Prepping for 6 months abroad

Deciding to live abroad for 6 month is a big decision.  If you have never really thought about it, take a minute… think of all the things you would have to do to get your affairs in order… are you amazed at the list you came up with?  Well now add that you are going to rent your house while you are away, and not to just one person but as a vacation rental property. 

Over the last 5 years I have been working towards spending 6 months in Canada and 6 months in Croatia and this is the year that it has all come together.

It is funny when you look around your home, that you have been living in for the last 12 years and all of a sudden there are a million things to do for the "new people" that will be occupying your space.  Why is it that it has been ok for you to live in but it is not ok for someone else to live in?

So prep for me started with a kitchen renovation last November.  I am a designer by trade and so I really enjoyed designing the space.  I decided to use Ikea cabinets as I had heard wonderful things about their kitchen products, and I was not disappointed.  The installation went well but the owner turned out to be a …. well I will let you use your imagination. By the end of November I had a new kitchen and I loved it. 

May 1st was my departure date and so I sat down with my calendar and started placing tasks that needed to be done, working back from May 1st.  I wish I could show you my calendar!  You would not believe how quickly the days filled up and I would need to start mid-April.

I will summarize quickly: all bills needed to be paid via internet, mail needed to be re-routed, property manager needed to be hired, several rooms in house needed to be painted, house needed to be de-personalized, valuables stored, gardens mulched, planter boxes planted, snow tires removed, find storage for car, cleaning supplies purchases for cleaning lady, confirm cat on flight, cat to have all shots required by EU regulations, phones cancelled and put on hold.  I am sure there is more but you get the point.

I consider myself a pretty organized person and I am happy to say that on May 1st, everything on my list was done. 

What was great about this experience is that I organized my house and was able to get rid of a lot of stuff that was tucked in that back of a cupboard somewhere.  I joke with my friends about the amount of stuff that went out, but as I am a bit of a pack rat, only I would notice the difference.

The hardest thing about this experience, was wrapping my head around someone else, infact many someone else's, living in my house, my home, my space.  But I was lucky because I own the house next door and have been renting it out as a vacation rental for the last 3 years and, knock on wood, have never had a bad experience.  I like to believe that people are good and from my experience they are exactly that.  So last week I had my first renters in my house, and the report back was that everything went well and the house was in fine shape. yay! 

Two weeks into this adventure and I have let Canada go… i believe this is what you have to do.  I am now in another country, experiencing what they have to offer on a day to day basis.  I do not consider myself a tourist but a citizen, and really my day to day life is not that different from what I would do at home.  Its kind of neat really.

If you have lived abroad, I would love to hear your experiences and if you had any tips that I might not have thought of?  Until then, see you at my next blog :)