Out with the Old....

Everyone knows the golden rule of selling a house...

no, it's not 'location, location, location'.
It's 'neutralize, neutralize, neutralize'!

A construction crew came last week to remove the trellis wall treatments

and to paint over the mural in the downstairs powder room.

Years ago (90? 91?) I painted a mural of a vineyard scene in it,

and Mom had Dad install white trellising to the other walls and ceiling

then hung silk grapevines and grape clusters from it.
Her family room and patio had a 'wine country' theme, and this room played off of that.

In 2013, I redecorated the house to reflect my parent's love of Hawaii
(while they were vacationing in Hawaii!)

and painted a new beach scene on the powder room wall.

(you can see that project in my Thrifty Weekend Makeover series!)

When the contractor finished, it was beige. Just...... beige.

 But it's a small room and it needs to 'look bigger' (???) to prospective buyers

....so this is what we do. We 'neutralize'.
We remove every vestige of our personalities from the house 

so that prospective buyers can 'picture themselves living here' -
as opposed to them seeing exactly how WE have lived here.
This is what real estate agents tell clients now: Erase yourself from the property.

Meanwhile the encroaching stacks of empty folded boxes are dwindling
and the stacks of packed boxes is growing in every single room.
Surfaces are empty, spaces are starting to echo,
and it really looks like we are moving at last.
.
It's gonna' get harder.
Not just the physical work of lifting and hauling,

or the emotional work of sorting and purging,

but the emotional impact of finding hidden memories

in rooms once so filled with life.

As excited as Mom and I are about this move, the new house, 

the new opportunities and a bright shiny next chapter that this move brings,

there's a lot of history here in these rooms.
History that is happy and joyful, and history that is sad and heartbreaking.
Our family's happiness and sorrow soaks the atmosphere,

and as the rooms empty out, 

those memories echo in our hearts.

I can't look at the staircase without seeing generations of our family -
my parents, my siblings, our children, my children's children -
posed on it, year after year, for photos...

And that's just one memory.

HOME means so many things...
fortunately we carry home with us in our memories no matter where we go.