The time has come, my father and I have to sell the old house and move on. The problem is it is in a terrible condition. We just don’t have the time, money or energy to start major renovations so we’ll just have to cut our losses and see what we can get for it. The house has excellent bones, it’s just that since Mum hasn’t been around we’ve let it get old and rusty. I don’t think we’ve done a deep clean in about three years. The furniture all looks as old as Dad, some of it actually is. Dad actually had quite a good idea of getting an interior stylist on board, apparently you can rent furniture for the purposes of selling, it’s called ‘property staging’. We had an initial consultation with an interior stylist who suggested some quick fixes for some of the more obvious problems. She even arranged some minor repairs for us including fixing some of the tiles and the window frames. Apparently our old tatty furniture doesn’t scream ‘buy me’, so we are going with a furniture rental package to appeal to buyers. I think the whole process is quite emotional for Dad so I am trying to take the lead. I know he didn’t even really want to sell the house in the first place but it just seemed unrealistic that we would keep living there. It is far too big for both of us and in some way I think all the memories are holding us back. Every night when we eat dinner we are reminded of Mum’s absence by the spot she used to sit at. When he goes to bed he notices the empty other side and so on. A new place means a fresh start for both of us. Even if we do have to freshen this place up. The property stylist is coming back to arrange some of our old bits going into storage but I don’t want Dad to be here. I think he’d struggle to see Mum’s favourite chair lugged onto some truck to be taken somewhere.