Our Crazy Lives Right Now

Things are moving at a very hectic pace, making our lives crazy! Now that we have officially decided to put the house on the market (still interviewing realtors though), we are now frantically getting things prepped!

Rooms are empty and things are getting packed. Our carpets are being replaced this week, which means everything (nick nacks, electronics, etc) need to be removed. We figure, since we’ll have to have the house staged a bit, might as well start packing that stuff! This is truly exhausting.

Then we are having our floors refinished next week, which means we have to leave the house for three days. Since it’s our 15 year wedding anniversary on Thursday, we’re venturing up to the Marriott in Bellevue for a staycation. Of course, I would have rather gone somewhere tropical, but this is more practical.

We had a garage sale last weekend and sold most of our big stuff, including our generator, freezer and some furniture. What we didn’t sell, we are donating to Northwest Center, which is now about ten boxes of stuff! After we sell the house and know where we are living, we will most likely have an estate sale for the big furniture.

Storage Unit

Moving out of a four bedroom home into a two bedroom condo, means we will have to rent a storage unit. The last time I needed to rent a storage unit was in 1999!  Yesterday, we looked at two Public Storage facilities near the boat and Queen Anne. The first one we didn’t like as it was old and unheated. The second one we loved! Friendly, warm and newer. So we signed on the dotted line and secured our unit. Fun times!

All of the boat gear, including bedding, cushions, carpet, etc are all stored in our garage. Since we will need that space for other items, I am hauling all of that stuff and more belongings down to the unit today. I’m hoping I can do it in less than four trips!

House Listing

Everyone is anxious to know when we are going on the market. We want to make sure everything is in order and so it may not be until March 23rd or 30th. Again, we’re not in any rush and so we want to make sure everything is done properly and with thought.

I do wonder if the new owners will like the landscapers though? We certainly don’t need to get any Moss-Out when you have this guy chowing down on moss for hours!

Hauling Out

To add more chaos to our crazy lives, we are hauling out our boat Kokomo next Wednesday, March 7th! We are moving it to Shilshole, to Sea View Boatyard first thing in the morning. Hopefully we won’t have any troubles with our broken prop.

I will share with you all of the details and updates about that in our blog.  We are having the bottom painted, the upper cleaned and waxed and some mechanical work being done.

Needless to say, our lives next month are going to be crazy! Add to that, I am interviewing with a few companies. Of course, I work best when I’m under pressure, so this is normal for me.

So stay tuned for more updates on our boating journey & adventure!

Cheers, Scott and Ally

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Downsizing our Home

Scott and I have been working on downsizing our home for the past year. You will recall that two years ago we were making preparations for me to move to Belize and we began removing clutter.  That project is never ending.

Since I have not been working these past few months, we decided to take advantage of my time off and really concentrate on prepping the house and downsizing. Are we selling our house you ask? The answer is yes, but we don’t know when. Obviously, we want to take advantage of the market and so we are monitoring it carefully.

We’ve all read stories about couples selling everything they own to move onto a boat. In fact, just this week a young couple sold everything, bought a boat and two days later it sank. Unfortunately, they were not experienced sailors and the romance of the journey lead them down the wrong path. Scott and I plan on taking baby steps towards living on a boat, to make sure we can do it.

Moving to an Apartment or Condo

Before we decide to make the jump to a 50′ boat, we have decided to move to Downtown Seattle and live in an apartment or condo. This will really tell us if we can live in a very small space with limited storage. Not knowing what was out there, we toured four complexes a few weeks ago.

Ideally, we are looking for a two bedroom, two bath, but we did look at one bedrooms too. If you haven’t looked at apartments lately, it will be a shock. I haven’t lived in an apartment since 1990.

Queen Anne Neighborhood

The first one we looked at was way too small and not anything we would want to live in. Next we ventured to Expo on lower Queen Anne. Scott and I loved that it had all of the amenities and numerous restaurants below the apartment complex.  They also had a fabulous roof top deck, so you could enjoy the outdoors during the summer.

Instead of doing “studio” apartments, the new thing now is “one bedroom suites”, which have a glass door enclosing the bedroom and a 3/4 wall separating it from the living room. This would be great for a single person, but not a married couple accustomed to living in a big house.

The bedroom above, is directly across from the kitchen.

Scott and I were surprised that all of the apartments we looked at, offered full size amenities, such as washer, dryer, dishwashers and refrigerators.

So did we find anything we liked? Actually, we did like the two bedroom, two bath unit at Expo. The key will be if these units are available when we are ready to move.

Ballard Neighborhood

From Queen Anne, we set out to view a new building in Ballard called Leva. The apartments in this building were very simple and it was obvious you would need to use your furniture to create the different living spaces.

Many people are reminding us that living in a 950 sq ft apartment is going to be a shock, but that is the point. It’s better to move to a very small space on land & see how we like it, before we invest in a boat.

Removing Clutter

First on my list is tackling my photo albums and family keepsakes. Since we don’t have children to pass them on to, I have been dividing everything up for other family members. Not only do I have over twenty photo albums of my own, but I had my parent’s and my grandparent’s albums. So I have been scanning photos for almost a month. As weird as this will sound to many, after I scan the photos, I throw away the albums. No need to keep them anymore, as they won’t fit on a boat. The photos I’ve kept to divvy up.

Next we have been dividing up our “stuff” into four (piles).

• Keep & Store (we will get a storage unit)
• Sell
• Donate
• Throw away

It’s amazing how much stuff one couple can accumulate over sixteen years. Some of it, we have never touched or seen in that amount of time.  At the same time, we are “downsizing”, so we have to look at those items we do use regularly. For example, do we need 12 bath towels, 36 wine glasses & 5 sets of sheets if we’re living in an apartment?

Next we have been painting bedrooms and some common areas. Funny that two of the bedrooms were never painted, so now they look really good.

There’s a lot yet to do, but I am the type of person who wants to maximize my time and so this is what I’m tackling now since I have the time available.

Won’t you miss your house and view?

That’s the question everyone keeps asking us. Until you get to this stage, you can’t understand why we are doing this.  Scott and I live in a four bedroom, three bath, three living room, two dining area, etc house and only use a fraction of it. While we will miss our amazing view, we are simply swapping it out for another great view.

So stay tuned for our next update! The next month will be full of big changes.

Cheers, Scott and Ally

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#BoatingJourney #KokomoSeattle

Dock neighbors are your second set of eyes

When Scott and I started mooring our boat Kokomo at Elliott Bay Marina, we didn’t think too much about the importance of our dock neighbors. With over one thousand boats in the marina and us being moored at the very end, our boat is just a spec among many.

But over the last few months, we have realized that we do care about our dock neighbors and we make sure to keep an eye out on their boats. Being new boat owners, we were not sure about how to connect with the folks we see every weekend. In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed to say that we didn’t meet our neighbor Joe until the Christmas party.  We decided then, that it’s important for us to connect with our neighbors and also meet new ones throughout the year.

A Fuel Leak

When we first arrived in May 2017, we did meet our yacht neighbors, Jules & Doug. They own a beautiful custom yacht and are located at the end of our dock, just a couple of boats away.

We didn’t get to see them much during the summer as they left for a few months to cruise British Columbia.  When they returned in the Fall, we exchanged numbers in case of emergencies.  Of course, I was hoping that would never need to happen.  But a month later, we knew they were out of town and we noticed fuel around their stern.

I immediately called the marina and I also texted Jules to let her know. She was very grateful and the mechanics arrived asap, so nothing major happened. When all this was happening, I was nervous about notifying them. No one wants that call, but at the same time I would want someone to call me.

Should that water be running?

Right next door to Jules’ yacht, was an older Chris Craft house boat. It was under major renovation and the owner lived on it part time.

One morning, I noticed that the hose that was hooked up to the boat, was pouring out more water from the faucet connection than probably going in. Turns out she had hooked it up and didn’t know she needed an auto shut off valve and so water was going everywhere.  We did call the marina, but they already knew about it. Better safe than sorry.

Should the boat look like that?!

Last week, the PNW had another wind storm and our marina lost power. We decided to go down and check our lines and make sure the heaters were back up and running fine.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we were just making a pit stop at the marina.

As we approached our boat, we noticed Joe’s boat across the way and it didn’t look right. (No, I don’t have a photo – we were too concerned with fixing the problem than taking pictures). But here’s one from summer and if you can picture what we saw.  First, his bow looked like it was on the dock, but it was because all of his bumpers were ON the dock, not between the boat. What the?? Turns out his stern line had snapped and forced the bow up onto the dock slightly.

We called him right away and fixed his bumpers and secured his stern. Normally the marina staff walks the docks and they would have noticed it too, but it was the day after Christmas so they were on a light staff.

Just as we were done and walking down the dock to leave, we notice the lock box next to us, was completely tipped over. Nope, didn’t get a photo of that either. Will do for the next time. So we went to the marina office and told them about both situations so they were aware.

The Dock is Sinking!

Scott and I follow many cruising / sailing blogs and YouTube channels. Recently, there was an episode on Sailing Ruby Rose. They were sound asleep and were woken up by their neighbors to inform them that their dock was sinking! You have to watch this episode–WATCH HERE! There’s lot to learn should this ever happen to you. Thank God their neighbors woke them up.

The moral of this story is all of us dock neighbors need to be looking out for each other. If you don’t know your neighbors or haven’t exchanged contact information, do so the next time you see them. Boat neighbors are no different than your house neighbors, in fact in some cases this could be their home.

If you have experienced any dock neighbor situations, please share with us.

Happy New Year! Scott and Ally

#KokomoSeattle #BoatingJourney

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