Well, the realtor wants to list the house this coming Thursday. Seems pretty sure it will sell in a couple of weeks. Hope He's right.
Just finished taking the layout down and cleaning up the mess. Taking a break right now. My Wife came downstairs last night, started crying, and hasn't been back down here since. Really hitting her hard. Anyway, back to work.
MPZ......falling prices, low interest rates, a huge glut of available new and existing homes, and motivated sellers. Your timing couldn't be better. The subprime loan debacle and rising unemployment are a tragedy for some but an opportunity for others.
This is perhaps an opportunity you may never see again. Good luck !!!
Jack
IF IT WON'T COME LOOSE BY TAPPING ON IT, DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT. USE A BIGGER HAMMER.
mpzpw3 wrote:Well, it looks like we have decided it's time to move. The realtor is coming over tomorrow to look at our house. Guess the layout is coming down, along with all my shelves of stuff. We are looking at upgrading houses, so hopefully I will have more room in a new house. It's just a little sad looking around at the layout and all my neat stuff, and thinking about boxing it up. Really mixed emotions about all this, but the neighborhood is going down fast (about 2 years after we moved here, a investor started buying all the houses in the "hood", and literally turned it into the "hood".), and we need a little more room anyway. I'm ready to move, I'm ready for a new layout (bigger!!!!), and the thrill of laying track and scenery, but a little nostalgia for the current one still exists. Not to mention the upcoming stress.
Good Luck on your move, and yes it is stressful! Turned down a job because of a move from Mich to Georgia... just was not worth it. Maybe a few people can share a few moving hints to pack up the trains and layout... all I know is let the experience folk move the heavy stuff... its worth the extra bills than to have an injury....
I think your wife and mine must be long lost sister , wow sounds like mine for sure.
We lived in a place that was over run by drugs as well and I got so *** sick of it I bought a house a mile in the woods on the side of a mountain and bought 200 acres of forrest around me so that it can't be built on, that was for my wife and she don't really say anything about my train hobby, she encourages me to do it so what if it cost everything I had for the house that we have been fixing up for the last two years it has already doubled in value but I can't stand New England winters and want to move back to the Deserts of AZ.
It'll take some time but once I can sell this place for a deceint price I'll be moving and my layout will be crated up and hauled over the road to a nice desert home where my Santa Fe lines will not look so out of place....
It is all about having fun and I don't know what I'd do with out my train time.
I work as a heavy trauma Emt and my train addiction is my stress beater.
Yes, I think taking the wife along is a good idea. She can help you pick out all the new wrong paint colors and all the new wrong trees and bushes. At least you'll be wrong together! Can't ask for much more...
chicochip
I know this is not an easy thing to do. I've faced this a few times myself...and may face it again if the real estate market does not right itself soon. The feeling you describe is very similar to what you feel when you lose someone you love. At least that's the way it was for me.
Look at it this way: You're getting away from a neighborhood that is no longer healthy. Irrespective of the length of your residency, you need to get out (this a decision you have already made). The same applies to your hobby. Your trains need a new home, too! And here you have the "wheels set in motion" to make a better home for yourself AND your trains. This is an opportunity and an adventure. Live it to its fullest!
Red Horse, Thank You.
This is very emotional for me (I'm not crying or anything like that.), because I have free reign of our current basement. I have my bookcases full of train literature, Lionel tin signs, old magazine Lionel adverisements, display shelves, everything I always wanted for a train room. My layout is not huge, and I look forward to more room.
I'm not moving far. Just to a little more drug-free area of town. It really peaves me, because when I bought this house, this was a very good neighborhood. Four years makes a huge difference in a city, I guess. Right now I am thankful that I can afford to move to a better area, and into a bigger house. I imagine the landlord for all the other houses will probably buy mine, and that will be that. I would like to thank him for lowering the property value of my house, though, and making it unsafe to take a walk at night.
It is never easy having to move and it can be a very stressful period in our life but it is a time for new beginings and for starting fresh, I hope that your move will go well and that your next layout will be everything that you have been wanting it too be.
I'm facing the prospect of moving in the next few years to a warmer climate and that is why I'm building my 2nd layout in moduals so that when the time comes I can crate it up in sections and then reassemble it at the new location.
You do not state from where you are moving or to what state your heading for?
I can feel what you mean by being nastolgic about breaking down your layout, I started my first one 6 months ago during the winter and when I was 90% of the way there the ice and snow weight on our roof caved that room in and my first attempts were smashed into history, because of the wonderful people I've met at this site I decided not to give up and with the support and help of many here I began over again, with new ideas offered by so many and now I'm back to where I was , about 90% there and grateful that I did start over.
At least you will not know the heart break of seeing all your hard work crushed along with the will to rebuild, you only have to disassemble it and rebuild it at another location, I don't know how big your layout is but I can only wish you and your family the very best in the months to come.
It will be hard not running your trains for a while and I hope that it isn't too long before your up and running again.
I don't know you but I wanted to offer some encouragement, your post had a feeling of sadness about it that needed to be addressed.
Again, good luck from one model rail roader to another.
Jess Red Horse of the Blackfeet Nation.
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