Saying good bye to a house?

[Carolyn R]

So we've lived here in our tiny house for almost seven years. And in a few weeks we'll be moving. I am really excited about the place we're moving into...old wood floors, it's lots bigger, useable basement, etc. But quite honestly, I am really sad to be leaving our nest. Our family has been through so much heartbreak and joy in this house. Our daughter passed away here. Another daughter was homebirthed here. I've done the bulk of my growing as a mother and person here. Planted flowers and grew food to feed our family here.

Any ideas for saying good bye, and embracing the future? My mind keeps telling me it's just a house, but my heart feels differently!

[Denvergirlie]

I can relate. Moved into my last place in July 2001, and just moved out in Feb 2010. I lived there a long time in several different relationships. Not only the house but the general neighborhood was also mourned.

I was very sad, even teared up a bit on the last day, but by that time, i was so ready to be done "moving" and really settle in at the new place, that is was a bit easier the last day.

i said good bye to each room that had meaning to me, even the linen closet with the hole in the ceiling that had the squireel fall into. Lots of good and bad memories. I also made sure to take some good final photos, say good bye to the yard, both the front flower garden and back yard vegetable garden.

I still live close, I drive by the old house now and again, even stopped around my old front yard checking out what survived over winter flower wise. It did break my heart a bit going back, but only because the new tenants let everything die in the front yard. All my perenials were burn to a crisp, I guess watering the yard a bit now and again wasn't in the new tenants schedule.

I still miss it a bit, some days more than others, but have also moved on and I think am better for it.

Make sure you get to say goodbye, even tell funny stories about each room or parts of the house to each other.

Best

[hibana]

subbing to this thread... we may be moving soon, and I am very attached to our home.

[*bejeweled*]

I totally understand. We moved away from our beloved house 3 years ago. I just walked through each room and said a silent thank you. Turned away and walked into the future.

I still have wonderful pictures of our garden and much of the home when it was lived in. I suggest that you make sure you have meaningful pictures. I feel as though I carry it in my heart. It is hard.

BTW, we moved into an apartment and this place is just as much home as the house we owned. Home is where the is.

[Callimom]

This is so timely

We have just had our offer accepted for a big beautiful stone house that is more than twice the square footage of our current house, with a huge 1/2 acre lot.

But I am feeling conflicted about it all. We have lived in our current (first) house for almost 16 years. I brought all 4 of my kids home to this house. We love love love our neighbourhood and the kids are super attached to our neighbours.  I moved a lot as a kid and  I never thought I would leave this house but it is just too tiny for us now and it needs a lot of work that we just don't have the space to do properly.

I'm sad, the kids are sad and none of us is looking forward to leaving as much as we are looking forward to having more space. 

I don't have any ideas yet but we have been thinking about what we might possibly do to make this transition easier.

[thriftyqueen]

I had a hard time when we sold our house too.  We had put blood, sweat and tears into remodeling it.  It was a great house, but was small and very old.  There were no closets and the set up of it was very difficult.  Even though it was frustrating, many memories occurred there.  I walked through the rooms and reflected on our time in each room.  I closed the door behind me and thanked the house for everything.  I still miss it though.  The old woodwork, the character, the memories...they all still speak to me.  I took lots of pictures of the home and think I may have a picture painted on canvas of the outside, just as a memory piece.  It is not the house itself that makes me miss it, but the simpler times that we had when we lived there. 

[rcr]

My mom is dieing and I am looking at selling our family house, which she grew up in, and I grew up in after my grandparents died and we moved back in to the house. I can tell you everything about it... the wood floors that grandpa put in in 1946, the bathtub that used to be the home to a duck for a few years in junior high... it breaks my heart. Nearly every memory of my early life and my mom's entire life is in that house. I have my mom's wedding photos of her standing in front of the same fireplace (with the same lamp on it!), as my sister's wedding photos, and my graduation photos. Same place, and even much of the same furniture.

I keep telling myself... it is only wood, plaster, and concrete... it is only a house... it is only a house. That is hard to really believe, when so much of my families history is tied up in one tiny spot in the earth. But really, it is only physical. It is the people and memories that count. Not the building (or at least that is what I am trying to convince myself).

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by rcr 

My mom is dieing and I am looking at selling our family house, which she grew up in, and I grew up in after my grandparents died and we moved back in to the house. I can tell you everything about it... the wood floors that grandpa put in in 1946, the bathtub that used to be the home to a duck for a few years in junior high... it breaks my heart. Nearly every memory of my early life and my mom's entire life is in that house. I have my mom's wedding photos of her standing in front of the same fireplace (with the same lamp on it!), as my sister's wedding photos, and my graduation photos. Same place, and even much of the same furniture.

I keep telling myself... it is only wood, plaster, and concrete... it is only a house... it is only a house. That is hard to really believe, when so much of my families history is tied up in one tiny spot in the earth. But really, it is only physical. It is the people and memories that count. Not the building (or at least that is what I am trying to convince myself).

Would it help to think about another family making those same memories?  Like by selling it to another family, you are giving them the opportunity to have their entire lives in that house?

When my grandparent's died, there was a huge issue amongst the siblings.  Two absolutely positively did not want to sell the family house and were/are extremely resentful that my mom wanted bought out of her share.  Since buying her out, they have had a string of tenants and it sounds like each tenant was worse then the one before.  Now the house is sitting empty and my mom said, and I believe this to be true, that my grandparents would have been happier if the house would have been sold to a new family that would have loved it rather then a revolving door of tenants that trash the place. 

[mattemma04]

I remember taping the place my dd was born.Did a walk through.Did not do the same with the condo we bought.I was just happy to get it sold!

 My mom wants her home to go to the grandkids. I am fine with that if they want to live in that city,but they might want a country home or something. My friend told me the house my mom worked for was *her dream* ,and we each have our own.I love her house but the taxes are high,and worse-you can't have chickens! If we have to sell it to buy a home in a better location we will. I have considered renters too,but would probably opt to sell over rent.

I want my kids to have a home and not have to worry about a 30 year mortgage,so wherever they move they will get a decent home that is paid for.Ds already has dibs on our current home,lol.

[sophiesgrandma]

Last July we said good-by to our home. We built it and lived there and raised 3 children there for 27 years. Our children grew up and moved away. The house was too big for just us 2. We sold and gave away the furniture and moved to a small apartment in a city. We love our new life but there is still some sadness and nostalgia for our old home. After the house was cleaned out, I spent some time there going from room to room and remembering different occasions both happy and sad. I actually replayed some scenes in my head and "talked" to my house and thanked it for housing us so warmly all the many years. Since then, both my dh and I have had dreams of our old home. Yes, its just a house but it is like a living, breathing thing to a family who has spent so much time and had so many experiences in it. I have even at times, felt a bit guilty for leaving it in the hands of strangers. For the longest time I would wonder if the new family was taking as good care of it as we did.

[momofmine]

Originally Posted by sophiesgrandma 

Last July we said good-by to our home. We built it and lived there and raised 3 children there for 27 years. Our children grew up and moved away. The house was too big for just us 2. We sold and gave away the furniture and moved to a small apartment in a city. We love our new life but there is still some sadness and nostalgia for our old home. After the house was cleaned out, I spent some time there going from room to room and remembering different occasions both happy and sad. I actually replayed some scenes in my head and "talked" to my house and thanked it for housing us so warmly all the many years. Since then, both my dh and I have had dreams of our old home. Yes, its just a house but it is like a living, breathing thing to a family who has spent so much time and had so many experiences in it. I have even at times, felt a bit guilty for leaving it in the hands of strangers. For the longest time I would wonder if the new family was taking as good care of it as we did.

This touches my heart!     I imagine myself being at that point in my life, one day, I am sure I will just blink and it will be here.  I grew up moving a lot, and as a child, I just remember feeling like it was my grandmother's house that was home for me, because it was the only place I knew that stayed the same all those years.  The house we live in now is the only home our kids have ever known, and part of me loves the idea of them growing up in the same house their whole childhood.  But the house is really old and needs a lot of work and we have just really outgrown the space.  So we are facing the idea of either moving, or staying in our home and renovating.  It is 100 years old, so there's stuff like plaster and lead paint and all kinds of challenges like that.

Part of me loves the idea of starting fresh and part of me would really miss this house, where my kids have lived their whole lives!

[NikonMama]

We are getting ready to do this soon and I'm not looking forward to it.  :(  We built this house 5 years ago, and at the time we thought we would be in it until we died.  Our circumstances have changed in that this house is no longer a good fit for us, so we must move on.  We built a lot of this house with our own two hands.  My husband did all of the trim (around the doors, baseboards, etc), put up the handrail, and built the retaining wall in the backyard.  We put our hand prints in the corner of the driveway, with pennies from each of our birth years under each of our prints, and our initials above the prints.  This house has a lot of custom changes just for us, and I absolutely LOVE it.  I picked out everything, from the paint color, to the carpet, to the knobs on the cabinets.  My mother purchased all of our window coverings for us, and the lily of the valley in my garden came from the house I grew up in and my parents no longer live there.  :(   

We are moving to an acreage in a different state in 9 weeks, and while I am SOOO excited to do so, every time I think of leaving this house I get teary eyed.  I'm sure I'm going to be a blubbering mess when we leave, more for giving up this house rather than leaving our families. We can always come back and see our family, but we won't get to see or live in our house anymore.  It's almost like a death to me, like knowing a family member is going to die in 9 weeks.  I'm not looking forward to it at all, and I don't know how to do it.  :(   

[babycarrier]

It is hard to say goodbye to a house. We will be leaving our home of 9 years within the next month or so. I love the idea of saying thank you to our home - heck we say hello to the house now when we come in and it is like a breathing entity. So many monumental things happened at the home including getting married there that it is very sad to say goodbye. I'm trying to remember that our family is what makes our home and we are leaving the house and not our Home.  Best wishes to you in your transition.

[crazyms]

It's hard to say good bye to a house. We temporarily lived in a home that was a dream for us. I still have a hard time dealing with the loss of that house. I know logically that it's a house and that another house may be just as wonderful maybe even better for us but it was still a loss. I find myself still going by there sometimes just to see it. We are also about to sell our property with the awful little place we've lived in for the majority of the last 7 years. I *hate* this house and I'll be so glad to sell it and be done with it but at the same time... it's where I brought my babies home and we've made memories there. It's hard to let that go even if I do despise the wrapping lol. 

[~Boudicca~]

Originally Posted by crazyms 

It's hard to say good bye to a house. We temporarily lived in a home that was a dream for us. I still have a hard time dealing with the loss of that house. I know logically that it's a house and that another house may be just as wonderful maybe even better for us but it was still a loss. I find myself still going by there sometimes just to see it. We are also about to sell our property with the awful little place we've lived in for the majority of the last 7 years. I *hate* this house and I'll be so glad to sell it and be done with it but at the same time... it's where I brought my babies home and we've made memories there. It's hard to let that go even if I do despise the wrapping lol. 

I can so relate to your post.  We were homeowners for years and then because of a variety of financial and relationship issues we ended up foreclosing...but honestly, I hated that house.  I did not care in the least that we had to let it go.  It was nothing but a nightmare owning that home in many ways.

We moved to a rental right after that.  It was a beautiful home, reasonable rent, awesome yard and garage, closer to family. Landlord was one of the most kind and conscientious people I've ever met.  We were only there for a year but it really was the first place in my life that really felt like a HOME.  I still drive by occasionally and it makes me teary-eyed.