New Address

BEEN MOVING

Office in my Shandon home, getting ready to move.

For months, I’ve been preoccupied with moving. Though I love the Shandon house we were living in, Doug and I realized we needed to make a change. This became obvious last Christmas when my sons visited with their families. In order to have space enough for everybody, we resorted to renting a duplex from USC students going home for the holidays. Another developing drawback was access. The many stairs and steps to get into our house made it difficult if not impossible for some of our friends to visit—especially those experiencing problems with their knees or hips. And we had come to the view that we wanted a downstairs bedroom. Given the constraints of the lot, it was impossible to renovate. 

Packing up the dining room.

We began shopping houses in January. Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com are great sources of information. However, when it came time to get serious, we turned to realtor EuniceBeard, who sold us the Shandon house. No online site can substitute for the kind of personal and dependable service Eunice can give. Our objective was to sell our Shandon house and buy another one with more square footage without having to invest more money. In other words, pay for the new house using proceeds from the sale of the Shandon house.

It's sad to leave the house where we've been happy.

Obviously we’d have to look for real estate further out of Columbia. After weeks (months) of shopping and several near misses, we found a house both Doug and I could agree on in Lexington, SC. We were drawn to a subdivision where many trees and abundant greenery were left in place by the developer. In addition, there’s variety in the appearance of houses—some brick, some vinyl, some hardiplank.

As luck would have it, we had an offer on our Shandon house the day before it went on the market, which facilitated our making an offer on the Lexington house. However tenuous I thought this initial offer, we couldn’t turn it down. Eventually it fell through, in large part because the husband hadn’t seen the property. As soon as the house was put back on the market, there were calls and several viewings. We had the good fortune to sell it to a couple who seem to care as much for the house as we did.

Earlier this month we spent four days in transit with the moving company. We’ve unpacked most of the boxes, but it will be a while until we get to know the new neighborhood. And I’m hoping to soon get back to writing.