Moved

We have moved! It was a long, hectic day on Friday. The movers came in the morning and moved all of our stuff from the house and the storage unit. My dad and I were at the old house directing stuff on that end – mostly staying out of the movers’ way and finishing up the projects requested by the buyers. Kevin and his parents were at the new house to be ready for the movers on that end. They spent the time before the movers got there getting the new house ready - assembling a storage unit in the garage, adding liners in the pantry and kitchen cabinets - and then directing where to put stuff once the movers got there.

Our cellphones came in very handy to give status updates to each other – movers are headed your way, etc. We added to the chaos by having a second mover take our weight equipment and having Comcast come to set up our tv/internet/phone on the same day.

It was a long day, especially for the movers. I have a lot of respect for what they do, and am thankful I can pay people to move my stuff for me. We really lucked out on the weather – it rained at the old house that morning, but stopped before the movers arrived, and it was a MONSOON that night at the new house after they’d finished. I hate to think how we would’ve moved in the rain.

We spent that night at our new house, but it wasn’t until Saturday night that I really got a good night’s sleep – too much going through my mind of what all we have to do.

ALL weekend was spent unpacking and today too. We both took today off work to give more time to get unpacked and settled. We have a garage full of empty boxes to show for it, and a very livable downstairs. We started with necessities – bed, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, clothes, and got all of that done – thanks to some help from my in-laws and my sister. We also treated the living room as a priority to give us a comfortable place to sit at the end of a long day of unpacking. We were even able to make progress on the study. The guest bedroom and the garage are a mess, they’ll get there. For now, we'll head back to work and give ourselves a break, and pick up again this weekend.

We have even been able to make a few improvements on the house already: installed two additional ceiling fans (thanks Larry!), installed towel rings in our bathroom and the guest bathroom, and Kevin even drilled a hole through the built-in desk for the phone and computer wires. We found a plug to cover it, on clearance for 34 cents!

I love the new neighborhood, there are trees everywhere and nice paths to walk on, it already feels like home. Smokey is having a harder time adjusting, but he loves his big backyard and will soon consider it home. We’re here and so he’ll adjust.

Lessons learned:

• Do not pack breakable items the night before, you likely won’t pack them well enough and they will be broken – several boxes of dishes were all broken, thankfully it was the ‘everyday’ dishes, not the china
• Make sure to find out if the dryer connections are being run as gas, electric or both. We thought they were running gas since the stove and water heater are gas, and didn’t know it wasn’t until we tried to connect it and couldn’t. so, we are now the owners of a brand new dryer.
  

Here are photos of our new house.

Unpacking takes time, but is much better than the packing and moving part of the process. We'll get everything organized and out of boxes, we've already got a lot of it out, the first night the answer to where almost anything was located was, "in a box".....not a good feeling.

homeowners!

Its official, we own the new house!!!!! We closed yesterday morning and were able to get the keys that afternoon. We brought a few things over to the house...it was hard to leave...

I'll have pictures soon, for now its crazy with trying to pack and get everything done that we need to get done to move on FRIDAY!

Our move-in date got pushed back several times so it is coincides with the FIRST week of classes at the university where I work, not the ideal time for me to be in and out taking care of all of this stuff......we'll get it all done and decide on what can wait. We are already pretty good at divide and conquer to get it all done. It is crazy busy. I slept fine the night before closing, but didn't sleep well at all last night - the excitement and overwhelmed feeling of all we have to get done kept me tossing and turning.. I'm more excited then overwhelmed

Kevin even got his truck back yesterday. I know he's as excited about the house as I am and add to that getting his wheels back, great day!

thats one way to move

In a bizarre way, we've started our move to the new house

Today was the walkthrough at our house and my parents came up last night so they could see it. On the way there we got rear-ended! We had just stopped at a red light and heard screeching tires and then a jolt as the car behind rammed into us, pushing us into the car in front of us. ugh....thankfully no one was hurt. We had to pull over and call 911 -- I am pretty sure that's the first time I've ever called 911. We had to wait for the police to do a police report, and let our realtor know we were going to be late. Good thing she was there since I didn't know the builder's phone number. They were able to wait for us, so we didn't have to reschedule, and the house looks good! Our builder showed us everything at the house (shut-off valves, etc.) and we were able to put tape any place that touch-up paint is needed.

The truck was damaged in the back - the bumper is banged up, you have to move it to open/close the lift gate, and worst of all the exhaust pipe was smashed in, causing it to not have much power, and also make awful sounds any time we try to accelerate. Rather than getting on the highway in it (not safe), we thought it would be best to put it in the shop on that side of town and get a rental car until its fixed. so, we put it in the shop, got some food at Burger King since we were starving, and drove home in a pontiac vibe, quite a different ride. my poor parents, didn't quite know what sort of excitement they were in for when they decided to ride with us to see the new house.

The adrenaline was pumping when we got hit, I couldn't quit shaking for quite a while....

Is it asking too much to have a normal day sometime soon??

Neighborhood Hitckhiker

Its official, our house is listed for sale. On Friday, the signs were put up in the yard and the key box on our door. I’m very happy about our upcoming move, but have to admit that it is strange to drive up to the house and see a for sale sign in the yard.

We got the biggest of our staging projects finished this weekend with the help of my wonderful parents. We have been clearing out the study to turn it into a dining room (its intended use) to help the house show better, and were going to rent a trailer to get the couch and table we had in there to our storage unit.

My parents offered to come up with their trailer and help us. It’s a good thing they did, because we needed the third and fourth person to get the items – especially the couch – out of the house and into the trailer. K and I had secured a trailer on our own, but would not have been able to manage the furniture on our own. We got everything to the storage unit and rearranged furniture in the house so that our new table is now in that room, we also added a lamp and corner unit. I can’t get over how LARGE the room is! In addition to helping us with the furniture, we had a good visit with my parents. They came up Friday and spent the night so we could get an early start Saturday, before it got so hot…

A strange sighting I have to share – our current neighborhood has a hitchhiker. I’ve seen him several times in the morning when I am driving to work, and I assume he’s trying to get a ride to work - which if he does get a ride why doesn't he just make arrangements to always ride with that person Anyone driving by almost has to live there, there is almost no thru traffic in our neighborhood.. I saw him yesterday evening – a Saturday. Where is he going? And is this his method of transportation everywhere? I am not curious enough to stop and ask him, but do find it very strange…

Packing

We've started packing. We rented a storage unit this weekend so that we can declutter our house and make it more appealing to buyers and made 2 trips over there on Sunday.

At this point, we are mostly trying to clean out the room we've used as a study so that we can put a table in it and stage it as the dining room it is meant to be. You have show people what a room is supposed to be, because they can't imagine it - seems strange, but we did have that problem when we were looking at houses ourselves, so we can appreciate it and will do what we can to make our house more appealing to buyers.

We originally wanted a "POD" but they are a LOT more expensive then we thought, so we'll settle for one we have to drive to - it is really close, climate controlled and BONUS we took advantage of a $19 move-in special an 86% savings for this month! The coupon queen/savings part of me is very happy about that.

How have we accumulated this much stuff in 3 years? We'll take our time packing and take the opportunity to go through stuff, already we have a box of books to sell to Half-Price...