Momentum

Now that that the lingering doubts have been resolved regarding the layout of the cargo box of our new van, we've decided it is time to get our house on the market.  We had been somewhat in limbo, due to not knowing how extensively we might need to modify the van, and thus we didn't want to close too early and end up with our tools in storage when the van finally arrives.  That could have left us with a less than optimal place to make needed modifications, potentially on a very tight timeline, thus eating up our limited time and leaving us with little room to deal with anything else that might come up at the last minute.

I finished off our drawer pedestal on Saturday, so the only modifications that will need to be made to the van will be securing the pedestal to the floor and installing an AC power inlet to power our charging station.   Hopefully we will also be able to make some minor modifications to the cargo box for storing things in the areas behind the window blanks in the rear half of the cargo box - for hanging spare power cords, bike bags, hats or whatever.

The completed drawer pedestal (minus drawers) with camp chairs and table, infra-red grill and charging station.

The picture above is of our completed drawer pedestal, showing all of our gear strapped in place.  The cord for the power strip will be routed behind a plastic shroud above the wheel wells and then toward the rear of the curbside of the van, which is where the AC power inlet will be located.  We'll likely attach a heavy duty velcro strap at the back inside corner of the pedestal, as a place for us to anchor the curbside bike by its seatpost while we are in transit.  The picture below gives an idea of what the storage on the interior curbside of the van will look like.

The main items of gear planned for the interior curbside of the van - shade structure, dog kennel, long handled brush, bike, generator and our Luggable Loo (emergency toilet).

We received our assessment notice for our house a couple weeks back: $182,100.  We figure that the Assessor values properties about 5% below average market price, which would put the valuation for an average house like ours at around $191,000.  But since we have many improvements that don't show up on their standardized assessment forms, we expect that it will appraise a bit higher than that.  We have an appraiser scheduled to come out this morning and we're hoping that she will have the appraisal back to us by tomorrow.

We've decided to be optimistic about our chances of selling and have rented a storage unit a few miles from the house.  We've set up some shelves and have started moving extra items from the garage and will move a limited amount of furniture over later this week.  Most everything else will remain in the house for now, to stage it for prospective buyers.  So our momentum is starting to build...