Preparing and Packing

These next few blog posts will be about how we have been preparing and how I am packing up our belongings for long-term storage to go overseas. David, along with others have encouraged me to post about how to scale down from the 1600 sq. ft. home that we have lived in for 3 years now, to a 1 bedroom apartment that we will live in when we get a renter, to moving into David’s old bedroom at his parents house this summer until we leave in August, and then how to pack to move overseas.

In the area of Preparing, we knew that we have always wanted to go overseas and knowing this I intentionally did not collect too many personal belongings. We have tried to be minimalists. When registering for our wedding registry, I only registered for the specific necessary items that we did not already have. I always knew that our current location in VA would be temporary.

When we purchased a foreclosed home in March of 2009, we bought with the intention to remodel and sell before we left the states. However, when we did complete a room, I was not focused on decorating to fill every inch of wall space, I focused on leaving the room fresh, clean, and ready for a potential buyer to see the possibilities. Now that we are trying to rent our home before we leave, I am glad that I had this approach, less material items to be attached to and less holes in the walls!!!

Here are a few photos of the finished basement:

However, David and I seemed to collect many items and various furniture, which we didn’t necessarily need, from friends and roommates that were moving away and could not take with them. I wanted to get rid of things that we did not want or need but David encouraged me to store them because we have a good size storage area on the other side of our basement downstairs.

Here are some photos of the unfinished side of the basement that we use for storage:

This was great when we had a yard sale because we had many items to sell and both of our yard sales were productive. Now that we have an August departure date we have begun selling furniture. The only furniture we will keep is our bed and matching end tables from the living room. David’s parents have been so gracious to let us use his old bedroom for storage. In my next post I will share how I am going about packing items for long-term storage.