Downsizing

Downsizing.  We've been thinking that for a few years now, but only as a concept.  But suddenly, it moved from much more than a concept to a reality.

We’d just finished lunch on a Sunday in early December when Gail suggested we drive past Katie's house.  Katie had just moved in to a condo complex and she was going to be hosting Bible Study on Monday night.  Since she had never been there, and it is easy to get lost in most condo complexes, we decided to drive by. 

“Hey, isn’t that Steve from Church?”  Steve’s picture was on the For Sale sign in front of a condo as we drove by.  We had been considering downsizing and had been slowly pruning our belongings.  We sold our camper since we hadn’t used it in a few years, and I had begun the process of selling off some excess Lego (shocking!). 

Steve’s a pretty low-key Real Estate professional and when we called him up, we said we were interested in the condo life, but were not really in the market just yet.  He agreed to meet us over at the condo that afternoon. 

Of course, when we got there, Gail texted Katie that we were touring the condo, and got an immediate “We’ll be right over” response.  The group of us wandered through the 80’s style condo and kind of made fun of some of the design choices. 

The next night, Gail and I were talking and the one thing that we really liked about this condo was the location.  The back deck looks over a local nature preserve.  It only had two bedrooms, but it had a large living area, and huge garage and shop area under the house.  I took out a pad of paper and we wrote down what we would need to get rid of to fit into a condo of that size.  There were some painful choices on the left behind list, but it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t live with.  So, we called Steve back and asked if we could tour the condo again, with an attitude of “Do we want to live here?” 

The second time through, we started envisioning furniture placements, which walls to remove, what flooring to replace, how drastically the bathrooms and kitchens could change, and the like.  After discussion, we put a reasonable offer on the house.  The sellers accepted the offer and we started the dance with the banks, insurance companies, escrow companies, inspectors, repairmen, interior designers and the like. 

Suddenly, downsizing is a reality.