The story - selling and moving house - part one

Most would probably start a story from the beginning but I must say I do like the ones that start in the middle or at the end and then flash back and that is what I am going to do, by starting my story in the present in my new house and look back on the events that got me here.

I sold my family home that I have been living in for over 10 years just before Christmas 2014. I had been planning on talking about the sale process, staging the house (sharing photos of this) and more as it was happening, but the decision to sell when we did happened very quickly, and then it was suddenly all systems go trying to get the house ready. Also the process itself was stressful and emotional as on some levels I didn't want to sell.

My two children and I have now moved though into a new place which we love and will make new memories in. We are unpacking and I am looking at ways to make the house homely and feel like us, a little harder being a rental so can't easily change things or put pictures up wherever (a little easier to do these days than when I last rented with Velcro strips) but I like the challenge.

I am enjoying getting all our personal items out on display again too and putting my bookcases back out. This has quickly made our new house feel like home, especially after living in what felt like a display home for so long.

That is one issues with selling and wanting the house to look the best for open inspections, you need to do a major de-clutter and remove most personal effects. I did want the house to look the best it can and 'staged' it to make it look open and bigger, a blank canvas but decorated enough to give others ideas and not have it too sterile. It looked great in the end but was hard to live in and maintain. One good thing about it though was as a friend of mine said 'the house doesn't seem like you any more' and she was so right, this helped with disconnecting and made it so much easier to move out as soon as it was sold as couldn't wait to move into somewhere and make it mine again.

So now we are happily in our new home, boxes still everywhere but enjoying making it ours. For this reason I am now ready to and wanting to look back on the process of selling and would like to share some things I learnt from it as I know some of you will have to sell your home at some point.