Pivot - About Face

Regular readers have asked me to share about the experience of relocating a home and office, and music studio... and honestly... I'm actually pleased anyone is even interested in hearing about it.  

How it began...

Back in late March 2023, Dave and I began discussions about downsizing our life, home and belongings in preparation for a less stressful lifestyle, and to set up for the upcoming stage of semi-retirement.  When you are an entrepreneur, run the business through your home, grow and process most of the fresh produce the family needs, work in a band at night, teach students and hold a day job... the day-to-day grind can become stressful. While we love every minute of the hard work, we noticed that we are gradually slowing down - able to do less in the same amount of time, and feel physical work much more these days. 

It was time to re-evaluate our lifestyle. 

This would not mean quitting, or giving up on anything - it simply meant creating a more comfortable environment that will suit our upcoming needs.

There were signs.

Depression had become a regular presence in my life again. The physical pain from the effects of hard work on old injuries (etc.) and not having a real holiday for a decade was wearing us down.  Twice, my leg just stopped working in the middle of going down the flight of stairs to the basement. Then the TIA happened (mini-stroke) and luckily - haha - this was mixed with the effects of menopause and the pressures of being an entrepreneur. Then there was that growing list of things that needed to be done to our former property or home ... and we were just plain exhausted. 

Something had to give. 

So back in March 2023 we began to downsize belongings, organizing storage areas and make the property even more "low-maintenance".  Still, by February 2024 we were getting closer to looking seriously at downsizing our home. We met with a real estate agent just to tentatively test the market, to learn if our home was ready for listing perhaps next year, and if the market was hungry for it in its current condition. As it turned out, the market was voracious for houses with properties like ours. 

We arranged to hire a fantastic agent (Tyler Hancock) and as the paperwork was getting filed, he had already told colleagues about the listing. One of those colleagues of his had a motivated and very interested buyer. So before the home was uploaded on the agent's website, it was already sold - pending subject removal. It took a couple weeks to go from signing with the agent to removing the subjects, before then the "sold" sign went up. 

That was FAST!

With just 5 weeks before the buyers took over the property, the heavy work began. Of course it was tax season too, so we had income tax work, lawyer, notary and accountant and real estate agent appointments every week. I was on the phone with my older brother getting advice once again. (Thank you, Larry !!!) ...It was a crazy time. 

We lucked out in several ways however:

- We found the perfect place for us to move in to (more on this in the next post).

- Dave's band-mates helped us move the largest items in just a couple hours. 

- We also found the perfect location for the music studio/drum repair shop! (Watch for the upcoming blog post about Dave's studio!)

~~~   

Follow & Find Books: 

on Amazon

Visit: 

Drum It With Brummet Blog

Subscribe: 

Brummet Media​ YouTube Channel​ ​

~~~