It’s been an especially busy 2017 for our family, and it started with our first move since 2004. After years of waffling about whether to extensively remodel our 1940’s brick house or sell it, we began interviewing real estate agents in late January with the intention of listing our house in April. Five chaotic weeks later we had accepted an offer on our old house and found our new one.
Sorting through nearly 13 years of possessions, memories (and a lot of junk) is not easy, but necessary. It took a rainy garage sale, some interesting Craig’s list encounters and untold trips to our favorite donation stops, but we made it. Though it never feels like it when you’re in the process, all things considered it was a smooth move. It’s only been five months, but so far the new place has been everything we hoped. Below are some thoughts from Vivian:
By Vivian — We moved into our new house around the end of spring break, in April. In our new neighborhood there is a pool, and that is why Nathan got excited to move into this new house. I like the fact that I have a few friends in my grade that live in this neighborhood that I can hang out with. I believe my parents liked the benefit that we are not far from my school, and the fact that me and Nathan both had friends here and could go to the pool.
The school that we live across the street from (the middle school, grades 7-8) was Nathan’s — but only for the last month of school. He was in eighth grade going into ninth grade. From our old house he could have walked to the high school, but he was excited to walk home from the middle school to the new house. He was doing tennis towards the end of the school year and us moving made it pretty easy to get home, as in my parents didn’t have to worry about him getting home.
So I was in fifth grade at the time, and am now in sixth grade. The school that I am still going to (the intermediate, grades 4-6) is very close to our new house as well. I am excited to walk to school, but I have to get through a whole year before I can do that though. Another plus is that there are people in my grade or around my age in this neighborhood. Where we had lived before I was the youngest on our street, and by the time I was in fifth grade our neighbors were in high school.
In my opinion one of the good things about living here for my dad is that once he finishes work, he can walk. My dad at the old house liked to walk our dog Trixie because it’s a good exercise for him and she enjoys it. At the new house there are three blocks that he can walk on and it probably would equal half a mile. Also there is a park that he likes to walk to and from called Bellingham. And with our new fenced yard he can stay outside with the dogs and play with them after he’s finished working.
Some of the benefits for my mom moving here is her closet space, her being able to park the car in the garage, her being able to have a shoe rack, and just things like that. It’s not like moving here helped her with her commute to work, because we moved about two miles away from where we lived before. At our old house our garage was at the back of our house so we used it as a extra part of our basement, because it was not near our driveway. So my mom had to get into either a freezing car or a steaming hot car. Also our parents had fairly small closets and my mom had her shoes next to her dresser because she had nowhere left to put them. And now she has a giant closet and a shoe rack.
Those are just a few of the reasons that making this move was a good idea. I mean, as you can see this move made a fairly big improvement for our entire family’s life. I was reluctant at first to move, but obviously my parents have made a great decision.
The Sutherlands 