Category: Moving Into A New House

The Mayflower truck pulled up yesterday morning. I was happy to see it but hesitant as I couldn’t remember everything that I had packed. The truck looked small but it took 3 hours to unload. I was given one task — check off the inventory as it was called and taken off the truck. Easy enough.

The workers would pull the dollies up to me and say “where do you want this?” The worst part about all of this is that the boxes I bought all had the labels on the top. So, unless I had a note on the side (not usual), I had to have them move the boxes so I could see where each one went. After awhile, the workers did that work themselves once they had a feel for where things were going in the house.

Then they left. I thought – alright! Now I can start unpacking. I walked into the house and was a little overwhelmed. Where did all these boxes come from?

The first room I wanted to tackle was the kitchen. All the kitchen boxes were lined up for me. I started out unpacking one box at a time but then I thought “I should open each one to see what’s inside and then unpack.” So — knife in hand — I opened each kitchen box.

The plethora of kitchen utensils was daunting. I had just come from an apartment where I had 4 pieces of each type of silverware, one large spoon, etc. It appears we have quite a few of each item now. Hmmm … what happened to downsizing?

I’m happy to say that half of the kitchen is completed. The other half will be finished today if all goes as planned. Only 2 kitchen items were broken – a quiche plate and a bowl.

Since I had used some towels as buffers when packing, I picked each one up and smelled them. They smelled musty – probably from being in storage for 5 1/2 months.

As a matter of fact, all of our clothes smell musty and must be washed. I’m not sure how much a water well can handle between the dishwasher (I like things rinsed out) and the washer (things must be clean before hanging).

I decided that since we’ve lived with our current clothing “allowance” for 5 1/2 months, we can do without more clothing for a little while longer.

We did have a moving accident. One of our dining rooms chairs was cracked when we examined it. So far, not too bad in terms of what is damaged.

By the end of the day, my calves and feet complained mightily since I had been in slippers all day. From now on I’ll be wearing my gym shoes with orthotics.

I regret not having hired a cleaning person when I moved in. That’s something that should have been done although the house was fairly clean — just not clean enough. I figured I had all week to do that work until I found out that the furniture was coming this week. Now, before I put linens away, I have to clean.

Oh well, live and learn.

 

 

The windows under the kitchen cabinets allow light to come in and we can see outside to view the trees and any wildlife that may be passing by — such as wild turkeys that seem to run, well, wild. They cross the street at the worst times. Then there are the deer, although I think they like our property as they stay away from it. I wonder if that will continue once I actually plant some shrubs and flowers outside.

Our property is very treed so it looks beautiful when we look through the windows.

 

Our new house has some features that feel a bit dated. Like a surround sound intercom radio speaker system. In 1993 it was probably pretty good looking. Now, it just looks white, dated and we haven’t been able to figure out exactly how it works yet.

I’m sure we’ll figure it all out. After all, my husband always tells me “we don’t have to throw things out that are dated.”

Good words of wisdom — as sometimes I feel dated.

 

Tomorrow, we’ve been told, at 8 am sharp, our belongings from Seattle will arrive. That’s about 1 week earlier than what we were expecting which is good.

On the flip side, we have to decide where to put everything, at least initially. We don’t have enough furniture to fill the house yet. Guest beds haven’t been bought and we’ve never had a family room so that room will need furniture also. Then there’s the screened-in porch and the large deck — whew!

It will be a slow process as my husband and I have ideas that are a little different. I think that’s common for most married folks though. A friend of mine once told me that he gives his input to his wife and then let’s her decide on anything that has to do with the house.

What wise friends I have!

 

How nice to open the front door to our new house and find a package carefully placed inside the screen door by our new mail person.

Taking the package inside, we carefully opened it. It was from our North Dakota family. And — it’s a bird house.

How appropriate! Today after I started prepping the master bedroom for painting, I looked outside towards the balcony and there flitting around in the trees was a bird I had never seen before. He has a yellow underside and a semi-pointy head. He looked like a miniature blue jay — well, except he’s not blue. I wonder if the music I was playing attracted him near the balcony?

We took our new gift and placed it outside on a hook over our bird bath to see if any of the local birds will avail themselves of it.

Then, looking up, we saw a bald eagle soaring overhead.

It can’t get any better than this.

 

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The new house has chandeliers. When I first looked at them, I thought they were from the 70’s but the house was built in 1993. It is possible the previous owners went and bought older chandeliers.

In any case, they will be replaced soon enough. It’s not at the top of our priority list, especially since the foyer one is so high up in the vaulted ceiling.

The one in the dining room looks just as old.

We like more of a modern look so once things settle down, we’ll go hunting for the right one.

 

Having no furniture yet, we slept last night on the shag carpet in the master bedroom, one twin air mattress and a camper’s twin pad underneath us. I conked out rather quickly as my bones are tired. I think perhaps we can only make one more move in my lifetime as moving is a lot of work.

When I awoke, I noticed that our balcony faces east.  Sun rise. Very nice. After getting ready, I headed downstairs and noticed that the sun was shining on the screened-in porch and you could see the buds on the trees just beyond.

It looked surreal – as if it was from a postcard.

After driving my husband to work, I returned to await the carpet cleaners. I called two companies and only one called me back. So – Daisy Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning was the recipient of our business.

A young man called about 20 minutes before coming out. When they arrived they explained everything that they would do and after each room was completed they asked if I wanted to see it in case there were any problems. After the first couple of rooms, I didn’t really need to see any more.

They were quick and efficient and I was happy that my carpets were now clean.

I put in more shelf liners and filed some paperwork away.

I then decided to clean the master bedroom balcony. It was filthy. I decided to use a mix of Pine Sol and a gallon of water. It worked fantastically and the balcony is now ready for furniture.

Next, prepping the master bedroom walls for priming before painting as the walls are a dark red. I usually use TSP, trisodium phosphate, with water to clean the walls. Normally one can use TSP to take away the glossiness from the walls as it makes it easier to paint along with cleaning it well.

Unfortunately, with a septic system, one has to be very careful what kind of chemicals they use. So, I decided to go with a tablespoon of Pine Sol and a gallon of water instead. This worked very well to get the walls cleaned.

In order to reach near the ceiling to clean, we went to Menards (similar to a Lowes or a Home Depot) this weekend and purchased a step ladder. This ladder is great because you can put your whole foot on the step so that your feet don’t ache at the end of the day.

The proper equipment is so important.

I noticed that the previous painter (I’m assuming the seller) left a few paint “drip” spots that I will have to sand down before I prime the walls.

This happens when one puts too much paint on the wall, gets distracted and forgets to check their work. A lot of people will not go back to correct this, especially if they’ve put all their tools away.

Tomorrow is another day — I will be pulling nails from walls and filling the cracks, taping and then priming so that the old red paint color will not seep through to the new one. Hmmm … I wonder what color we’ll be using.

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The appliances in the house we bought are Electrolux and stainless steel.  I still have to read up on how to care for stain steel appliances. I hear all kinds of stories about what to do or not do.

One touch on the top of the stove top displays lights up the back with blue lighting. Rather intimidating, uh, I mean impressive. The range is electric and has a warming tray at the bottom.

The refrigerator, also impressive, has lots of options to choose from.

Not to be outdone is the very fancy dishwasher. I didn’t take pictures of the inside. It’s a little complicated with little doors here and there and inserts galore.

Things were so simple in the olden days when there weren’t so many options.

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Day 2 in the new house found me putting everything away that came over from the apartment. We originally thought we’d only live in an apartment for a couple months but 2 months turned into 5 1/2 months and so we started accumulating things again.

The master bedroom has 2 closets – his and hers. They are both huge and have built-in shelving. The shelving has to be painted – a job I have scheduled for a certain relative of mine who will be visiting soon.

Part of this closet will be used for a walk-in shower when we remodel the bathroom that is adjacent to it.

The “her” closet also has shelving and walls that need painting. But it is huge.

There is so much storage space in this house.

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Although we took possession of our house this past Friday, we stayed at a hotel over the weekend to de-stress from moving from the apartment into the house and running around to close on the house.

Yesterday, we changed the locks on the front door as well as the garage side door. Then I started cleaning the kitchen cabinets and putting drawer liners in.  Although the sellers left the house fairly clean, I noticed that there were a few places where they didn’t do too good of a job.

For instance, the very top shelves were not clean nor were the under-sides of each shelf.  And the lazy susan wasn’t very clean either on the inside.  A lot of comet did the trick.

I bought two different kinds of drawer liners – one more difficult to install than the other. Neither are like contact paper in that they don’t have adhesive underneath.

The first one is prettier and is called Grip Prints. It has a nice texture and a simple design to it.

 

However, this one was a little harder to install as when I cut the paper with scissors, it would always cut crooked so the first couple of liners in the drawer are crooked. What I wound up doing is setting the paper inside the drawer and rolling it to the edge where I wanted it to go.

Then, I would take a pen and mark the place where it needed to be cut along the edge of the drawer. The paper seemed to be crooked but this actually worked to get the right size in the drawer.

Once I started cutting it this way, everything fit perfectly.

The second liner I used is called Grip Ultra Drawer Liner. It has more of a foamy feel to it but it cuts well. Just measure the length and width you need and cut away.

 

I got both of these at Bed Bath & Beyond.  Almost finished with the lining part of my work, at least in the kitchen. I still have bathrooms to do.

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