Now that my husband, DC, and I had sold the Happier Yellow House to the first buyer who saw it, we were quite suddenly, technically, homeless. Yikes! My head was literally spinning. I need to sit down often and put my head between my knees.

What had we done? We had accepted a handsome all-cash, full-price offer, I kept reminding myself. But still! Because the big idea behind this self-imposed upheaval was to decrease our overhead (but not our lifestyle) as we slide toward retirement, we asked our broker to show us gentle fixers that cost no more than 75% of the price of the house we were selling. Otherwise, what was the point?

We knew we'd have to make sacrifices, but we had a must-have list: DC wants a man cave, which our current house lacks, a retreat where he can work on his creative

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