3000 to 850

The Old Homestead - 5 Rossi Dr.

It is hard to give up the old family residence where you have lived for over 30 years and raised two children, but when the children have flown the nest and developing their own lives, you no longer need all that space. Our house has three floors, three bedrooms and guest suite in the basement; over 3000 square feet of living space. And that does not count the garage out back. We knew we would have to downsize at some point, but I must admit that I am a “collector”; I had a collection of old retro computers, hundreds of vinyl records that I no longer played, too many books to count, 1500 jokers from playing cards (and hundreds of decks of cards that came from, and  . . . and  . . . Many of you know me and understand. Every time I even thought about downsizing I came up against the question “What am I going to do with all my ‘stuff’?”. 

Then a year or so ago our son Ryan and his partner Ben hinted that they might be interested in letting us rent their second condo in Toronto for a year to let us enjoy the “Big City”, life style. We had spent time house-sitting for them in both their condos in Toronto and although I know many of my “country” friends do not understand, we really do love the hustle and bustle of big cities, so the offer got the thoughts going again. Then, after our last visit to Ryan and Ben in Toronto, where we really started thrashing the idea out, we decided to go home and really seriously look to see if it could be done. 

Returning home, I decided to tackle the corner of the storage room containing an

What do you mean "it's not worth a fortune".

entire history of the personal computer, Commodore Pet, VIC 20, C64, C128, Radio Shack, Compaq Luggable,  Apple IIE, Original Apple Macintosh, and various 8088, 8089, and other IBM clones. I got them all out, photographed them all and advertised them on various forums, but got no interest. I lugged the boxes of old Road & Track and Car & Driver out of the storage room and listed them on various “Car Nut” Facebook sites. Got one fellow who offered me $10 for my old Hot Rod magazines if I was willing to pay to ship them. Duh?

Books, Books Too many Books . . .

I gave up on financing the move to Toronto by selling all my “Valuable” collectables and decided to give them away. A fellow running a Retro Computer Museum was excited to take all my old Technology and my brother was appalled when I suggested I was interested in getting rid of my Vinyl collection . . . . “I have been paying premium prices to buy some of the cool old albums you made me listen to in the old days!”. He came to see if he could find any of my records that interested him and walked away with over 100, so he offered to find someplace to sell the ones he did not want. And so it started . . . . . magazines got recycled, books got donated and decks of cards went to senior complexes. 

850 SF,  9th floor . . .

Once I got started I found I was able to thin out many of my collections. BUT it still seemed to be an insurmountable task. It seemed that no matter how many books I donated, the shelves were still full. Then our daughter suggested it might be time for her to return from northern Ontario and move back to Nova Scotia. We offered her our house for the year on the condition that we did not have to completely clear it out. This meant I did not have to get rid of the 1965 Mini Cooper engine, the 1953 Cadillac parts or the two Volvo B18 engines right away, and my motorcycle could have a place to live for a year. With this option we really thought the plan might work. 

And it did indeed work. It was not easy, and there were serious issues that tried to
scuttle the plan, but nine months later we are happily settling into an 850 square foot condo in downtown Toronto. Look for further posts about this latest Regis & Art adventure.