Retirement Limbo Land

When our house didn’t sell in two real estate seasons of trying, we decided to give it a rest for a year. We’re also doing some updates to our kitchen, the planning for which has become close to a full time job for me. In the meantime, we’re trying to keep it “staged” in case our agent has a buyer she feels will be interested in the property. And yes, it’s happened once already.

The market is hot in Providence, in the sense that there’s a shortage of inventory and even big houses are turning quite quickly, sometimes even with multiple offers. But the prices haven’t advanced much since last year and people still want a “done” house. Hence the need for our kitchen updates.

The failure to launch our retirement move has been a good thing for my husband. He’s about two years behind the original schedule for closing the wholesale portion of his business and getting out of his warehouse. As I roll into my third year of pseudo-retirement, I find myself in “Retirement Limbo Land.” That’s where your income is retired, but your expenses aren’t. And the way you spend your time is between a rock (full-time employment) and the proverbial hard place (your idea of retirement bliss).

Yes, I finished and published three books in the first two years after leaving my full-time job. I’m still blogging weekly and I have the idea for and the beginnings of my fourth book. But I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy about spending my retirement just writing. This is in part because my office is in our windowless basement. I need ambient light to be energized.

I’m thinking about getting an IPad so I can write in one of our sunny rooms (since I’m still paying real estate taxes on them). But then I’ll need WiFi service, or at least a wireless router in my basement. (Maybe these are one and the same; I don’t know.) This apparently involves upgrading from DSL and/or paying extra for having access from more than one computer. It seems crazy to go through all of that when we’re going to be here for just another year or so. (God willing and the cricks don’t rise…)

This is just one aspect of Retirement Limbo Land. Here’s another that will make you sad. As part of the house staging, I boxed up our photos, including those of the cats. I kept one photo of Pansy out, since we sent her to the Rainbow Bridge shortly before I retired. The rest were put into a box carefully labeled “Keep.” Last October, we lost Lily. I have no photo of her near my desk because the “Keep” boxes were all stored behind the “Sell” and “Donate” ones, and I haven’t been able to turn up the photo box.

Ditto for my high school and college yearbooks. When someone from my past wants to reconnect via Facebook, I can’t cheat my way into “remembering” them by looking up their yearbook picture.

There’s a similar sob story behind my sewing and craft supplies. I could really use that packet of felt to reinforce the holes in my favorite jeans. And the iron-on tape to fix the lining inseams on my linen pants that are fraying. I can’t properly repair my husband’s sweaters without a crochet hook to re-knit the stitches that got snagged and created a ladder down the front. I refuse to go out and buy new supplies when I know I have them somewhere. Besides, the plan is to downsize, not augment.

I have many other examples of things I’ve stashed away that I’d like to be able to put my hands on, but won’t be able to until I’m out of Retirement Limbo Land. It leaves me unhappy and frustrated. And annoyingly out of control.

I have similar feelings about finding alternate ways to spend my time. I’ll probably get involved in some volunteer work when we settle into our new, downsized location. I’m disinclined to do it now. Why invest emotionally in something I’ll be leaving soon? Not to mention our one-car situation. If I take the car so I can volunteer for a few hours, that leaves the rest of the day to get into trouble. By that I mean go shopping. Again, the goal is to downsize. And the budget doesn’t allow shopping.

Except for wine, but I can walk to my favorite wine store. That has added benefits. I get some exercise, and I don’t buy more than two or three bottles at a time, so they’re not too heavy to carry home. Of course, if one has a screw top, I could always drink some of it on the way, to lighten the load. Just kidding. Then again…

Retirement Games - Name That Paint Color!

By now you must have read at least one of my posts bemoaning the lack of character in the paint colors my Realtor and her stager had me use in my kitchen. They want everything to be as neutral as possible, so we don’t alienate anyone. As a marketer, I feel we’re missing the opportunity to engage our key target audience (someone who will appreciate turn of the century architecture.)

One of my go-to sources for posting ideas had an article that offers a compromise. In the June 30 New York Times, Katharine Q. Seelye wrote about how paint companies are changing the way they name their colors. Per Ms. Seelye, they’re doing this to capture consumers’ attention. They’re now using names that, among other things, “summon a memory or evoke an emotion” or represent the consumer’s lifestyle. The names rarely have any relationship to the colors they represent, and it’s OK if they sound negative.

I smell a marketer behind this trend! The Home Depot’s merchandising VP for paint articulated my compromise nicely when she stated that “Emotional color names in neutral shades and color combos are crucial for successful home sales.” Thank you, Lyne Castonguay. Since my house painting is now complete, it’s left to me to come up with emotional names for what are mostly bland, unemotional colors.

Let’s start with the kitchen, which has been painted Fossil (walls) and White Dove (cabinets and trim.) I’m naming this combination “Truffle Season in Piemonte.” My sister and her husband took his sister and me there during truffle season. The weather was overcast, so the vistas were a hazy, grayish white. That’s also the color of white truffles as they are shaved onto your risotto. While my potential buyer is mentally savoring truffles in Piemonte, perhaps she won’t notice the lack of granite countertops and designer appliances.

The entry hall and stair tower have mostly bittersweet orange and white striped wallpaper. It’s subtle, as stripes go, but it runs on and on up three stories in the tower. If it were a color, what comes to mind for me is “On Hold for the Social Security Office.”

The living room is wallpapered light blue with pale coral medallions. If it were a color, it would be “Quiet Walk on the Beach at Sunrise.” There’s even a Coalport china bowl filled with sea shells on the sideboard. The dining room has been painted a spicy color that borders on neutral. I’m calling this “Learning to Do the Tango.” That should highlight the open spaces in the entry and dining areas; there’s room enough to tango.

The master bedroom has muted wallpaper with soft sprigs of flowers. It gives the impression of being painted cream, as in “Homemade Eggnog at Our Tree Trimming Party.” The main guest bedroom has been painted Parchment, but I’ll call it “Love Letters from Your First Boyfriend.” That should make buyers notice the bay window with its romantic seating area. The smaller guest room has nondescript wallpaper (off white with fine blue plaid lines.) I’ll name this “Pedal Pushers You Wore to Band Camp.” (Don’t ask.)

The third floor bedroom that is newly painted is pale yellow (Lemon Whip) and the bathroom is pale green (Green Tea.) I’m renaming them “Remember When Whole Foods Was Bread and Circus” and “Lunching with Friends at Whole Foods.” There are two Whole Foods within two miles of us, lest we forget; reason enough to buy the house just for that.

I haven’t named the colors in every room, but I feel that I’ve covered the ones that will matter most to my target audience. If my office area weren’t paneled in faux wood, I’d color it “Where I Go with My Glass of Wine When I Need Inspiration.”

Speaking of which, here I am at my computer. Now if I can just remember where I moved the wine when the stager banished it from the dining room…

Retirement Downsizing - Plain Vanilla Staging

By now, some of you are weary of my grousing about what’s involved in staging my house to list it for sale. You have my permission to skip today’s post. Those who have been following my rants know that it’s my contention that the Plain Vanilla school of staging is not the optimum way to market a 100-plus year old Victorian. I now have some ammunition from the retail arena to support my case.

It comes from one of my frequent sources of inspiration, the New York Times. (And let us not forget that even “the gray lady” added some color years ago.) A June 15 article by Stephanie Clifford on retail mannequins made a claim that immediately caught my eye. “The generic white, hairless, skinny mannequin is being pushed aside by provocative alternatives that entice shoppers.”

“Aha!” (said I.) “She has just described my repainted and staged kitchen.” Generic white. Hairless and skinny. I commented to some friends that a potential buyer who sees several properties staged by the same team will get confused about which kitchen was which. Here’s a clue: mine is the one without granite counter tops.

I guarantee that a large percentage of homes on the market in Providence have kitchens painted Fossil and White Dove. Likewise hardware in brushed nickel, and very likely my same new chandelier. I would be snorting up my sleeve after being shown three houses with identical plain vanilla décor.

More importantly, the potential buyer who is drawn to this décor is (IMHO) likely someone who really wants a new house. People who like Victorian houses are drawn to their character and charm. Staging a Victorian in plain vanilla is hiding its light under a bushel basket. Or in my case, inside a packing box in the basement.

Let’s get back to Ms. Clifford and her report on the trend in retail mannequins, which she describes as “a new appreciation for old-fashioned window dressing.” (Take that, stagers! So much for naked windows.) Retailers are using mannequins to “personify their brand” and focus on a specific customer. That’s what I feel staging should do for a house, especially one that has distinctive architecture.

It all comes down to Marketing 101. The seller shouldn’t do things that will alienate a large number of potential buyers. However, trying to appeal to everyone’s taste runs the risk of having everyone like your house a little bit, but having no one fall in love with it. If you use period-appropriate touches (in my case Victorian) to target the buyers who are most likely to truly appreciate your house, aren’t you more likely to find a match?

Let me illustrate my point with descriptions of two types of mannequins—one from the seventies and one from today. In the 1970’s, retailers kept costs down with generic mannequins that had no wigs and no make up. Bald and nondescript—in other words: plain vanilla.

Today, one designer store has mannequins that lie down, per Ms. Clifford, “to help shoppers imagine wearing lingerie.” A professional stager would be shocked. “What? Suggest that they should wear something specific? What if they don’t want lingerie?” Hello-o-o! You’re selling lingerie. If they don’t want it, they should be shopping at Pottery Barn.

Some of these new mannequins even have muscles. That’s tantamount to putting color on a wall in the house. My stager would have apoplexy. He feels white walls let the buyer use her imagination about how she would decorate. I think he gives buyers too much credit. He’s also out of touch with how busy women are. Most of us would be happy to be handed a home that has tastefully colored walls, ones that are relatively neutral, but not plain vanilla. It saves us hiring a decorator. Excuse me. An interior designer.

I’m having one of Oprah’s “Aha!” moments, the ones where a light bulb goes off above your head. I think I’ve stumbled upon the real reason that stagers want everything done in vanilla. As my mother would have said, they’re in cahoots with the interior designers. By having houses done all plain, it forces the buyers to hire designers to add character to the interior of their shell of a new home.

So, the seller (or the seller’s real estate agent) pays the stager to clear out every vestige of décor from the home. The buyer then hires the stager’s partner (legal or unofficial) to redo the décor. If there is any justice in this world, the interior designer attends the seller’s tag sale and buys most of the décor the seller was forced to dispose of. It then winds up back in the house where it started out.

Is this a great country, or what?

Retirement Choices - Free Days

Aspen, Colorado recently announced (proudly) that it has become “the nation’s first true Meatless Monday community,” with a website, www.meatlessmonday.com, dedicated to the issue. The site does not name any particular community as being a false Meatless Monday one, so it’s not obvious why the claim “true” has been appended to Aspen’s title. But the first “true” it claims to be, so that’s how we’re reporting it.

The Aspen program aims to promote healthy living and respect for the environment. (They cited the heavy environmental costs of meat production.) We’re not sure if that has to do mostly with the methane gas produced by cow flatulence or if there are more expansive concerns. In any event, this appears to be just the first of many “free days” around the country where various behaviors are discouraged on certain days of the week.

Hot on Aspen’s heels, San Francisco declared that from now on, they would be promoting Potless Tuesdays. Those who are licensed to use medical marijuana will be exempt from the calls to desist from lighting up. It also appears that the use of Mary Jane in cooking and baking would not be covered by the ban. This has led a number of wags to refer to the new program as Pot Luck Tuesdays.

Not to be outdone, New York’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, told the New York Post in an exclusive interview that his city was working on instituting Cigarless Wednesdays. Apparently several popular cigar bars resisted the plan to ban them outright. A compromise of allowing them to be carried and gummed, but not lit, was also snuffed out. At last check, they were negotiating: “You can light them, but just don’t inhale.”

In other news, the official site for Las Vegas tourism, VisitLasVegas.com, now carries a headline about Textless Thursdays. This has been clarified with a subhead: “It means no texting. We’re not promoting SEXless Thursdays!” along with a reminder that “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” I am greatly relieved. So are thousands of conventioneers, many of whom wanted to know if emailing photos from their cell phones counted as texting.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, word has leaked out that shades of gray will no longer be allowed on Capitol Hill on Fridays. Everything must be stated in either black or white. The hope is that Grayless Fridays will lead to the speedy passage of legislation, enabling members of Congress to get a jump on weekend traffic. It’s unclear how this will work, considering that most lawmakers see everything in extremes in the first place.

Speaking of the political process, the Windy City of Chicago is searching for its own take on Free Days. Mayor Rahm Emanuel had thrown his support behind Daleyless Saturdays, until someone pointed out that everyday is Daleyless now that Emanuel is in office. Ditto for World Seriesless Saturdays. Windless also lost out, in part because it flies in the face of the city’s moniker, but primarily because it would remind people that their politicians are generally full of hot air. We’ll have to get back to you on this one.

And finally, right here in Providence, Rhode Island, I’m declaring Stageless Sundays. On the seventh day, God rested, and on the seventh day, I’m refusing to do anything to my house that is remotely tied in to the staging process. Somewhere along the way, you have to put your foot down and dig in your heels. Provided, of course, you don’t mar your newly refinished floors or make a hole in your recently landscaped lawn.

Retirement Transitions - Signs of Staging

Our house is nearing L-day, the day it will be listed for sale as part of our plans to downsize. My Realtors provided a stager and I’m working my way through the long list of what he wants done before we can put the house on the market.

Many of them make sense—we all know we need to declutter and pack up all those family photos. But some items shout “professional staging.” In celebration of the almost-completion of this process, here are the top ten signs a professional stager has prepped your house for sale.

10. All the towels in your bathrooms are white, but none of your bathrooms are. And by the way, they are unwashed, so they're still fluffy, and Lord help anyone who tries to actually use them.

9. All your toilet brushes and plungers are stowed out of sight. You’ve made notes of where they are because… well, out of sight out of mind, and at this point, you’ve totally lost yours.

8. Mr. Popper’s penguins could now hold their bowling tournaments on your kitchen counter tops. Provided they cleaned up after themselves when they were done.

7. There is not one single paperback on any of the 100 linear feet of built-in bookshelves in your house. Ditto for the 25 linear feet of shelving in various furniture items.

6. The carpeting in several rooms is now two different colors, in distinct rectangular patterns. To make the rooms look bigger, you had to get rid of several large pieces of furniture that had been in place for 18 years. Who remembered the original carpet color was deep blue, not faded slate?

5. All of the energy efficient helix light bulbs have been replaced with old-fashioned round ones, because incandescent light is more flattering to what is left of your decor.

4. The storage room in your basement looks like one of those little second-hand furniture sheds along a New England roadside. All it needs is a sign: “Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe,” and an elderly dog that smells like wet upholstery.

3. Your cats need psychiatric counseling because most of their favorite places to curl up have been banished to that basement room. It’s where they’ll also be banished when the house is being shown. When that happens, they’ll be glad their baskets and condos are down there.

2. Your husband can’t find any of his favorite things. If the house doesn’t sell quickly, he may need counseling, too. Or a basket in the basement storage room.

And the number one sign that a professional stager has prepped your house for sale:

1. You come back from one last staging errand and discover that your house keys no longer fit the locks.

Retirement Observations - Venice Expo as Metaphor

The inspiration for today’s post came from the New York Times review of the 54th Biennale in Venice, one of the world’s most respected art expositions. What caught my eye was the headline: “Old Patina Encircles Fresh Art in Venice.”

My immediate thought was: “I know what they mean. I feel like I’m an old patina encircling the young people I meet, now that I’m retired.” Not surprisingly, I was motivated to read the entire article. Talk about a treasure trove of metaphors for retirement! Let me give credit in advance to Times contributor, Carol Vogel, for being such a rich source of material and for my liberal excerpts from her write-up.

In her first paragraph, Ms. Vogel describes this Biennale as “more subdued and less experimental” than past ones. Compare my years immediately post-college with my current life and you’ll find that phrase is an appropriate subtitle for my autobiography. Vogel also calls the expo “a nostalgic meditation on life,” which could be a generic subtitle for almost any retiree’s reflections.

The Biennale’s curator, Bice Curiger, installed 16th century Venetian art at the expo’s entrance, specifically, works by Tintoretto. She described the “demolition of a static order, the loss of harmony” in his “Last Supper,” as evidenced by the fact that “Christ is no longer at the center of the scene, and the table lies diagonally across the painting.”

If that isn’t a metaphor for my retirement, I’ll eat my AARP membership card. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m now more likely to be on the sidelines of events than at the center. And I readily confess that if you put me anywhere near a horizontal surface about an hour after I’ve had lunch, you’re likely to find me lying diagonally across it before the mail has been delivered.

The Biennale has been described as bigger than ever, which is exactly what my internist found when he weighed me at my recent checkup. To use his words at the end of our semi-annual get together: “Your blood pressure’s fine. You’re generally in good health. It’s just that there’s too much of you.” Speaking of which…

One of Vogel’s more colorful items about the expo is her description of Jeff Koons’s sculpture “Fait d’Hiver,” as “a busty porcelain woman in a fishnet top being ogled by a porcelain pig and penguin.” Now that’s cutting a little too close to home. Oh, wait. It says “busty,” not “buttsy.”

And while we’re close to home, some of the language reminds me of my house during the staging process. Per Vogel, the Biennale had many off-site exhibits, “stuffed into abandoned churches, disused palaces and empty industrial buildings.” Or as I’d like to say of my belongings that the Realtors’ stager banished: “Stuffed into abandoned storage trunks, disused closets and empty drawers.” Fishnet stockings, anyone?

Japanese artist Tabaimo said his exhibit was about “receding into isolation in the face of globalization.” There are days when government functionaries and multinational corporations have me thinking Tabaimo is on to something, but the last thing I want to become is a hermit curmudgeon. There are already some role models for that in my life, and they’re not what Martha Stewart would call “a good thing.”

A similarly glass-half-empty point of view was expressed in the environmental commentary of Swiss artist, Thomas Hirschhorn. His installation was comprised of old computer screens, cell phones, plastic chairs and such, reflecting “a world of high-speed obsolescence.” I have nothing to say about fellow Swiss artist, Pipilotti Rist. I just love the name and wanted to include it in this post.

I prefer to focus on the commentaries of the glass-half-full members of the art world. Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, reportedly enjoyed the exposition, describing it as “chaotic, kaleidoscopic and exciting.” That sounds a lot more like the life I aspire to lead once I settle fully into retirement. I could do without the chaotic part, but I’m a realist. No matter how much I declutter and downsize, it’s unlikely I’ll completely escape chaos.

Vogel ended her review with a quote from Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, reflecting on the Hirschhorn installation. He described it as “an elegy toward postindustrialism.” His poetic observation: “As we glide into the simulated universe, real things take on a different, maybe even talismanic significance.”

Now there’s a thought I can sink my mental teeth into: real things becoming talismans in my retirement. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pour a generous glass of wine and glide off into a simulated universe. Preferably one without a porcelain pig.

Retirement Observations - Crazyville

The end of this week finds me worrying that we relocate to Crazyville around the time we reach retirement age. Take for example the news item about the 73 year old man from Southern Arizona who was so insane over the terms of his recent divorce that he went on a shooting rampage.

At the end of it, his ex-wife and her lawyer were both dead, as were three bystanders and the man himself. His death was a suicide. Apparently he built up his courage by practicing on the other victims. He had certainly practiced the divorce part, having been through four of them before calling it quits with the wife he shot. It’s unclear whether he tried to shoot any of his other exes.

I know what you’re thinking: “It must have been a hell of a divorce settlement.” Actually, the main issue was who got custody of their mobile home. The article did not specify whether it was a double-wide. The marriage lasted from 2002 to 2007, which made the shooter 64 to 69 during the union.

So, what made him go berserk this time around? And why now, if they split in 2007? Was the trailer that fabulously tricked out? Perhaps by the time he reached 73, this man from a farming community near Yuma had inhaled too much fertilizer. I think he simply moved closer to Crazyville as he got older.

Here’s another news item from the New York Times. A former Wall Street trader took his own life just a few days after one of his secretly taped conversations had been played in court. It supposedly implicated him in insider trading and the tape had been used to secure his cooperation in spying on his peers for the FBI.

His wife said he was “conflicted about his cooperation,” “worried about entrapping his friends” and depressed over losing his job; (his employer had found out about the spying.) This alone could explain why a 50 year old would hop on the train to Crazyville, but wait—there’s more.

Before agreeing to turn snitch, the man sought legal advice. His attorney counseled him to cooperate, but to tell no one else (again per the Times) except his rabbi and his (nonexistent) therapist. His attorney is now a chief assistant DA. Yet another example of a lawyer who helped punch the ticket to ride to suicide.

At least the trader didn’t kill his wife or others before he hung himself. Had he been ten years older, he would have been a lot closer to Crazyville and it would have ended with a lot more mess. The assistant DA should say his "thank you" prayers that the trader was fired and not retired.

If you read my Wednesday post, you’ll know I was dangerously close to reserving a seat on that Crazy train. The week ended better than it appeared it would. The second Realtors I interviewed came in with figures extremely close to the ones I’d put together and they had considerable data to support their proposal. That was the good news.

The bad news is their laundry list of things to fix. Beyond the financial consequences, there’s the net result that I won’t be able to list the house for at least two more weeks. Say goodbye to any buyers who want to close before their kids’ school terms begin.

On top of that, the agents brought their stager to tell me what more I need to thin/rearrange before anyone sees my gem of a home. Once again, the good news: I feel we’ll work well together. The bad news: I have about one third more furniture than he envisions being here when the house is ready to show.

Obviously, I plan to sell/donate a fair amount before we move, but I can’t stop my prepping to hold a tag sale. Where do the entertainment unit, tall curio cabinet, small TV cabinet, second sideboard, six high chairs and four doll carriages go in the meantime? (And that’s just the larger items.) I’m sure I’ll figure this out, but for the moment, it leaves me in a very precarious state of mind.

This is a dangerous place to be when one’s real estate agent says this about the listing process: “Once you put your house on the market, it no longer belongs to you; it belongs to the public.” Public indeed.

Fair warning to my husband: next stop Crazyville. Though I haven’t been dealing with any attorneys (yet), I have a feeling real estate agents will face the same risks once I get on that train.

Unless of course there’s a bar car that serves good quality red wine.

Retirement Downsizing - Getting to Zero

Today was D-day on my plans to downsize and sell our house. I met with the first group of realtors that I’m interviewing to decide where I’ll list. Since I’ve been attending a lot of open houses in my area as part of my “intelligence gathering,” I knew that the current trend is to strip the house to the architectural equivalent of its underwear. Turns out, they really want it to be in its birthday suit.

I’ve been decluttering and packing and labeling for weeks. But unless you saw the house before I started, you’d have no idea how much has been removed. I’ve been operating on the “s - - t flows downhill” premise. That is, I started on the third floor and moved all of its excess down to the next level or lower. Eventually, everything deemed expendable found its way to the basement, where one room has been turned into what looks like a bomb shelter after the explosion.

Today’s tag team of realtors told me to keep on decluttering and to pack up all my dolls. I have an antique doll collection. Some are displayed in glass enclosed cases; some are posed in children’s and doll’s furniture. I got a reprieve on the ones that are encased. I assume that once the others have been packed away, there will be no reason to keep their empty furniture on display. (Joe, it looks like you were right after all.)

Part of the agents’ rationale for this is that I’m going to have to pack it all up when I move anyway. True. I’m also going to have to pack up my husband’s Jockey shorts, but that doesn’t mean I expect him to go commando for the next few months.

Perhaps it’s just the contrarian in me, but I don’t understand the psychology of convincing someone this is a house their family will want to make into their home by pretending the people living here now have not made it theirs. The open houses that are professionally staged appear sterile. Or, as I like to put it, they look like the house has had a lobotomy.

I’d much rather look at a house that has some warmth, that seems lived in. We’re not in ancient Sparta, after all. And I'd like it to have a little more personality than Jack Nicholson did at the end of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Besides, how many people really want to be able to roll a bowling ball down their kitchen counter top anyway?

Don’t get me wrong. I know you have to leave some things to the imagination. And I understand that pictures of our entire extended family can be a distraction. I packed them up long ago. Well, most of them. I have one picture of each of our closer relatives still on display. That adds to about a dozen, but they’re interspersed with other items on a wall full of built in bookcases.

I’m willing to pack up those family photos, too, if I’m forced to do so. But if you think I’m packing up the ones of my deceased cats, or rolling the custom made pottery jars with their ashes downhill to the basement bomb shelter, think again. There are some things that are just non-negotiable.

I’d sooner put away my wine rack, and you know how likely that is to happen. Speaking of which, I think it’s time to sit back with a nice glass of Italian red. After all, dear Scarlet, tomorrow is another day. And another real estate agent is coming in the morning. Can't wait.

Retirement Downsizing - Getting Down to Nothing

As most of you know, the last few weeks have been focused on getting rid of 18 years of clutter in the house. You’ve probably heard me mention that it’s like the loaves and the fishes. As of last weekend, I wouldn’t say I was feeling smug, but I was definitely feeling satisfied that I was making progress. Then came Sunday.

Sunday is the big day for open houses. I go to a few each week to get a sense of what the competition will be for my house when it’s finally listed. An open house can also provide some ideas for staging. The two things any good real estate agent will likely tell me are: focus on curb appeal and get rid of the clutter.

Those who are in my house on any regular basis will attest that over the past few weeks I’ve made significant progress decluttering. But I’ll bet that any realtor worth her commission would ask me when I plan to start clearing out stuff. This was driven home to me in spades after I went through the houses that were open last weekend.

I came home and sank into a deep funk. The two houses most comparable to mine had not one thing on their kitchen counters. Nothing. The only reason you can’t write messages in the dust on my counters is that they’re so covered with stuff you can’t get at them.

I set about packing my cookbooks, which were gobbling up much of the counter real estate. Many of you are shocked that I own any cookbooks, given that I never cook. There’s a reason I don’t. My husband is so attached to his store that we rarely have dinner together. There’s not a lot of Joy of Cooking for One, no matter what Irma Rombauer says. Since I expect more family dinners once we downsize to Vermont, I’m keeping most of the cookbooks.

After the books were packed and I’d cleaned the aforementioned dust, I surveyed the counter. On a relative basis, it looked great, but it was a far cry from being clear. This propelled me into one of my philosophical musings. (Well, to be accurate, this plus a glass of Chianti Classico.)

The point of those pristine counters is to present a metaphorical tabula rasa to a potential buyer. The message is that the house is a clean slate, awaiting the new beginnings of your family, dear buyer. Just imagine what you could imprint onto this space!

While I can appreciate this from a marketing perspective, I still have to live in the house while it’s on the market. I must admit that, as I sit in the rooms that have been thinned out considerably, I feel a certain calm that my previously-cluttered style did not offer. I’m sure there’s some feng shui operating here.

After awhile, I begin to feel like a stranger in my own home. There is a difference between calming and comforting. My home has always been my cocoon. Pictures of extended family used to crowd the horizontal spaces in most rooms. These are now all packed away. It occurs to me that I’ve lost my visual “comfort food.”

This is somewhat surprising, when you consider that I used to look at the group photo of my aunts and think: “Please, God, don’t let me grow up to look like Aunt Lucrezia.” Now that she’s in a box in the basement, with other beloved relatives who have long ago shed their mortal coil, I miss her. She is, after all, family. My family.

Realtors will pressure you into getting rid of all evidence that you have a family, with little regard to what this might do to your psyche. Fie on them! They have me torn between aggressively pursuing the perfectly staged house and preserving at least some token evidence that this is still my home.

I guess there’s really only one way to solve this dilemma, and that’s to open another bottle of Chianti. Alla famiglia! (Especially Aunt Lucrezia.)