25 years is a long time to live in a single place, long enough that if you did that in the old days the government would just give you the land, it’s yours, you clearly care for it. Living in a single place for 25 years takes dedication, work, and most of all life. Life is the thing that we fill our homes with, events, memories, and in every adjustment, improvement and repair we imprint ourselves on our homes. Life is not limited to buildings, it grows beyond that, and we grow with it, but how do you pull yourself out of a home? That’s where I come in.

Bill lived in his house for 25 years, and while he updated with water features and solar panels and retractable awnings, the look of the house stayed a 1990’s southwestern ascetic, including a buffalo head mounted on the wall from a hunt. The house reflected him, a hunter, an outdoorsman, but in order to sell the house needed to be itself, to clear itself. People don’t want to move into someone else’s home, they want to move into their own.

To help facilitate this I connected him to an estate sale, helping him select the essential parts of his life and pull them from the house, so he could take those parts with him, and selling the rest. Then a fresh coat of paint, carpet, and a newly refinished bath gave the house a brand new look, updating it for what’s to come next for it. The upstairs bathroom went from a burgundy to a white, which brightened the room, fresh air flowed, and as Bill said goodbye to his old home, he and his new wife Penny moved into a new home together nearby. His old home stayed where it is, now with a new occupant, maybe for another 25 years.