Ok, so we don't have it all figured out but we have finally decided upon some direction.
Here is what we're going to do:
1. Allow our daughter to keep nearly all of her stuff. That includes furniture, toys, and her army of stuffed animals. We figure that aside from the furniture, all of her stuff would fit into about 4-5 boxes. Here's why: keeping some normalcy and familiarity will help Olivia cope with this big change. It will help ease her into our new lifestyle.
2. Mark and I will both downsize our personal possessions. These include clothing, hobby-stuff, and any other individual-specific gear. Here's why: During a typical month, we really don't use a lot of the stuff we have boxed up in the basement or packed onto our shelves. We probably use only about a 25% of our stuff on a regular basis. Why keep stuff we don't use?
3. Attack the contents of our house one room at a time.
The Kitchen: The majority of what we chose to keep is in the kitchen. Big surprise, right? The stuff we won't keep includes items with motors or other moving pieces. This is due to the voltage difference between US appliances and Chilean power supply. Stuff with motors would likely burn out in Chile. Some of these things we will need to order ahead of time while others, we will purchase in Chile. Examples include: our KitchenAid mixer (ordering in advance because it's cheaper in the US) and our toaster (buy in Chile).
The Living Room: We will keep our TV and gaming systems. We will sell all furniture.
Our Bedroom: We don't have much in our bedroom other than my beloved bed. I really do love that thing. However, I don't think we will be able to take the bed with us - even tough we only have a single (really nice) mattress on the floor. We will just have to buy a new one in Chile. Our mattress is seven years old, after all, purchased with our wedding gift money. Other than that, are our clothes and bedside tables.
The Basement: We will keep all of our camping and sports equipment. These things are expensive and in good repair. Although used seasonally, these things were purchased to last a lifetime. We can continue to use these for a long time. Other basement contents include a freezer which we'll be giving to my parents and boxes of personal stuff which we'll be downsizing per #2 above.
The Bathrooms: Most of this stuff will go.
The Office: We will go through our file cabinets and shred all old documents and all utility bills that will no longer matter after we sell the house. We will retain tax documents, school loans (ugh), title info our our cars, insurance policies, and anything else of lasting import.
The Garage: This is Mark's space so he'll need to tackle this one alone. Inside the garage, is his workbench and cabinets which he'll give to my parents, oodles of tools, and his beloved wood collection. Much like how we handled the kitchen, Mark will be selecting which tools he can take to Chile and which will live in my parents' garage while we're gone. This will be difficult for him because he has worked so hard on this space.
4. With all the stuff we decided not to take to Chile, we will have a yard sale. Anything that doesn't sell will be donated. Anything we can't donate will go into the front yard with a "Free" sign and will hopefully magically disappear before the end of the week. And finally, the step we both hate the most, anything we can't get rid of any other way will go to the dump.
(Caption: our front yard at the end of our two-day yard sale in late May).
Here is what we're going to do:
1. Allow our daughter to keep nearly all of her stuff. That includes furniture, toys, and her army of stuffed animals. We figure that aside from the furniture, all of her stuff would fit into about 4-5 boxes. Here's why: keeping some normalcy and familiarity will help Olivia cope with this big change. It will help ease her into our new lifestyle.
2. Mark and I will both downsize our personal possessions. These include clothing, hobby-stuff, and any other individual-specific gear. Here's why: During a typical month, we really don't use a lot of the stuff we have boxed up in the basement or packed onto our shelves. We probably use only about a 25% of our stuff on a regular basis. Why keep stuff we don't use?
3. Attack the contents of our house one room at a time.
The Kitchen: The majority of what we chose to keep is in the kitchen. Big surprise, right? The stuff we won't keep includes items with motors or other moving pieces. This is due to the voltage difference between US appliances and Chilean power supply. Stuff with motors would likely burn out in Chile. Some of these things we will need to order ahead of time while others, we will purchase in Chile. Examples include: our KitchenAid mixer (ordering in advance because it's cheaper in the US) and our toaster (buy in Chile).
The Living Room: We will keep our TV and gaming systems. We will sell all furniture.
Our Bedroom: We don't have much in our bedroom other than my beloved bed. I really do love that thing. However, I don't think we will be able to take the bed with us - even tough we only have a single (really nice) mattress on the floor. We will just have to buy a new one in Chile. Our mattress is seven years old, after all, purchased with our wedding gift money. Other than that, are our clothes and bedside tables.
The Basement: We will keep all of our camping and sports equipment. These things are expensive and in good repair. Although used seasonally, these things were purchased to last a lifetime. We can continue to use these for a long time. Other basement contents include a freezer which we'll be giving to my parents and boxes of personal stuff which we'll be downsizing per #2 above.
The Bathrooms: Most of this stuff will go.
The Office: We will go through our file cabinets and shred all old documents and all utility bills that will no longer matter after we sell the house. We will retain tax documents, school loans (ugh), title info our our cars, insurance policies, and anything else of lasting import.
The Garage: This is Mark's space so he'll need to tackle this one alone. Inside the garage, is his workbench and cabinets which he'll give to my parents, oodles of tools, and his beloved wood collection. Much like how we handled the kitchen, Mark will be selecting which tools he can take to Chile and which will live in my parents' garage while we're gone. This will be difficult for him because he has worked so hard on this space.
4. With all the stuff we decided not to take to Chile, we will have a yard sale. Anything that doesn't sell will be donated. Anything we can't donate will go into the front yard with a "Free" sign and will hopefully magically disappear before the end of the week. And finally, the step we both hate the most, anything we can't get rid of any other way will go to the dump.
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