Weekend of Downsizing and Painting

Today was our family reunion which is held annually in Southern Missouri. I decided to stay home this year. Weekends are valuable commodities around here. Especially with just about a year left before we move on to the great RV adventure. Spent the time downsizing and painting.

Selling the motorcycle is among four things I’d like to get done before purchasing our dually truck.  Selling the hot tub happened a few weeks ago. Yesterday the motorcycle left the driveway and I was not riding it!   SOLD…

This was one of many bikes I’ve owned. Had one since I was 18 years old. This latest bike was a big 1500cc which Karen and I much enjoyed riding through the scenic hills that surround our home. Sold it to a friend of a friend. I’ve actually had good luck selling stuff to co-workers and their friends. They all know we are leaving next year.  Sold a freezer to a co-worker’s daughter. She thanked us for the great deal, how clean the freezer was and the fact she had a young family and can now shop for bulk foods.  Win – Win deal for sure.

I should add an update regarding the truck I found in Springfield Missouri. It sold before I had a chance to make a move on it.  Was not meant to happen I’m sure. A part of me really wants to stick to a schedule leading to the purchase. However, after a lot, and I mean a lot, of shopping around I can say it’s fairly difficult to find a decent used truck equipped the way you want for hauling heavy loads. If I had to do it all over again, I’d figure out a way to be in a better position financially to buy a truck when I find it. We are debt free as of last January and I really don’t want to change that with a truck loan.  Meanwhile, our truck fund is growing so that’s a good thing.

I’ve been surfing the web for new blogs to read.  It’s an easy search in that for the most part I just hop over to blogs I follow and look at their list of other blogs they happened to follow. Especially from the list of bloggers who happened to be over-planners like myself. Here is a list of blogs I follow in case you are looking for a few to read.  I have several more bookmarked and check in on them every couple months.

At this point in planning what works good for me is to take a look at a blogger’s lists of past postings, selecting one that is written in the same time period we are at right now. For example, as we are into heavy downsizing and selling stuff off, I tend to be attracted to those pages. Finding all kinds of tricks and hints others are using. A blogger mentioned using Freecycle.org to get rid of personal belongings. Although the program is international, our local group does not appear to be very large. Check it out for your area. Basically, Freecycle is a not-for-profit created years ago to reduce the amount of materials going to landfills. Everything listed is free for the taking or giving. Another lead I got off a blog was Bagster.com. Here you buy very large bags and a boom truck comes around to haul them off.  Might be cheaper than a dumpster. Personally, I may just borrow a dump trailer from a friend once we have our truck for a trip to the local landfill. Already did the dumpster thing back in June when at the time we had plenty to fill it.  Dumpster are so convenient.

As I wrote earlier, we skipped the family reunion this year and spent time painting on the outside of the house. Believe I’ll never use a paint brand again other than Sherwin-Williams. It may sound funny but I had it down as a goal to paint one side of the house each year for the past four years. I’m behind schedule. Thankfully we are painting everything the same color and using a high quality paint so one coat coverage may be the time saver we are needing.  Karen read where if you paint something blue it will cut down on the number of bugs that cling to a surface. It works.. She painted the ceiling of our porch as an experiment a few years ago. 

I repainted the blue ceiling with the local Ace Hardware paint she had originally used. Took about 25% more effort compared to the better Sherwin-Williams paint I’ve been using on the remainder of the house. You can’t see the blue ceiling from the street or sidewalk for that matter. So it does not stand out unless you are underneath it. Then it’s rather attractive.

I’ve sold three houses I’ve lived in. I painted all three.  A brush and roller are the main tools in my opinion after trying all the gadgets.  I really like the How to Paint a House Videos for tutorials. And here is a video on cleaning a roller and paint brush. This guy has it right. I personally don’t use a wire brush to clean a paint brush unless it has a lot of dry paint on it and then I also apply paint thinner. If you trust your method to clean a brush and roller completely then it’s not so hard to swallow the price of a decent roller and brush.

We are hiring a contractor to paint a taller side of the house because I don’t have the proper ladders for that. And now that I’m old I don’t bounce very well when falling off ladders.

We have one other blue ceiling in our home. I know it can be risky to “experiment” with colors in a home when you are looking to sell. We certainly have appreciated the differences while living here.  We added the sunroom maybe 10 years ago. The ceiling is vaulted so you don’t see it until you are in the room.

Approach from Kitchen to Sun Room

Blue Ceiling in Sun Room

It’s a little difficult to see in these photos. From our kitchen you walk into the sunroom through a cased opening seen in the left photo. The photo on the right is the blue ceiling. This is actually a relatively expensive option for paint. Because it’s applied by the drywaller. First you paint the ceiling a flat color. Blue in this case, although a pale yellow is beautiful as well. Then the drywaller adds white paint with his ceiling texture before spraying it on the ceiling. Really gives the room an open and airy feeling.

Karen enjoys this room on a daily basis. When we starting using our third bedroom/office for a staging area to sort junk, she moved her desk into the sunroom. Now she gets to look across the back yard towards the treed hillside. Next year we both should have views like that – out our future RV windows.

Karen’s view from her desk – Nice

Karen says our cousin Kathy posted photos of the family reunion. Believe I’ll head over to Facebook to check them out.

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