selling the ranch

October 2020

I hated this house.

I hated it from day one, did you know that?

Day. One.

Nothing went right, from the purchase, to the move day, to the subsequent issues that plagued the house and then my body and then the house again and then my relationship and then my body again and then ultimately my life in general. Two and a half years here were a fuckin' mess, and had I been present on social media for the entirety of it, you would understand that any large semblance of happiness was just an illusion. Allllllll optics.

Case-in-point: that picture up top? I wanted to take it before moving all my furniture into the house, like I did with the Manor. I wanted to go through the house, alone, and have my time with it to sorta "greet" the house. But it didn't happen that way. This is the day after I moved in, re-wearing the clothes I wore the day before, with all of the furniture shoved to the right side of the frame so it looked empty.

And I'll tell ya another secret. The picture at the end of this, of me as I am now, house empty? Another fib. All the furniture is shoved to the right, and I have a few days to go until I make my journey to Wisconsin.

That all being said, do you know, or do you have any semblance of an idea... how excited I am to have sold this house?

Like, truly... can you even fathom my excitement?

You actually probably can because it's not the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life, but still, it's pretty GD thrilling.

When the Ranch went "live" on the market, it had been pre-listed for about a week so that hopefully people could salivate over the pictures and imagine building their own lives in it. And then, when it went ACTUAL live, I had my first offer in less than 24 hours. This was very exciting to me for three distinct reasons:

- 1. It meant the house technically sold in a single day, rather than the six the Manor took.

- 2. It meant a certain stress level could start washing off and far away from my shoulders.

- 3. It meant the Minnesota chapter of my life was finally ending.

Has it been all bad here? No, not specifically. Of my six and a half years living in the land of lakes, it wasn't always horrible. It was largely bad, yes, but not ALL. It resulted in the fact that I met some of my best friends here, which as we all know, gets harder and harder to do as you get older. I arguably grew stronger in my sense of self here than ever before, though that was only for a brief term and has subsequently been wiped out. I had my experience buying the Manor, which was really everything I wanted in my first "project" house and gave me a sense of purpose for two years. I left retail here, after 19 years, to pursue a career in writing. So there, not all bad.

But everything changes, y'know? Most of my friends here moved away, or are in the process of moving away. Of course a couple remain, specifically my dear Nae Nae, but the rest have moved on. Not working retail means I'm not tethered to a physical store. My sense of self is just... we'll say dogshit, that's fair enough. And as for the house, and how much I loathed this one... I now know what I want from the next.

The Ranch was a panic buy, through and through. When the Manor sold, I had 60 days to find a new place which in a normal market, would be plenty of time. But in the cluster-fuck of 2020 when the housing market was absolutely insane, it meant I was feverishly looking at houses with an axe swinging merrily over my head. I made offers on four houses and lost all of them. Then I took a look at a handful on like, a Thursday, with my agent and we went to lunch after. I decided to write an offer on the "California style Ranch", named for the 'U' shape the house makes around the backyard decking. I thought it was fitting because later that afternoon, I was boarding a flight to, wait for it... California!

My view in the Sausalito hills when the call came.

The day after arriving in San Francisco, my best friend Tina and I went for a walk with her kids, up into the hills behind where she and her husband were living in Sausalito. On the hike, I got a call from my agent saying that the house had gone into multiple offers and that the seller wanted "best and final" bids by the end of the day. I think it had been listed at like $218K, and maybe I offered $226K? So I just said "alright, $236K," which was at the absolute height of my budget but I was (I've already mentioned it) desperate. And when operating in desperation and exhaustion, and just being plain-ass tired of dealing with things, you make choices.

Well, all of the other offers came with "here's my new offer, but here's an escalation clause just in case someone outbids me." And MY offer did not have an escalation clause, so the seller said "we asked for best and final and he gave it, so he gets it." And I got it. My California Ranch while I was visiting California, who knew?

Probably me, because I look for signs. I digress.

From there it just went wrong though. My agent made a mistake and forgot to tell my lender that my offer was accepted, so a week before move day he called to tell me about it. He was going to put me up in an Airbnb for the two weeks between when I HAD to be out of the Manor and when I could actually close on the Ranch. He also paid for my furniture and all that to be moved and stored. Lemme make it clear: I don't hold it against him at all. It was a whoopsie that he made up for, and he's a good friend that I just had sell the Ranch for me. All's well that ends well!

Then I got tonsillitis and had to have my tonsil sliced open to drain, so that was fun while living in an Airbnb.

Signing for the house, note the shirt that I was gonna double-wear.

But that was what kicked it all off, y'know? Jonathan helped me with the move, sitting in my car in the parking lot with the cats while I signed all of the paperwork, and then we drove up to the new house. The moving crew was already there and moving some things into the house, which was ANOTHER thing that set me off on the wrong foot (refer to the above, where I said I wanted a moment with the house). But it was what it was, and I just wanted it done. I wanted my things, and I wanted my comforts, and I wanted to be left alone.

A week later, the water heater was leaking rusty water, and upon inspection, I was told "yeah this has been bad for a while, didn't your inspector look here? It's all rusted out." And no, my inspector hadn't, which also goes to show that getting an inspection sometimes (not always) means jack diddly shit. So that was $1,200 to get a new one.

A week in, guys. One week. This did not bode well.

Then I chose to paint the main space dark green, and went against my better judgment that I should have used a primer despite the store telling me I didn't need one. So that was four coats of VERY expensive Sherwin-Williams paint, and it probably could've used a fifth.

Waking up after the first of two surgeries.

That winter I had my fun round(s) with the kidney stone(s). Part of it was diet related, my body producing too acidic of urine (solved with a potassium pill), and a larger part was stress. And it had been a stressful few months, believe you-me. But you move along and go about your business.

May of 2021 meant Andrew and I got back together, which was what it was. I'm happy we did in many aspects, and I'm upset we did in some others. What I gained from our reunion was the final understanding that a romantically inclined relationship between us just wasn't going to work. It sucked, as he was/is one of my favorite people, but when the cards are down you've got to read them for what they are. He moved in that July.

Fabulous.

In October, the basement bathroom flooded with sewage. The toilet in the bathroom down there did not work (thanks for catching it, inspector (NOT)), and it was time to re-do the space. I'd purchased three new toilets for the house that fall, one is in the box in this picture, and had just had the basement finished with all new paint and carpeting and laminate flooring. You can even see in the picture that I had just edged in the paint in the whole room. 

Post-demolition

So that meant a call to insurance to get the whole process rolling, which meant more money flying out of my pocket for something dumb as shit. In the end it meant professionally installed "everything," so that was nice. But this time I won't say "if the ends justify the means" because I just... I didn't want it this way. And I didn't want to spend the money on it. In a nutshell though, that's homeownership and sometimes it does suck.

Spring of 2022 arrived with Andrew and I breaking up, which I've written about before here. To distract myself from the heartbreak of it all, I buried myself in renovating the primary bathroom in the house. 

Where the dinky corner shower had been

This meant gutting it to the studs, and paying a plumber to literally replace all of the plumbing (the shower didn't have a p-trap, so uh... thanks again for not noticing shit, inspector). It was a month-long project that absolutely destroyed my hands and wrists, but it turned out pretty good and became my happy space in the house. I calculated it costing me about $2K, plus an extra $1K for the plumbing, and this was because everything else I was doing myself. Ended up being closer to $6K, but we're not here to split hairs.

All done

That summer Andrew moved away, and I was broken again. Work was awful, and I quit my job in August for a new retail spot. Then I had more health issues just detonate into existence, and with an opportunity to be a writer, I took it and left retail permanently. Jonathan moved in late November, more about that in another blog, and then I was just in a holding pattern until right now. Knowing I was going to sell, knowing I was going to move, and knowing I was going to take the final great big step in my plan toward happiness.

Y'know... I wanted to be happy here, in Minnesota. 

I did. 

But I just never was, and that has to be okay, y'know? You have to be able to call something for what it is, or at least what you deem it to be, and leave it. Maybe that's the take-away I have with the Ranch, because it's what happened with my life here. Relationships and jobs... the house itself... just walk away when you know it's no longer right. It makes me curious to what the next lesson will be in Wisconsin, if there IS a big lesson or just a return to the old ones and how to make them better. But we'll see.

And just like that, it was time to go.

The house was listed at $334,900, and it sold $16K higher than the list price after four separate offers came in and three of them worked to out-bid eachother. As always it's a stressful process, and one you don't have much faith in until the paperwork has been signed and you are walking away with your check of profits.

Does that make it all worth it in the end?

Hell no.

Money certainly does not buy happiness, and in this specific case, it definitely did not justify the means of what it took to earn. My hands and wrists, my body, my heart, my sanity... some things I'll get back and some I never will. Maybe that's part of getting older, and may it's not. But for now I get to smile in whatever fond way I can muster, and I get to go home.

Where my heart always was.

Ciao for now (c: