old, I'm sure.  Some of them had 3rd generation great-great-cobwebs down there.  The basement bathroom hadn't been cleaned in years.  She had her work cut out for her in the subterranean realm.  Upstairs with all new carpet, countertops and fresh paint just needed a good vacuuming and wipedown.  She was gone by 4 o'clock.

The house now looked so good we almost didn't want to sell it - then we remembered WINTER, SNOW, FREEZING TEMPERATURES and called our realtor.

WE WERE FINISHED AND READY TO PUT IT ON THE MARKET.  Toni came over with her son Donald and looked around.  We settled on a price - $277,500.00 and signed the contract to offer it for sale.

Here's the listing for it:

3824 Pershing Drive, Lafayette, Indiana

I can say we have been blessed by the Lord.  Since we left on Wednesday, May 7th our house has had an offer that we accepted as of Sunday, May 11th.  All the time, effort, planning and hard work put into the house during the "Lost Month" has paid benefits.  We were offered and accepted an offering for $272,500 - 98.1% of our listing price.  The new owners are getting an EXCELLENT HOME.