Nobody warns you about Stage 3: eating cereal on the floor of your new house because the furniture isn't there yet

Nobody puts this in the brochure, but here are the five stages of buying a home — at least in this market. Stage 1: Optimism. You have a clear plan, a budget, and a list of must-haves. Stage 2: Humility. The market in Centennial and Greenwood Village has a different plan. Stage 3: Cereal on the floor. You own it, the movers are two days out, and you are eating Cheerios cross-legged on hardwood because this is your life now. Stage 4: Quiet pride. You walk through the empty rooms and think — we did this. Stage 5: You forget all of it the moment the couch arrives. Here's what I've seen after working with a lot of families through major moves: the practical chaos in the middle is real, but it passes. What stays is whether the choices you made going in were steady and well-informed — whether the timing made sense, whether the paperwork was clean, whether someone was paying attention to the details so you didn't have to. The floor-cereal phase is temporary. A bad contract is not. If you bought or sold in Southmoor Park or the Denver Tech Center corridor this spring — did the process feel like what you expected, or did something catch you off guard?