The home stretch

I write from the Delaware trailer. My eyes fall on the reassuringly familiar sights they expect. To my left is the view out the big window to the water. Just in front of that is the TV on its stand, and the comfortable thrift store furniture arranged near it. The green curtains we hung so excitedly four summers ago are still on their rods. If I walk into the dining room and the adjoining kitchen, everything is in place, except that the dining room is full of boxes in various stages of fullness. All the dishes are still in their cabinets and the little wheeled work island Steve made is where it's supposed to be.

All of this will change over the next two days. Today I'll pack the entire kitchen except for what we'll need to eat until Saturday night. Always remembering that when we finally move here we'll be consolidating two houses, I'll decide on what should be stored and what can be given to the thrift store.

Tomorrow we will spend several hours with the builder, who will present his final proposal. It will include a detailed price list of every choice we have made: exterior treatments, wall paints, carpets, tiles, appliances, light fixtures, deck railings, the bamboo floors and stairs, the stone fireplace facing. It will list the cost of paving the driveway and landscaping whatever grounds we end up with; in short, we'll have his grand total for key-ready construction of our new house. After that, we will shop this package (except the final cost) to other builders to see if they offer a lower price. We've enjoyed working with Dale, the designer, and his construction company very much. He's taken a personal interest in the house because it's been a stretch for him, a challenge. He's proud of the ideas he's come up with to create a very nice but unobtrusive house on a tiny lot. We'd love to go full circle with him and let his company do the construction, but we owe it to ourselves to see what the marketplace has to say. If we get a lower bid from elsewhere, we'll ask Dale if his company is willing to match it, and if they are, we'll still go with them. If not, we'll shake hands with Dale and invite him to the housewarming.

Saturday, most of what I'm looking at now will go. All the furniture will return to the thrift store from whence it came. The stove, refrigerator and hot water heater will be uninstalled and taken to the storage shed, to be sold, along with the window air conditioner (we hope), on Craigs List when we're here for good. (We'll keep the fridge, though, which is new and will work well in the garage for overflow from the kitchen.) The TV and its stand, along with a couple of fold-up rocking chairs, will spend the last night here with us so we can watch The Wire DVDs while we eat a pig-out pizza from Vinny's off paper plates. Our last supper.

Saturday night will be last one this little trailer will enclose anyone in its ancient arms. Sunday morning we'll deflate the airbeds, pack the bedding, the TV, its stand, and the rocking chairs, and we'll be off, first for one last visit to the storage shed, and then back to Virginia. One day in December, we know not yet which, this cozy little place, so full of happiness and plans, will cease to exist but for a photo album and our memories.