I hope to cover in this post what happened after the job offer leading up to when we left for Amsterdam.
Jackie was offered the job in Amsterdam in the first week of August 2012. We took some time to think about it and Jackie gave notice to her job the following week, with the intention of flying to Amsterdam August 31st. This was an aggressive timeline we decided upon due to an upcoming three week trip to Asia in October. We felt it best to get there as soon as possible to get things done before we had to disappear for 3 weeks.
I waited till the end of the week to resign partly because one of my managers was out of the office and partly because I was still debating staying on with Union Pacific while Jackie started the move. The Amsterdam gig was a great opportunity for Jackie, but I was not prepared to leave a job that I thoroughly enjoyed. We had discussed me staying in Omaha and traveling to Amsterdam every couple weekends. In the end it just didn't make sense for us to be apart. I had held out hope UP would allow me to work from Amsterdam part time, or telecommute, but it was not to be.
Again, August 31st was the day we planned to leave, but this was dependent on selling the house and getting Jackie's work visa back in time. To have any chance of closing on the house before we left, and avoiding me having to join Jackie in Amsterdam at a later date we had to get the house on the market as quickly as possible. We wanted to have an open house August 12th, so we had less than a week to get it ready. As anyone knows, to sell a house it must be clean, paint needed to be touched up, the yard needs to look good, and it needed to be de-cluttered and marketed. We reached out to an agent in the neighborhood as plan B, but we wanted to try selling the house for sale by owner.
Getting the house ready started off with two big hurdles: 1) I was just finishing up a remodel of the laundry room. 2) We had hired a Mason to re-tuck the fireplace and clean up the masonry work on the outside of the house. He was still working on the house, and all his scaffolding was still up. I did not want to push him too hard as he was doing a beautiful job.
We knew we wouldn't be able to take much with us partly because it would be expensive to ship oversees and partly because we knew we would be moving into a much smaller place (we were looking at places in Amsterdam from 500 to 800 sf). Though we were always striving to be minimalists with our possessions, a lot of crap builds up in a 2,800 sf home.
A lot of work had to be done by Jackie and me. We alone had to decide what possessions we were going to keep and we had to sell a ton of stuff. Luckily we had great friends and family that helped out with painting, paint touch up, cleaning, minor home repairs, etc.
Selling some of the most valuable items was already in process. Jackie and I had spent a lot of time in the spring discussing a plan we had called "Life 2.0" (maybe I will blog about that at a later time) and one thing we had discussed was no more collections. That meant selling my vintage stereo equipment and a variety of other valuable items. To reach that type of market it had to happen on eBay. A few pieces had already been sold, and a couple sales were completed the week before the open house.
People thought what we were doing was impossible, but without taking time off work, we sold bikes, kitchen equipment, finished the laundry room, got part of the scaffolding taken down from the house, repainted a couple rooms, touched up paint in all the rooms, moved all our clothes out, cleared out the kitchen, got the yard is good shape, planted new flowers, added fresh mulch to the flower beds, sold our treadmill, spinning bike, kettle bells... I don't think we slept much that week. By Saturday the open house signs were up, photos of the house were taken, a flyer was made, and the house was staged with some furniture borrowed from friends and family.
Special thanks to all our friends who helped in the endeavor: Jamie for helping staging, Aunt Jen for paining and cleaning, Mother Pam for painting and cleaning, Warren for finishing the laundry room project and taking endless amount of crap to goodwill and the dump, and Rachael for replanting plants, getting and making food, painting, and cleaning, and Michelle for supplying us with a bunch of brushes and many man hours painting and cleaning. We couldn't have done it without everyone's help.
As an appraiser I had a good idea of value, but we wanted to sell quickly. We had bought at the peak, but were able to ask a price that we were happy with and would attract attention. Just using Facebook, Craigslist and word of mouth we had about 20 couples walk through the house, including several serious buyers. Half way through the open house we had received our first offer, by Tuesday we had decided upon offers and accepted an offer by a very lovely couple that got married in the back yard in October. It was their first home, so they were able to close by the 31st. Which worked out perfectly for us as well. Here are some pictures of their wedding in the house.
So much had to get done before the house could be sold that things slowed down a bit after that. We still had to sell the rest of the stuff in the house. We sold 2 couches, a love seat, two stuffed chairs, a kitchen table, two TV's, several rugs, mirrors. Everything had to go. The goal was to get down to 100lbs each that we would could check through to Amsterdam with Delta. We went through clothes, shoes, personal affects, and were able to whittle down what we had to fit into about 8 boxes. Final weight was around 200lbs each. We picked what we had to take and will pick up the rest whenever we return to Omaha.
Our two cats lived in Rachael and Warren's basement through most of this to keep the house from smelling like cats. The story of getting them to Amsterdam is for the next section.
We tried to see as many friends as possible before we left. Rachael was nice enough to have a party for us at her house. UP Real Estate had a very nice going away party for me, too and that meant a lot. The two weeks after selling the house flew by, and we still had no word on the Netherlands work visa. By the 25th of August we knew we would not be leaving on the 31st. Early the next week we found out everything was approved by the Netherlands, but Jackie would have to show up in person at the closest embassy for a 15 minute meeting to hand over her passport. The closest consulate was Chicago, so we got an expensive, last minute flight and she went out to drop her stuff off. Surprisingly, the work visa came back quickly and with the visa in hand we bought our tickets. Both our works kept us on for the additional time, which was amazing since we had nothing else to do with our time and could really use the money before the move. In the end, we needed the extra time to organize our things and get our final pack done. Since Jackie needed dress clothes right away, she ended up with 150lbs and I managed with just 50lb.
On the day of our flight we went to the airport with 200lbs of stuff and everything we could jam into our carry-ons, leaving behind a few boxes to retrieve at a later date and a couple bicycles. We sold a house, two cars, and nearly everything we owned in just over 4 weeks. It's hard to even remember August at all. It went by so quickly. We had hoped to go visit my folks in San Antonio and see a lot more friends, but it just didn't happen with probably the least amount of sleep and most hectic four weeks of my life. We even made a audition video for House Hunters International show (well, Rachael made the video since we were so short on time and energy) on the last night we were in town.
Jackie was offered the job in Amsterdam in the first week of August 2012. We took some time to think about it and Jackie gave notice to her job the following week, with the intention of flying to Amsterdam August 31st. This was an aggressive timeline we decided upon due to an upcoming three week trip to Asia in October. We felt it best to get there as soon as possible to get things done before we had to disappear for 3 weeks.
I waited till the end of the week to resign partly because one of my managers was out of the office and partly because I was still debating staying on with Union Pacific while Jackie started the move. The Amsterdam gig was a great opportunity for Jackie, but I was not prepared to leave a job that I thoroughly enjoyed. We had discussed me staying in Omaha and traveling to Amsterdam every couple weekends. In the end it just didn't make sense for us to be apart. I had held out hope UP would allow me to work from Amsterdam part time, or telecommute, but it was not to be.
Again, August 31st was the day we planned to leave, but this was dependent on selling the house and getting Jackie's work visa back in time. To have any chance of closing on the house before we left, and avoiding me having to join Jackie in Amsterdam at a later date we had to get the house on the market as quickly as possible. We wanted to have an open house August 12th, so we had less than a week to get it ready. As anyone knows, to sell a house it must be clean, paint needed to be touched up, the yard needs to look good, and it needed to be de-cluttered and marketed. We reached out to an agent in the neighborhood as plan B, but we wanted to try selling the house for sale by owner.
Getting the house ready started off with two big hurdles: 1) I was just finishing up a remodel of the laundry room. 2) We had hired a Mason to re-tuck the fireplace and clean up the masonry work on the outside of the house. He was still working on the house, and all his scaffolding was still up. I did not want to push him too hard as he was doing a beautiful job.
We knew we wouldn't be able to take much with us partly because it would be expensive to ship oversees and partly because we knew we would be moving into a much smaller place (we were looking at places in Amsterdam from 500 to 800 sf). Though we were always striving to be minimalists with our possessions, a lot of crap builds up in a 2,800 sf home.
A lot of work had to be done by Jackie and me. We alone had to decide what possessions we were going to keep and we had to sell a ton of stuff. Luckily we had great friends and family that helped out with painting, paint touch up, cleaning, minor home repairs, etc.
Selling some of the most valuable items was already in process. Jackie and I had spent a lot of time in the spring discussing a plan we had called "Life 2.0" (maybe I will blog about that at a later time) and one thing we had discussed was no more collections. That meant selling my vintage stereo equipment and a variety of other valuable items. To reach that type of market it had to happen on eBay. A few pieces had already been sold, and a couple sales were completed the week before the open house.
People thought what we were doing was impossible, but without taking time off work, we sold bikes, kitchen equipment, finished the laundry room, got part of the scaffolding taken down from the house, repainted a couple rooms, touched up paint in all the rooms, moved all our clothes out, cleared out the kitchen, got the yard is good shape, planted new flowers, added fresh mulch to the flower beds, sold our treadmill, spinning bike, kettle bells... I don't think we slept much that week. By Saturday the open house signs were up, photos of the house were taken, a flyer was made, and the house was staged with some furniture borrowed from friends and family.
Special thanks to all our friends who helped in the endeavor: Jamie for helping staging, Aunt Jen for paining and cleaning, Mother Pam for painting and cleaning, Warren for finishing the laundry room project and taking endless amount of crap to goodwill and the dump, and Rachael for replanting plants, getting and making food, painting, and cleaning, and Michelle for supplying us with a bunch of brushes and many man hours painting and cleaning. We couldn't have done it without everyone's help.
As an appraiser I had a good idea of value, but we wanted to sell quickly. We had bought at the peak, but were able to ask a price that we were happy with and would attract attention. Just using Facebook, Craigslist and word of mouth we had about 20 couples walk through the house, including several serious buyers. Half way through the open house we had received our first offer, by Tuesday we had decided upon offers and accepted an offer by a very lovely couple that got married in the back yard in October. It was their first home, so they were able to close by the 31st. Which worked out perfectly for us as well. Here are some pictures of their wedding in the house.
So much had to get done before the house could be sold that things slowed down a bit after that. We still had to sell the rest of the stuff in the house. We sold 2 couches, a love seat, two stuffed chairs, a kitchen table, two TV's, several rugs, mirrors. Everything had to go. The goal was to get down to 100lbs each that we would could check through to Amsterdam with Delta. We went through clothes, shoes, personal affects, and were able to whittle down what we had to fit into about 8 boxes. Final weight was around 200lbs each. We picked what we had to take and will pick up the rest whenever we return to Omaha.
Our two cats lived in Rachael and Warren's basement through most of this to keep the house from smelling like cats. The story of getting them to Amsterdam is for the next section.
We tried to see as many friends as possible before we left. Rachael was nice enough to have a party for us at her house. UP Real Estate had a very nice going away party for me, too and that meant a lot. The two weeks after selling the house flew by, and we still had no word on the Netherlands work visa. By the 25th of August we knew we would not be leaving on the 31st. Early the next week we found out everything was approved by the Netherlands, but Jackie would have to show up in person at the closest embassy for a 15 minute meeting to hand over her passport. The closest consulate was Chicago, so we got an expensive, last minute flight and she went out to drop her stuff off. Surprisingly, the work visa came back quickly and with the visa in hand we bought our tickets. Both our works kept us on for the additional time, which was amazing since we had nothing else to do with our time and could really use the money before the move. In the end, we needed the extra time to organize our things and get our final pack done. Since Jackie needed dress clothes right away, she ended up with 150lbs and I managed with just 50lb.
On the day of our flight we went to the airport with 200lbs of stuff and everything we could jam into our carry-ons, leaving behind a few boxes to retrieve at a later date and a couple bicycles. We sold a house, two cars, and nearly everything we owned in just over 4 weeks. It's hard to even remember August at all. It went by so quickly. We had hoped to go visit my folks in San Antonio and see a lot more friends, but it just didn't happen with probably the least amount of sleep and most hectic four weeks of my life. We even made a audition video for House Hunters International show (well, Rachael made the video since we were so short on time and energy) on the last night we were in town.
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