Exciting news! I think? I’m going to move myself and M up to my grandma’s house, leaving the cottage to be rented by my mom. (Ok they’re next door to one another so we’re not really going anywhere!) My grandma’s house is stuffed full of junk and clutter, so I’ve got to clear it before we get in there really, but my goal is to have most of it out to the garage and sorted into piles (family memorabilia, donate or sell, and junk yard) in the garage. It’s also packed with furniture, so I need to get rid of the non-antique stuff. Then get the carpets pulled up (there’s hardwood underneath).
The house has a washer and dryer, first of all. Mine doesn’t. Can you believe we live without one? We use my grandma’s, obviously. It has a dishwasher (currently not working but we can get it repaired), four bedrooms (two useable, at the time), two porches, a parlor, a living room, a full dining room, lots more cupboard space, and a two car garage (that will be full of stuff for a while). It has the tiniest bathroom ever. I’d put us in my grandma’s room by the bathroom, route guests through the enclosed porch also attached to the bathroom (so they aren’t tromping through my room every time they need the bathroom), and reserve the parlor bedroom for guests. The other bedroom upstairs also works for guests but it’s lower on my list of priorities to de-clutter. Eventually I hope to have both rooms open to guests. The front porch would be Mariah’s play room, and the front porch in the cottage could then just be a nice place to relax. I plan to make the cottage into more of a “lake cottage” and less of a full year-round home, eventually. Nice and de-cluttered and not packed with toys and clothes.
I have relatives coming up on the fourth, lots of them. We have a cousin from Hawaii coming for the whole summer, and I plan to put her in my old room in the cottage. Then I have my cousin and her husband, their two kids (one is a teenager) and their two grandsons coming. I’ll put the adults in the parlor bedroom, the two grandsons on a mattress in the play room, the little boy in the parlor, and the teenager on the north porch (which will become my “laundry” room/segway to bathroom). It’ll be packed.
I’m asking that my uncles and mom agree to let me keep on the utilities and internet, and cover property taxes, in exchange for cleaning out the house and sorting stuff. My grandma wants someone to stay there to prevent “robbers” from getting in. She owns it outright so it’s not like there is a mortgage or rent to take over.
Mother of All Things 