One Door Closes, Another Opens

It's time for us to sell the house.

That's not a bad thing, and we're certainly not doing it for bad reasons. Nobody lost a job; we didn't run out of money; someone wasn't suddenly taken ill. There was no disaster or mishap that triggered our decision to leave, it just felt like good timing. We'd like to be closer to the rest of our family, and, coincidentally, we feel like we've completed 95% of the restoration work that we set out to do. This just seems like the right time.

The house is now for sale through Sotheby's International Realty (it has its own spiffy listing site at www.TheHartMansion.com), and we've already had a number of interested people come through for showings. From the looks of it, we should be moved out before Christmas.

Our real-estate agents arranged for a photographer, a videographer, and a drone pilot to take all sorts of photos and video over several days. They even created a "Matterport" virtual walk-through, which is pretty cool. You can pretend to walk though the house and see every room on all three floors. I imagine it's especially fun with a VR headset, but you can see it with a normal web browser, too.

Now Kathy and I have to keep the house clean all the time in case someone wants to take a tour. That's not a big problem, and it gives us an excuse to go outside and play tourist in our own town. It's also proved to be good business for the new pub down the street.