We only lived in Rome, GA for one year and the time there was spent completing projects needed for our “Fixer Upper”. This house was empty for a while before we bought it. The previous owners moved away and rented it out after that, but as we all know, renting can cause other issues and problems.
Even though in rough condition, it was exactly what we were looking for at that time: some land (over 4 acres), an inground pool, and enough bedrooms and bathrooms for our family and weekend visitors.
My When in Rome post will give you an idea of what we started with. In the end, we didn’t do all we wanted to do, we got it listed and sold when the opportunity to move back to Atlanta popped up.
About that opportunity: Pieter was offered a position at the company he previously worked at and started his new job there at the beginning of January. This left me and the kids in Rome, GA to finish out the school year (which ended in May) and to complete our Phase 1 list of projects. This included a lot of painting – so many nooks and crannies still needed to be freshened up. Pieter stayed with family (David and Ilse to the rescue again) during the week and came home for weekends to help with the extremely long to-do list.
Another Move
While we didn’t have a house in Atlanta yet, I started packing as soon as possible. It allowed me to purge (again) and kept me quite busy, which is always a bonus when you find yourself alone. We were using a moving company this time and I opted to box up all the small stuff myself. I really like containers and have accumulated a lot of those over the years. I prefer the see-through kind, but ended up with some regular ones as well. I used all my containers and regular boxes that I’ve been collecting in town since January. Since we were still living in the house, I packed our less frequently used items first and kept them together in a storage area off of our bedroom. Projects continued until the house was ready to list. We met with our Realtor, got our sale pictures taken and on the market it went.
Timing
This was a bit of a challenge. The kids and I had to stay in Rome to finish the school year, but according to the experts, March was the best time to list a house. So we went ahead and did just that, going under contract in April and closing on the sale beginning of May. I started the serious packing as soon as we were under contract and boxes started piling up everywhere. Pretty soon everything was packed and we were ready for the movers.
Also in March, Pieter saw a house he liked come on the market in Suwanee and scheduled a showing for that very same evening. Due to work, I couldn’t drive down to view it so I had to be content with a Skype video call at the time. We both liked the house and decided to make an offer on the spot. The plan was for me to drive down and see the house in person over the weekend. It didn’t work out for that weekend and the timing was just never right to do so over the course of the next two months. All I got was a drive-by and so I never got to see the inside of the house in person.
Moving
Back in Rome, it was time to move out of our house. The movers were scheduled for the 2nd of May and loaded all our belongings into trucks to be stored in Atlanta for 3 weeks. We were only going to be able to close on our new house and move in by the end of the month.
The kids, pets and I stayed in the house until closing (which was a couple of days after our belongings were picked up) and had a type of indoor camping setup. A couple of camping chairs, some air mattresses and bedding, and a bag each for clothing. After that, the pets had to go to the kennels and we booked into a hotel for the last 3 weeks of school.
On the final day in the house, I took the kids to school, packed all our stuff into the car, and did a final walk-through of the house. We’ve put so much time and energy into this little diamond in the rough and it felt quite sad to lock up and leave. It was a fun year in Rome for sure.
Hotel Living
While this sounded very exciting at first, it was a rather interesting situation with the three of us in one room. The hotel was in town and about a 35-minute drive from school. Which meant I did a lot of back and forth for drop-offs and pickups. We had lots of dinner options from all the restaurants around us, but even that got “old” quickly. On Fridays, I would pick the kids up from school and we would drive down to Atlanta for the weekend. And then back to Rome on Monday mornings in time for school drop-off and check-in time back at the hotel. We did make time for some final Rome outings as well. A fun time indeed.
Getting the Keys
The last week of school was crazy!!! We closed on our new house the 19th of May and after celebrating my birthday a day early that weekend, was surprised by the previous owners letting us know that they moved out a day earlier than planned and that the house was empty and ready for us! Happy birthday to me! We got the text while out at dinner and drove there right after we finished our meal. Not only us though – David, Ilse and our friends Carmen and Michael came along too. So my first time in our new house was also their first time seeing it. The kids were so excited and immediately ran off to select their rooms.
We came back to the house on Sunday to do another more thorough walkthrough and to also do a bit of cleaning while there. We had a cleaning company lined up for Tuesday and Pieter planned on getting internet service set up as soon as they could fit him in. The kids and I drove back from Rome the Tuesday afternoon after school, bringing along the pets and we all spent a night on air mattresses in the new house.
Wednesday was Moving Day (again?) and it was a crazy busy day indeed. Our movers were so professional and efficient. I have to say, not having to carry an extremely heavy king-size bedframe and mattress up to a second-floor bedroom all by ourselves, was a nice change of pace for us. We had all the furniture in place in no time and were working on moving boxes from the garage inside.
Early Thursday morning we were back in the car and drove back to Rome for Simon and Sidney’s last day of school.
We reached the end of our Rome chapter, but we had a whole new adventure ahead in Suwanee.
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