New House

Over Labor Day weekend we made the transition from apartment living to house living. The week before Robb and I had been taking carloads of our stuff over to the house and sticking it in a giant family room. We just figured that on actual moving day, the less that we had to deal with, the happier we would be. So then I took the Friday before Labor Day weekend off and we rented a U-haul to load our furniture and whatever else we hadn't gotten around to taking to the house yet.

At my urging, Robb hired a young man from his store who has experience loading freight to help with the heavy pieces of furniture. Robb was reluctant to hire someone and thought that I could handle lifting some of our furniture and moving it down the apartment stairs and into a truck. Silly man. Later he was glad that we hired someone. Robb didn't realize exactly how heavy some of our furniture is, especially the new bedroom pieces we bought in the last year. So, luckily we got help with the big pieces of furniture and then Robb and I finished everything else.

Then, the cleaning marathon began. I took all of Saturday and half a day Sunday to clean that apartment from top to bottom. Because Robb had to work those days, I couldn't get as much help as I'm used to. (Who am I kidding? Robb is the cleaner in this family. I had to clean this apartment and it was very unsettling. However, Robb came over Saturday evening after work to bring me dinner and help with more cleaning -- and possibly re-do anything that I didn't do well enough. Well I got Robb's seal of approval! He was very impressed with everything I did and didn't have to re-clean anything!) But, I finished everything up, turned in our apartment keys on Sunday around lunchtime, and then started the process of unpacking at our new house.

Overall, the house itself is great. It's got more space and more closets than we've ever had before. The gas fireplace is awesome because now I can just flip a switch and I've got instant fire and warmth. The yard is amazing and a few days ago I saw a raccoon strolling across my backyard! (Some people think that's bad, I think it's neat to have wildlife!) And we've already met some neighbors who are friendly and even gave us their telephone number in case we need anything. Apartment living isn't like that! There are a few negatives to the house, but we're trying not to focus on these too much. For one, I have never seen so many spiders living on porches before. We've seen a few in the house, but the outside porches are just incredible. Every time I leave the house I wave my arm out in front of me so that don't walk face-first into a web. I really don't like spiders, so I'm trying to think of some solutions. (Right now, my best thought is to take a leaf blower and blast them away.) We only have one bathroom now and Robb hates it. The cabinets are very odd and, as Robb puts it, it looks like a caulking factory exploded next to our tub. And while Robb hates the bathroom, I really hate the family room. This is a giant room (was originally a garage) that has wood paneling. I hate wood paneling. There's some wood paneling in the living room, but at least it's not the entire room, and the brick fireplace distracts from some of it. The family room is awful. I've told Robb that he can basically have that room and do what he wants with it. So now he's trying to come up with a master plan (that we can afford) to make it HIS room. And finally, the master bedroom doesn't have a closet. It used to, but the doors were taken off and now the only way all of our furniture will fit in that room is if the doors remain off. So now our hanging clothes are in different rooms, which is somewhat inconvenient.

We still have boxes and messes in our house a week later. But we're definitely making some progress. I'd guess that in another week or so we'll be about done. And in three weeks we're receiving a brand new couch we've ordered. Once the house looks like it's fairly done, I'll be sure to take a few pictures and post them. But for now, just imagine boxes everywhere!