Loading ...Moving
As I’ve chronicled recently, we baught a house in Vienna, VA. On saturday we got posession of it and moved over a few essentials. We also sold my wife’s condo this week and thankfully it went for enough for us to cover the downpayment for the new place which we had borrowed via an equity line.
My father-in-law has graciously agreed to stay at the new house and help us get settled for the first few weeks. He has been doing all kinds of house stuff that I am pretty clueless about, having grown up in an apartment where the “maintenance man” did everything for you. He’s replaced the locks, added a railing/banister for the front steps which is required for our insurance, weeding, bleaching fences, the deck, the walkway and a side of the house that has some mold or algae or something like that growing on it. I really wish I could take these three weeks off from work so I could actually see what he’s doing so that I have a fighting chance of continuing it after he’s gone!
We are supposed to be out of the condo by the 24th, which means that we really have to get moving on all the packing. But I’m torn because I want to spend as much time as possible at the new place figuring stuff out there. Luckily, proabably 50-75% of our smaller stuff (anything that can fit in a compact car), has already been packed and moved to a storage unit so that the condo wouldn’t look “cluttered” when we had the open house. So I’m hoping that we can pack the rest of the stuff this weekend and then we just have to cart it to the new place along with furniture. Since the condo is only 750 square feet, there’s not a whole lot of stuff you can fit in it, so the “big” furniture consists of a full-sized bed, a smallish entertainment cabinet, a dresser, a small (two-person) couch, some large bookcases, and a desk.
Unfortunately, the desk is really the biggest problem. My wife got it custome designed for this little alcove in the living room. It cost a lot of money, but we initially thought it would add value to the place. The buyer ended up allowing us to keep it, though, but I wish he hadn’t! First of all it’s big, and the room we have for it at the new place is not exactly that spacious, so it could take up 2/3 of the space! Secondly, the guy who built it is no longer in the area and can’t help us deassemble and reassemble it, but said that it is not a simple task and really deserves professionals! It’s also, I believe, very heavy, even unassembled, so this is going to be our major hardship I think with the move.
There’s also other stuff going on at the new place. We are trying to get some things done there that would be more convenient when all of our stuff is still not there. One is painting, the other is getting some of the floors refinished. We are getting some new appliances because there are some that either don’t work or are pretty old, inefficient, and probably will be dying in the next few years. Then we have the other stuff which we haven’t done yet but are thinking about like getting new furniture for the place, and maybe even remodeling the kitchen!
Trying to contemplate all of the logistics around this stuff and working full time is enought to overwhelm you! I just want to fast forward 3 months, or, as I mentioned, take some time off work. Of course this is impossible. Even if I went without pay, I’m involved in some somewhat critical projects. Actually, I almost had the opportunity to take 2 weeks off and get paid for it, as luck would have it. Just weird contracting technicalities which I probably should not go into in public, but anyway, the fates would not let me get by so easily and extraordinary measures were taken to keep me from this dream.
We have been going to the condo the past couple of days to pick up some additional essentials, and so by the time we get to the new place, get the report from my father in law, and then try to go out and grab something to eat, we end up getting to sleep pretty late and so we are not getting enough sleep, which just adds to the stress. I realize these “problems” are nothing compared to health issues, financial issues, etc. and that we are extremely fortunate, but it does just get a bit overwhelming at times.
