... and four more closings to go. Tough back light on the above image but it's the best one to show what we did in 24 hours. It was on Father's Day when we got a call and then sold our place down in Cape May. I call it our Shore House, Theresa calls it a trailer in a campground. But it's been so much more then that.
With our buyers eager to start using it we had to go down on Wednesday, empty and clean it out, do the transaction, and get out. Of course we had a lot of stuff to move. I reached
out to the owner of the place that we are buying right around the corner but he said his family is still using it through the July 4th weekend, so moving in early wasn't an option. So the next best thing was to rent one, well actually two, storage units to hold it all for a month before closing.
You can start to hum the theme song from the television show Sanford & Son just about now. What started off as a neat and coordinated move ended up being a just-throw-it-in-there-move as Thursday morning turned into early afternoon. One thing I'm going to miss, and I'm not sure how we survived
without it, was the huge shed we bought and placed on our lot. It was an end of season parking lot model from Lowe's and of course I was too cheap to pay for someone to deliver it. I think the shed cost $800, and delivery would have been $450, no thanks.
So on June 1st, 2022, my dear friend Mike and I managed to get it up, drive it down, and then off and into place. The lot that we had was big, and the envy of many since we had no neighbors on the one side. In our new place we're tight for space, so there will be no big shed there.
By 2 o'clock yesterday we were all done with the moving and Theresa's very detailed cleaning. We delivered them a place that we leave better than it was when we purchased it in 2020.
Looking back I now realize how much we broke our assess there over the last six years. From new floors, to everything outside including a drainage system and new patio. It was really a far cry from how the previous owners left it to us.
In the end the purchase and then sale was just about even money. And that's okay. We're under contract for the new place and we didn't want to own two places there with a 2027 $9,400 seasonal fee times two for next year. And if didn't sell we would have had to have to pay someone to pull it out and get it crunched up, so selling it, now, was the move.
It comes at a good time as there's been some things we've had to pay for that kind of caught us by surprise, but I guess common when you sell a country house. Well water sample inspection $1,300, and then mediation in the form of a UV light and a filter system, about $5,000. Septic inspection $750, and then some manhole access repairs, $1,200. And then there's a deposit for the moving company, and it all adds up. And, to tow the boat, I'll need a tow bar installed with the proper hook ups for the boat trailer, and then have the boat trailer onced over by a professional. 11 hours is a long drive to tow a boat.
As I made yet another trip over to the storage place yesterday I couldn't help but notice Jay off to my left. When I saw him I thought of myself and The Shrimp Shack down in South Carolina. He too has a shack, one the Amish came and built a few years ago.
He's got me by a few years but he's a man after my own heart. He has a boat "that I'll get going one day", a shack full to the brim of projects not completed and yet to be started, and a chair that sits at the entrance where he sits and listens to the radio. He said he would have more it better organized but the knee-braced knee and bum hip keep him from being where it should be.
But the truth is, like for me, it's never about the hip, or the knee, or the time, or the help you may or may not have. It's the, I don't even know how to put it into words, it's the pursuit of the completion and success that is always unobtainable, or avoided. It's the chase that is the game. If his place, like mine out in Titusville used to be, was all organized and done it wouldn't feel comfortable and like home. It's just another form of chaos, which we all know is where I, and folks like Jay, like to operate.
Soon I'll be at my own shack, which is crazy if you think of it. A Man Cave extraordinaire nestled in a neighborhood of new construction that is going through a rebirth. I promise to be a good neighbor and property owner in the Town of Ridgeland, South Carolina. I will resist in
returning this glorious place to what is was a just a few years ago. A skiff and camper sat under the geerage. Boats strewn across the lawn along with some refrigerators and more tools and mowers than you could count. If it ever does get back to what it was I'll surely have to invite Cape May Jay down for a hang. He'll get it I'm sure.
And back to Cape May. In a few weeks we'll be moving all of that stuff into our new abode. We've met the neighbors. We've already sat on the front porch. This too will be a great home away from home. Besides just loving Cape May it will give a place to escape the Lowcountry heat and humidity of the summers down South. So far so good with all the plans and moving parts, but, it'll take just one thing going sideways to derail it all. So fingers crossed as we push ahead.