We are 10 weeks away from the end of our apartment lease and have started to downsize, again. This is where things are getting real; real difficult that is. As we prepare to move onto Utopia, we are also trying to maintain our lives here in Tallahassee, meaning we need to get rid of everything, yet we still need work clothes and some furniture to sit and sleep on. The timing of what to get rid of and when is a big puzzle making Downsizing Round Two to be tricker than Round One.
Round One of downsizing started in earnest a few months after getting the offer on our Shell Point home. It was a pretty overwhelming feeling knowing that we needed to get rid of most of our belongings that were spread across 3,000 sf and a 2-car garage.
About a year before this, I had learned about a downsizing course that a member of The Boat Galley podcast had taken called Downsizing for a Life Afloat. The cost was around $100, with a claim that you will recoup this selling your stuff, and I signed up for it in June 2022. After a chapter on the psychology of downsizing, the course breaks the process down into manageable steps:
Getting rid of junk and things you can easily let go of
Sorting things room by room into four categories:
Goes on Boat
Donate or give away
Sell
Storage
Selling your belongings
Managing your digital life
Step 1 was not too bad and can be considered a warmup for what was to follow. Sorting everything in Step 2 was a challenge since we started to make some serious decisions, which often involved negations between Jimmy and me. As more time passed, it was much easier to come to the same conclusion about what to do with our stuff. Eventually we agreed to go do all of this without renting a storage unit. If we were to store anything, it would be by using plastic bins stored at a family or friend’s house.
For example, one of the more difficult pieces for us to part with was our cherished dining room table. This thing was a massive, beautiful piece of woodwork that we did not want to part with. However, we could not figure out what to do with it when we did not know when we will stop our cruising phase. The cost of placing it into storage would have paid for the table in a few years, so we decided to let go of it and listed the table on Facebook Marketplace. The buyer and I messaged back and forth a bit before she agreed to drive to Shell Point to pick up the table. Jimmy and I met her in the driveway, and when she got out of the truck, she introduced herself by saying, “Hi, I’m Angela”. As my brain was noting that was the correct name, something in the back of my head was trying to figure something out. That was when Jimmy exclaimed, very cheerfully “Angela!!! You used to work at Genisis!” It turned out that the women I had been messaging back and forth with all this time was a former coworker. It was so cool to know that the table that we loved so much was going to a long-lost friend.
Aside from surprising moments like this, the selling portion of the process took a lot of work and a lot of time, and was not terribly enjoyable. In the end, we made enough money to cover the cost of hiring a moving company to transfer our living room set, bedroom furniture and our boxes from the three-story house in Shell Point to our 9th floor apartment in Tallahassee. And that does not count the funds from selling my car in January 2022, making us a one car family.
This first time around, we moved into a 700-sf apartment, which has a lot more room than a boat. Items that made it to the apartment have been the more sentimental pieces, or items that are still used a good bit. Making Downsizing Round Two a little challenging.
Round Two of this downsizing process is taking place roughly two years after the first go around. We have been in our apartment for about 18 months and have used that time to kind of mentally prepare for Round Two.
Now we have begun the downsizing effort in earnest again. To get it kicked off, I pulled out that downsizing course and have been running through the steps once again.
During Steps 1 & 2, we started swapping our nicer kitchen supplies in the apartment with the items we had on the boat. We also took photos of items not going to the boat, and sent links to family to give them the first option to request anything they might be interested in. Then begins Step 3, the selling phase…
Learning from the first time around, I am only listing at most three items a time on Facebook marketplace. Just three listings can fill your time up sorting between scammers, those just curious, and those who are really interested in a purchase. The selling phase may have just begun, and I am already weary. We plan to stop by Habitat ReStore to see what donations they are taking. We also want to ask if they would come to the apartment to pick up the heavy items: couch set, dresser, and TV console. These items are listed for sale, and for pick up only, but we are not holding our breath that they will actually sell.
As I mentioned before, the timing of when to get rid of items is a big puzzle. Since rehoming the large items is a concern to us, we have them listed for sale now, this far away from moving day. Once our couch set goes, we will need to sit on the floor or bring our outside chairs inside. The couch set serves as Jimmy’s work-at-home office furniture, so if they should sell, he would to either use the apartment building’s business center or just give up remote work. If the dresser sells, we will need to place his clothing into milk crates and plastic bins. Next could be our shoe storage crate, or our bedside nightstands. At least we do not plan to sell the bed, and it cannot be donated, so it can be taken down to the trash area of our apartment complex on our last morning: Monday, October 16.
We are also working on other miscellaneous tasks ahead of our departure. The house Luann had lived in is up for sale and that should be gone by the end of August.
Then there was my resignation from the Wakulla County Fire Rescue. I started the process to become a volunteer firefighter in 2015 and this week I sent an email resigning as a volunteer firefighter. Today I dropped off my bunker gear and radio at the firehouse in Shell Point (Apalachee Bay, Station 4), and was surprised to find myself a little emotional. I really enjoyed my time with ABVFD & WCFR.
This was followed by attending the Apalachee Bay Yacht Club monthly member meeting where it was so good seeing friends we had not talked to since spring. It turns out while we were there, they asked if we would be able to do a presentation about our plans at future member meeting before we leave and we agreed to come back for the October 7 meeting. So if you are a regular reader here, no need to attend the October meeting, because we will probably just rehash all of this in that presentation.
So, the next 10 weeks will be interesting as our apartment becomes bare and I learn to live with just a photo of some sentimental items. We are sure we will be glad to have started the process early, instead of trying to do too much closer to departure day. We’ll need to address our work offices sometime as well. Note that we plan to have a few plastic bins of things that we could not yet part with waiting for us when we do decide to come back to land. Anyway, this is an interesting crossroads of saying goodbye, and being excited about the next chapter.
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