This is the getting ready to sell part. Sorting out 30 years and several small businesses and well as many hobbies. This will probably take several blogs to tell the whole story.
Many people have asked us about the process, so this is what we did from my viewpoint.
We have made our living as artists for the last three decades. That puts us in the rarified air of the 10% who make a living with their art. It was not a plush living, there were lots of ups and downs and sometimes the Boss was a real jerk. But we always figured that our 2 acre property with a lovely refurbished house and our gorgeous strawbale studio that we built would be our retirement.
The big plan was to sell up and retire overseas. So we started in January of 2025 - we had to retire then as we had lost so many of our stockists (ugh - I hate that word - the stores who bought our jewelry to sell in their stores - better) to Covid and further to just the general decline in retail sales.
We spent several months working every day, long hours to get everything sale ready. You know how all those projects that you mean to get to soon - they build up, well, they all came due pretty much at once.
I ordered a shipping crate and we packed what we were planning on having shipped over into that. It was in the side of the house, next to the driveway. Very convenient.
So the first clue that things were not going as smoothly as we might want were two separate times that we had people crash their cars into our property. We are on a curve. In February she just spaced out somehow and smashed into the gates that close off our driveway. Total destruction. She was mostly fine but we certainly urged her to go get checked out. So fought her insurance company but eventually got about $.25 on the Dollar for the destruction. So that extra work.
In April, a knucklehead took out the arrow curve sign and the phone company tower but declined to stay and own up to the damage. Luckily, all of this was the County's troubles, but several phone calls since no one reported
We keep working along painting, hiring folks to do stuff we couldn't or didn't want to do and packing up what we wanted to keep.
We sold a few things on FB Marketplace and it went about as how you'd expect. People wanting to pay less and have you deliver, people wondering if it's still available then ghosting, people making appointments and then ghosting.
The plan became to work with an Estate Sale company. In my mind, I'd just sort of drift around the house picking up the things I wanted to keep. Yeah, not so much. The basement was full of 30+ years of my finely honed Pack Rattery. I was raised by farm people who barely survived the Great Depression and everything can be reused or repurposed. It was my mess and it was my job to sort it out. It was grim. I hold my memories in my stuff so it was a water cannon to my heart to go through everything.
We cleaned and organized and did our best to make the experience a good one. We tried really hard to not save much stuff but there are tools and such that we didn't feel that we could replace overseas.
Then we grabbed the dogs and left for a week while a lot of strangers sorted through our stuff and put price tags on everything. Then held a two day sale.
Leaving was required, so I planned a trip to Mesa Verde and then a couple of days where we could soak in hot springs. It was our first time travelling with the pooches and wow, was it complicated and expensive. But we sure love them.
If we wanted to pay extra, a guy would come in after the sale and throw everything that didn't sell away. I was super not into that, and (foreshadowing - I'm really glad I didn't pay extra for this service.)
As we were driving back home, the Estate Sale Lady texted me "There is a lot left."
As I had thought about this process, one of my big fears was that we'd be sitting on the recliner that we said they couldn't sell, eating cold beans out of a can with plastic spoons while we waited for the house to sell.
That did not come to pass.
There was so much left. She made about $18,000 and we got a check for about $7,000. Things sold that we told them not to sell and things we were sure would sell were still sitting there. All in all, this is my thought on Estate Sales: they are difficult and if you plan on going back into the house, it's a lot of work.
I'm not sure what else we could have done as we had a lot of stuff.
But trying to move back into our house was really uncomfortable and they just took their tables and walked away.
They did recommend a person who works directly with people in dire need who might take things. We called her and she came out with her giant panel truck which we filled almost twice. We were super grateful and the staging and the pictures for the listing were scheduled like a week after the Estate Sale. That time is a big blur for me now. I wish I had been more present for it but I guess my heart decided it would be a really great time to disassociate.
Okay, enough for now. We are in the end of May 2025
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