2/30 The Return of Project Empty

[darkemeralds]

Consultation with my sister the realtor has convinced me that there's no meaningful advantage in selling my house and moving to a condo. The only gain--that of no longer having a garden to waste water on attend to--would be amply offset by losses. I can't actually downsize--my house is already smaller than a lot of condos. I can't reduce my monthly rent by enough to matter. And in my price range I can't possibly improve on my inner-city location.

So I'm staying. But one brilliant idea emerged from the few weeks where I was thinking about moving: I'm gonna play dead and have an estate sale. Turns out there are businesses--reputable local businesses of long standing--that will broker, sell, donate or discard every single thing in a house and leave it "broom clean and ready to sell". They document everything, take a cut, and write you a check.

I'm gonna rent a POD, put a select few items in it, take a vacation to the beach, and let the estate sale agents go to town. Then I'm going to move back in with my few items and start all over again.

I'm hoping to accomplish this before I retire.

Comments

[scribblemoose]

That sounds like a fantastic way of making a fresh start.

[darkemeralds]

That's how it feels. Project Empty Phase 1 resulted in a massive clearing-out of my house, but it wasn't 100%. There were areas I couldn't clear, just emotionally--stuff I wasn't ready to get rid of. In the years since then I've outgrown a lot of those attachments. And, of course, I've accumulated a few more things (though the original project truly broke the habit). The prospect of shutting my eyes and letting someone just clear the decks for me is enormously liberating.

[grrlpup]

Brilliant! I'm going to remember this trick.

[darkemeralds]

I'll be reporting on it. I hope it works out!

[branchandroot]

Oh wow. That would definitely give you a fresh start! What a good way to make your living space new.

[darkemeralds]

In previous decluttering phases I've always started with "What can go?" as I think most people do. This approach began with "What can stay?" It's a very different mindset. Suddenly all kinds of immovable life-objects become eminently disposable!

[ruric]

I admire your approach. I'm still a bit too attached to my *stuff* to be quite so radical. I am spending rest of next week when I get back to London blitzing my attic though!

[darkemeralds]

This is definitely a new round. The massive de-cluttering I undertook a few years ago had huge psychological effects, and I needed to live with it for quite a while before I could see that if a little decluttering was good, all of it might be better.

Even so, as I contemplate what will go into the PODS unit and what will stay in the house for the estate sale people to make vanish, I find that my mind sticks on certain things, and I'm already expanding my list of "definite keepers".

We'll see...

[hunningham]

Wow! This is so deeply scary that I could not even contemplate doing this. I like my things. But I'm so interested in how it will go

[darkemeralds]

Well, I haven't actually done it yet, so it's possible that I'll be too scared, too. But all in all, I'm finding the prospect exhilarating more than scary.

[amaliedageek]

This does sound fun!

I've always assumed that we'd be paying for any move we made, so my attitude towards things has been "Is it worth $1 per minute to move this?" A lot of boxes were emptied after that.

[darkemeralds]

That's an excellent perspective to take. I found that there was a vast difference, both logical and emotional, between deciding what to get rid of from a house full of stuff, and deciding what to add back to an empty house. The latter results in a much smaller pile!

[tehomet]

Groovy idea.

[darkemeralds]

Sadly, Project Pay Someone To Sell All My Stuff has failed to work out. I'm back to piece-parting out the big stuff on my own time, and probably giving away the little stuff.