Unpacking

There are some extreme benefits of having professional packers do all your packing for you, mainly I didn't have to pack anything except for the items we took in the car with us.

The downfalls of having others do your packing, you have no idea what is in each box, if anything is broken, or if everything you had actually got packed and shipped.

Day 1 of unpacking, same day the truck arrived...unpack and set up anything and everything that Comcast will need to set up the internet and cable. Sounds easy right...I am sure it would have been if I had actually knew what was in each box. I was able to locate the majority of the items as it's pretty easy to see the television boxes, DVD boxes, and computer boxes. But at 10:30 pm, I am still trying to locate the keyboard to the desktop, a television, two DVD players, and Eric and I are attempting to studs in the living room to hang up a TV. We finally give up, call it a night, and head back to the hotel.

Day 2, the Comcast installer is due to arrive between 10-12pm, so Breanna and I arrive about 9 and I start unpacking the kitchen. What a time consuming process. Each item was wrapped in multiple layers of paper, even pencils, paperclips, chip clips, anything and everything was wrapped! It was like Christmas, you didn't know what anything was until it was unwrapped (this got old after several hours and days!).

Below is a picture I took of just one box worth of paper, next to it is a 4-quart round crock pot. Now to be fair the packers, this paper came from a large box full of glass, and I mean completely full of glass, and there was not a single piece broken, chipped, or damaged!

Day 3, We checked out of our hotel today and I can't believe how much stuff we had in our room. It took us 5 trips from the room to the car using the hotels luggage cart. I also came across my first broken item, a bamboo cutting board. But on the bright side, I now have two small cutting boards! Not too bad for unpacking about 50 boxes, and I bet if the packers would have wrapped this in  paper it wouldn't have broke!

Day 4, the kitchen boxes are unpacked, washed, and put away. Even with my pre-planning, I don't really like the way the kitchen flows, but I am afraid if I move things now, the flow will be worse. But for now the post-it notes stay (just in case I do start re-arranging). Bre insisted on being in my picture!

We even had our first cooked meal, it wasn't much just Chicken Parmesan, but Bre insisted on having elbow macaroni instead of spaghetti. We are almost back to a normal routine!

Addicted to post-its

You never know how dirty something is until you start cleaning it! While I knew the house wasn't spotless, I didn't expect it to be so dirty...

I have lived in several older homes both rentals and properties I have owned, and maybe it's because I was spoiled to live in our last home, we moved in 2 weeks after the house was completed. But I spent 2 days, cleaning the kitchen! You know things are bad when you have to clean, before you can clean.

I started with cleaning out the washer and dryer, so I could do laundry. Then moved on to the half bathroom so we could use the bathroom, then cleaned the kitchen sink and counters so I could start cleaning the kitchen. I won't bore you with my cleaning routine, but by Friday night the house was at a point where I could stop cleaning and start thinking about where I want or need to put everything.

The more things I can figure out where they are going to go, the more I can utilize the movers with helping me unpack. Because this house is so much smaller than our last and we are going from 5 bedrooms to 3, we have to be creative on how we set everything up so everything fits. First things first, the kids beds. Now for all the obnoxious stuff: pool table, foosball table, treadmill, and dining room table, I know that last one sounds odd, but we have a large eat in kitchen and a formal dining room area. Oh and I can't forget having to figure out where everything goes in the kitchen.

So, what's the best way to figure this all out??? Why Post-Its of course!!!


With a stack of small post-its, a sharpie, and a tape measure, I start marking off options. The Florida room (sun room) has post-its all over the floor, with different options for the pool table (once I can figure out where that will go I can start putting more post-its all over the room), in the hallway there are ones stuck to the wall to direct the movers between the girls room and the boys room, with additional ones in their rooms on where beds, dressers, bookcases, and boxes go. The kitchen tho is my favorite master piece, maybe its because there are so MANY pink post-its all over the white cabinets.

About 1/3 way through the kitchen I start laughing at myself and say out loud... I think I might have a problem...who else would spend all this time thinking through, writing, posting post-its, re-arranging post-its and then posting more?
 
Who knows maybe I am just addicted to them?!

We are in!

I received a call on Monday from the gentleman who is driving our belongings from Seattle to Alabama and he is AHEAD of schedule. As a matter of fact he was in Idaho loading another families belongings and he informed me he would be in Huntsville, AL on Saturday, so he wanted to deliver our stuff in one week...ONE WEEK!!!!

I am sooooo excited, you have no idea. My brother told me hotel living would get old and I didn't believe him, because lets be honest 2 months in a hotel, with complimentary breakfasts, pool, on-site laundry, and housekeeping can't be all that bad, right??? WRONG!!! I have a severe snorer in the room next to us. I don't know how he can sleep for so many hours snoring SOOOO LOUDLY! but he does. And to top it off some nights Eric is so exhausted he snores too, he denies it but I recorded him to prove it (and yes it is saved in a secret place to bring out the evidence in the future if needed!)

So now slight panic mode. The owners were (and maybe still are) in town doing some remodeling and we are scheduled to sign the lease the same day our belongings are to arrive. Oh...the driver will be at the house at 8:30 AM and the property management team is in the next town over (about 30-45 minute drive, each way) and doesn't open till 9. A quick call to see if we can sign the lease early, which we can, but it will have to be Friday, so they can finish doing what they need to do to ensure the property is ready.

Now what is my life without a few catch-22's? Appointment is scheduled for Eric to sign the lease Friday at 1pm, but of course that time doesn't work for him, heck that entire day doesn't work for him! UGH!!! Only possible time that he can get away is 12:30, which the property manager can't do because of a prior commitment. Boy do I love being the middleman!!! So we are scheduled again for 1pm on Friday. Whoo.  The property manager stated she would be at the property Wednesday to do their walk through and take pictures of the new upgrades and put in the request for a cleaning and any needed repairs to ensure everything was at least in the works before we signed our lease.

Okay, so we are headed in the right direction...and then (cause my big mouth) Eric says, why don't we just sign the lease when they do their walk through. Hmmmm, well on one hand that makes more sense they are coming to us, we don't have to drive, Eric doesn't have to miss hours of work, we have to pay a few extra days of rent, but at least we will have the keys. Cause lets be honest and up front, if Eric could not get way on Friday to sign the lease, we would not have had the keys to let the movers into the house and who knows where our stuff would have been left!

Middleman here... and a few back and forth phone calls and text messages, we have a meeting time to sign the lease! An hour later and voila house keys! and some light reading (HOA rules/ regulations).

Our home for the next year!

Goodbye hotel living...in 2+ weeks

After spending weeks looking for places to live, we finally chose a house that 'kind of' fits us. We didn't expect it to take us so long to narrow down a place to live, but unfortunately there just weren't that many houses that we could actually fit in and some of those that we did fit in wanted an outrageous amount of rent, like 3-5 times their mortgage payments!

The house we chose was actually one of the first homes we looked at, but due to everything being turned off (water, power, gas) and dead bugs everywhere (and yes I mean everywhere!) we attempted to eliminate this house as one of our possibilities for weeks. The Friday of Labor Day weekend we finally gave in and asked the management property manager to show us the home again and while we were there we'd give them the application, app fee, and security deposit. Shockingly, they informed us they could show us the property HOWEVER they would prefer not to...as the owner had unexpectedly arrived in town (from Italy) and was in the process of doing some upgrades. She informed us that he was changing out the light fixtures, knobs, and basically anything that was 'gold' to a polished nickle product. She also stated that he has other upgrades he was planning on doing but that they would be a surprise, and then asked if there was anything we wanted to request to have changed. My only concern was the kitchen appliances and toilets due to the power and water being turned off for several months and two sections of the fence which had fallen down in a recent storm. We decided to touch base again on Tuesday morning to set up a time for Eric and I to see the house again.

Thursday we saw the house and boy was there a completely different impression! It's amazing how much different the house looked just by having all the dead bugs cleaned up! The upgrades, while minimal, were great and were still in progress. The owner of the house was fantastic! Him and his girlfriend, both from Italy were extremely friendly and constantly asked us what else we wanted changed or added (it was SOOOOO hard to resist asking for a pool!), they still had to install all new kitchen appliances and I am now kicking myself for not requesting a gas range and oven. While the realtor and I finished the paperwork in the other room, Eric continued his conversation with the couple and we were invited (several times) to come and visit them. The owner even offered for us to stay with him and/ or his girlfriend and they would be our tour guides. Did I already say how much we really like them??? Now if he has connection on free or cheap airfare....

Okay back to the house and not dreaming about a vacation in Italy.

The rental company hoped to be able to finalize our application by Friday (the next day), but it took until Monday to touch base with our previous landlord. But once I found out our application was approved, we made arrangements with them to sign our lease on the 24th in order to allow us not to have too much of a lapse of having to pay rent on an empty house. Our movers require a 10 day notification before loading and once they are notified they give us a 7-10 day delivery window. We are allowed to pick a specific day within that window and they will strive to meet the request. Since we don't have that much 'stuff' our belongings would be shipped with 1-2 other families belongings. I received a confirmation that our stuff is due to arrive in Dothan between 9/28-10/4 (and they don't unload on the weekends).

I can't wait for more clothing options, for Breanna to go to school, to be able to bake and cook things on a full stove, in the oven, or on the grill, and just to have my normal routine back! Let the count down BEGIN!!!!