DIY: Selling Your Stuff at an Estate Sale, Part 1

So, we're moving. We don't know exactly when, and we don't know exactly where we're going, but we know we can't take all this stuff with us.

We did a lot of acquiring when we moved into this house, and it took a good two years before we felt like we'd completely furnished all 3000+ square feet. Our original plan was to stay here for the long haul... I joked that the next time we moved our gigantic wood bed stand, we'd have burly sons or sons-in-law to help.

But now a new life is beckoning, and this house and all our shtuff is weighing us down.

From http://tomlaidlaw.com/otkiosks/otcc/ontario.html

I feel a bit like the pioneer woman, throwing heavy furniture out of her covered wagon to ensure that her family makes it safely to their new homestead.

Except that I'm not sad. I'm excited!

Now I'm trying to figure out the best way to leave all this stuff behind, and make a bit of money in the process.

The Idea: An Estate Sale

This great sign was designed
by an experienced saleswoman.

Hauling all of our stuff out to the front yard (and then back inside overnight, and then back out the next morning) sounds like a royal PITA. Instead, we're going to lock up the stuff we want to keep, and then sell everything else in an estate sale in about a month.

We've never done this before, and although we've attended quite a few estate sales, we really don't know how to do it, so we'll be making it up as we go along. Maybe you'll learn something from our plans and our mistakes!

The Plan

• Research: We read a few DIY Estate Sale articles, mostly written by estate sale professionals, warning people to avoid DIYing it.
  
• Timing: Because we're holding the sale inside the house, cold weather is less of a factor. We'll hold the sale on a weekend that's convenient for us -- at the end of a week off of work.
  
• Safeguarding: There are three kinds of safeguarding we'll be doing:
1. Protecting the stuff we want to keep: We'll designate one room to keep all the stuff we want to keep out of people's hands. We'll lock the doors to that room, and hang up a sign that says STAY OUT.
2. Removing the kids: Our daughters are on board with selling the toys, clothes, and books they don't use anymore, especially because we've promised them that the money they earn will go to their Dinseyland fund. Even so, we don't want them around when other people take their toys away. So we'll find a babysitter to keep them occupied somewhere else.
3. Reducing theft: We'll provide one way in and one way out of our home, like professional estate sales do. We'll also have plenty of "staff" walking around, monitoring.
   
• Staffing: We'll ask a few key friends and family members to help us handle buyers, answer questions, watch for theft, take money, and make change. We're hoping to get at least a few friends who speak Spanish, which was a stumbling block for us when we had a yard sale several years ago.
  
• Pricing:
  This, in my opinion, is the hardest part. You've got to set the prices high enough to allow for haggling while still leaving room for profit, but not so high that you tick people off.
  
  And then, you've got to be willing to give people really good deals to round out the final price tag -- if someone has an armful of stuff, work to round out the final price to something that feels like a really good deal. Throw in that one $3.00 item for only $1.00 to make it round. Or give them something for free if it makes things easier.
  
  We will accept cash only, and have lots of small bills on hand so that we can easily make change.
  
  We'll probably do something like this:
  
• Big stuff: Separate the things that are just too big or expensive to sell in a yard sale setting and attempt to sell them on Craigslist or eBay -- these include things like a scooter and an antique stove. If we can't sell it that way, we'll try at the estate sale.
• Medium stuff: I feel like most stuff will be priced between $20 and $15.
• Clothes: With a few exceptions, we'll price adult clothes in the $3-5 range, and kids clothes in the $1-3 range
• Little stuff: Easy. This all goes in the estate sale, and you price it to sell -- lots of $1.00 and $2.00 baskets.
  
• Price tags: I've already started affixing little pieces of masking tape to the things I know we're going to sell. I plan to walk around with a permanent marker and add prices before the sale.

Flying North

One of the things I'll miss most about our current home is our proximity to a migration path. Nearly every morning this time of the year, we can step outside and hear sandhill cranes and arctic geese squawking and honking at each other as they prepare to land in the bosque near our house.

Yesterday at about noon, when we stepped out to take the Mr. to his class, I heard the characteristic call of many sandhill crane. I looked up, but couldn't locate them. Then I realized they were high, much higher than they've been lately, and that there were A LOT of them, all calling to each other as they flew in several loose v's.

My current "hypuppysis" (as the girls currently pronounce it) is that they're either practicing for the big trip North, or are actually on their way. I can't find any confirmation on the Bosque del Apache website, but my suspicions are reinforced by the facts that:

• Spring is approaching, as evidenced by our blooming forsythia and weeping cherry
• They were way way way high in the sky
• There were tons of them -- many more than I've seen flying together, other than when they're doing their mass exodus from the Bosque del Apache at dawn (photos of our recent visit to the "flyout" soon).

Planning to plan

Although our big plans will likely mean that we'll move from our current home to a rental before the 2012 harvest, I'm still trying to act and plan and think and dream like a real, live, grounded gardener.

Heather's garden notebook, from Heather's Homemaking

To that end, I'm taking notes on note taking. Garden Note keeping, that is.

My goal is to document and learn from the following:

• Seeds:
• varieties
• sources
• Dates: 
• seed starting indoors
• germination of different seeds
• seed starting outdoors
• transplanting starts to outdoors
• Lessons learned:
• when I realize I've made a mistake, I'd like to document it for next time

Jenny's lovely potted veggies,
from In the Garden

And because we'll be moving, my actual garden plans have changed a bit. I still plan to plant in the ground at our current home, if only to help sell the house... ideally we'll show it in May when everything is big and bushy and green.

I'll also plant in containers as much as possible, creating a movable garden that I can relocate to our new, temporary abode, wherever it is. It's alright - I was going to plant carrots and potatoes in a pot, anyway! ;)

If we move quickly enough, I may even end up with a third, in-ground garden at our rental place. May, June, and July are still early enough to plan plenty of things and get a harvest before the frost sets in.

where you lead, i will follow

Big changes are afoot, but, like most things in the garden, it will take time for these changes to take root, flower, and bear fruit.

In the meantime, take it away, Carole....

Juxtaposition

I spend my weekdays in an office, managing a couple of large technology projects, a 3-person team, and a bunch of websites.

When I need a break, I read farming and homesteading blogs, knit, and crochet.

Today during lunch, I learned a new crochet stitch: the crocodile stitch. I took this photo to send to my husband, who is my biggest cheerleader, and cracked myself up with the accidental juxtaposition of my two worlds.

Scaring myself with daydreams

Sometimes I scare myself with just how much I want to do what Susan over at Farmgirl Fare did: give up all this citified life and take up digging, growing, baking, and making on some far-flung patch of earth.

garden daydreaming

It's just past the middle of the winter and I'm home sick, wrapped in a blanket with a stuffy nose and sore throat, daydreaming about my 2012 garden.

Sleeping Clementine,
next to the first chicken coop wall;
September 2011.

Potential abounds:

• We have a huge yard with unrealized potential -- lots of space that, with the right nurturing, could yield health and happiness.
• 2012 is the year of chickens. The coop is still in pieces, waiting to be assembled, and we haven't decided exactly when or where we're going to get our chooks (as they say in the UK), nor whether we'll get eggs or chicks or pullets, but 2012 is THE YEAR of the CHICKEN.
• Our mature compost pile could use some tending, so that it lives up to its potential.
• The cottonwoods we planted when we bought this house nearly 6 years ago have become sturdy, healthy trees, and I no longer wonder if they'll put on leaves in the Spring.
• I'm starting to get more comfortable with my gardening knowledge after a few years gardening her in the clayey, sandy soil of the South Valley. I'm more familiar with the pests I'll battle, and how to battle them.
• My desire to homestead grows every day. It is my constant daydream.