The Last Garage Sale and Getting the Coach Ready To Go

We dropped the motorhome off at Creative Coach on Friday morning, went to breakfast at the Auburndale Diner, and went back home to get ready to go to the closing. What a wonderful day!!! We have waited for this day for a long time.

The closing was fast and went very smooth. After the closing Don took us all to Red Lobster for lunch. It was very good and we truly enjoyed it. Then it was back home to get things ready for the garage sale on Saturday. This was going to be our last garage sale, finally. When we dropped the coach off at Creative Coach we asked the guys if we could leave it until Saturday afternoon. By leaving it there I wouldn't have to move it down the street to my neighbor's house again as we have been doing for the previous garage sales. They were great guys and told me it was no problem at all. 

The garage sale went great and we got rid of a lot of stuff. One of the people that came by told us since it was our last garage sale he would come by and make us an offer on what was left if we were interested. Since we didn't want to take anything back inside and it was going to be our last sale we said sure. He came by after the sale, loaded up what was left, folded up our tables for us, and we were finished with garage sales.

After the garage sale was finished we stopped by Creative Coach to pick up the motorhome. I had told them when we dropped it off that I thought there might be something wrong with the steering and asked if they would check it out. Sure enough, Lester, the service writer, told me I needed a front end alignment and recommended a place in Orlando called Josam Frame and Alignment. He said it was the only place he would recommend and they use a laser alignment system. We looked it up on the internet and decided to see how soon we could get an appointment. I called them today and they said they were about a week out so I made an appointment for next Monday. 

I sure hope this all works out. The coach is scheduled to go to Classic Coach on Tuesday morning to have the refrigerator replaced with a residential model and all the shades replaced with the AutoMotion day/night shades. It is suppose to be finished by Friday. Then I take it to Josam's Monday for the alignment and we have to be loaded and out of here on Friday May 11th.

A lot to do in a short amount of time.

Until next time...

Events of 4/12 - 4/26 (Continued)

We are closing on the house tomorrow morning at 11:00 AM. We have an appointment to take the motor home in to Creative Coach tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM to get it serviced. I heard about them from a blog that I follow and they are close to where we live so we thought we would try them out. They are going to change the engine oil, oil filter, and fuel filters, replace the transmission filters, and lube the chassis. We will drop it off tomorrow morning and hopefully pick it up tomorrow afternoon. After the closing at 11:00 Don is taking us and the buyers to lunch at Red Lobster. 

When we finish lunch we are going to come back home and work on getting things together for the yard sale on Saturday, which hopefully will be our last yard sale. I talked to Alan of Classic Coach Works this week about upgrading our refrigerator in the motor home to a residential refrigerator and replacing our shades with Auto Shades day/night roller shades. Alan told us we would need to get the coach in no later than Wednesday morning of next week in order to have it all finished by Friday. I told him we would have it  there no late than Tuesday morning, in case there were any problems it would give them an extra day to get them ironed out. 

We want to get the upgrades done that we want before we make the move into the motor home in 2 weeks. I'll tell you more about the upgrades we're doing in a later post. For now, I need to get to bed and try to get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

Until then…

Events of 4/12 - 4/26

We have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks. Our efforts to get rid of the "stuff" has escalated to the next level and in the mean time I have fallen behind in posting what has been going on with us. I apologize for that and will attempt to catch you up on our progress.

We have sold most of our larger items by posting things to Craigslist on a regular basis. If, after a week or so there is no interest, we lower the price and continue this until we see activity on the item for sale. You reach a point where time is of the essence and the goal shifts to getting rid of it even if you don't get what it's really worth. We have a limited amount of time to get rid of all this "stuff" and you have to do what you have to do. In the end, it doesn't matter. What matters is to be able to get rid of it all and not stress out over it. We have a yard sale scheduled for this coming Saturday and we hope this will be the last one. It will be the largest one yet and the goal this time is to get rid of it at any cost.

We are closing on the house Friday morning 4/27 at 11:00 AM. Don has invited us and the buyer to lunch afterwards and we are so looking forward to finally closing on the house. Last week the temperature in the refrigerator started rising and by Friday I could tell there was something definitely wrong so I called the repairman. The condenser fan was bad and he didn't have a replacement on hand. He gave the fan a spin and it started running again but not knowing how long it would last I told him to order a replacement. He said it should be in by Monday or Tuesday. I kept watching the temperature in the fridge over the weekend and by Tuesday I had to spin it to keep it cooling about 4 different times. Man, was I glad when he called Tuesday afternoon to tell me he had the fan in. He came out to replace it late Tuesday afternoon and we are back up and running again. 

I loaded the motorcycle on the Hydralift and drove over to Lazydays RV on Thurday, 4/12 to drop the motorhome off to have the last two items on the warranty list taken care of. We also contacted Wade RV, which is located on the premises of Lazydays about installing their snap on tire covers while the coach was in for repairs. The black and grey tanks have been giving us erroneous readings since we bought the motor home. The last time I had it in the shop, which was back in October, just before the snowbirds started coming back down for the winter I was told that the tank sensors had been replaced. If they were replaced, I had the same problem when I picked it up as I had when I dropped it off. The great thing about Lazydays is they will eventually take care of the problem if you continue to have issues. I had researched some tank probes online and found some probes called Horst Miracle Probes. It sounded like the solution to my ongoing problem so I order a set for the grey and black tanks. When I called to make the appointment to take the coach back in, i asked if they would install the probes I had bought online under warranty since I was still having the same problem after they had replaced the probes. They agreed to do that and I must say the tanks were reading properly when we picked it up. I'll let you know about the probes after we have had them for awhile. The other problem was the porch awning would not close all the way when it was retracted. The problem was a bad motor and they did not have one in stock. It had to be ordered and wouldn't be in until the first of the following week. The plan was to drop the coach off on Thursday and pick it up on Friday afternoon, then spend the weekend at the Lazydays Campground. With having to order the awning motor they had other jobs that could be completed so they didn't install the probes before the weekend either so a quick call to Shawn, our service advisor, and the coach was put on a service site for the weekend so we enjoyed the weekend away anyway and at no cost. It was a great weekend. The coach was finally ready the following Saturday so we picked it up in the afternoon and brought it home. 

Sorry for the lengthy post but when you get behind and at the pace we're moving right now it takes awhile to get caught up. I'll stop for now (it's getting late and I need my rest) and I'll try to finish catching everything up tomorrow.

Until then...

What a Relief!!!

I received a call from Don somewhere around noon on Wednesday. He told me he heard from the bank on the appraisal and wanted to call instead of sending a text. He said he wanted to hear my reaction when he told me the appraisal came back with enough to carry the offer. What a relief that was and I immediately felt a load lift off my shoulders. I didn't realize how wound up I was over the appraisal and hoping it would be "enough". Ellen and I had discussed it previously and we had decided that under the circumstances as long as the house appraised for enough it didn't matter to us if it appraised for much more. From everything we've heard from several people in the real estate market I don't believe that it did. The bank won't tell the seller how much a house appraises for unless it's not enough to carry the loan, but if it carries they will only let you know that it was enough. We could probably ask the buyer and I think he would tell us but we decided it didn't matter to us, so we won't ask. We both have been doing a lot of praying lately and thank the good Lord we can now continue towards our dream. We should have a closing date in a few days and we are both so very excited that our plans are moving forward.

Until next time...

Another Yard Sale and Appraisal

We spent most of last week getting things ready for another yard sale. We have had good luck so far. On Saturday we had our 3rd yard sale. We didn't know how this one would turn out since it was Easter weekend but we decided to have one anyway and see what happens.  For each sale we've had we listed it with the local newspaper in print and online. We also posted it on Craigslist and put out yard sale signs at the main intersections near our house. We had a good turnout once again and was able to sell a lot of stuff. There wasn't a lot left after the sale that we had to bring back in. We also continue to sell a few things from time to time that we have listed on Craigslist. We are planning on having one more sale in about two weeks and hopefully we will be able to wrap it up.

I have an appointment this coming Thursday at Lazydays RV where we bought our motor home to have the last of the 30 day warranty items taken care of. Even though we bought this motor home last August they are very good about taking care of any issues you have after purchase. I had the motor home in for these items already but they weren't fixed completely on my last visit which I think was in October or November. My service writer said they would take care of it and since the snow birds were beginning to come back down and they were getting very busy I could wait until things slowed a little before bringing it back. We really like Lazydays. We bought both of our motor homes from them and we highly recommend them to anyone looking to purchase an RV.

My appointment is for 9:00 AM on Thursday and the plan is to stay until Saturday evening. I took Thursday and Friday off and Ellen will come over Friday night after work. They have a little sports bar cafe called Exit 10 Cafe at the Lazydays Campground across the street and we enjoy stopping by for a few cold ones and visiting with Mike and Julie. They work at Exit 10 and we always look forward to going over and seeing them. We always have a good time.

There is a shop on the Lazydays property called Wades RV. They custom make snap on tire covers for motor homes and while the RV is in for service they are going to install the tire covers on the motor home. We've been wanting to get these for a long time.

We received a call from Don last Friday and the appraisal was scheduled for Monday at 11:00 AM. The appraisal was done yesterday and we were told the bank should have it by Wednesday. Don said the appraiser was impressed with all the upgrades we have done to the house. He also said MidFlorida Credit Union, who will be financing the house for the young man who is buying it, allows a little more leeway with appraisers for upgrades so we're hoping everything works out well. We should know by Wednesday.

Until next time...

A Little Spring Cleaning

We decided to get up this morning and do a little spring cleaning around the house. The vinyl privacy fence around the back yard hasn't been cleaned since last summer and it has built up some mildew with all of the pollen we have had lately. We sold our big gas powered pressure washer that I used to wash down the fence, but we bought a small electric pressure washer a few months ago that we use to wash the motorhome with. I got it out and spent the day pressure washing the fence while Ellen did some weeding in the flower beds to get them looking presentable. It sure took a lot longer to get the fence cleaned with the little electric washer than it did with the gas powered one, but hopefully it will be the last time I have to take care of that chore.

The appraiser should be coming out to do the appraisal on the house some time soon so we thought anything we can do to make the house look better may help in some way. Probably not, but that's how we looked at it. The fence sure looks better now that it's clean. It looks brand new again.

We're planning on having another yard sale next Saturday so I guess we'll be working on pulling things together for that in the evenings after work this week.

Until next time...