We Have Moved

We are here, spending the first night in the new house. All I can say, it that today has been one of the most stressful days for us all ever. The 2 younger kids were whiney and wild, I was tired and edgy, James was multi-tasking to the max. We will all sleep on mattresses on the floor in the master bedroom. Tired, going to bed now. Tomorrow is the first day of our new life here.

Ugh...moving.....

We are almost done moving. We are a few days behind schedule however. The floor guy did not finish until yesterday (he was sick, it was too humid) We had the POD delivered to the new house Saturday, that went well. But all our stuff did not fit in it, so we rented a U-Haul trailer. Two trips with that, one trip left.
James and I have done all the moving ourselves. With it being the holiday weekend, and also not knowing exactly when would move what when, and with being two hours away, we thought it best. This has lead to some very creative ways of moving heavy things. We have discovered our Jeep is a excellent moving tool. When faced with how to get the 300+ pound front loading washer out of the basement James came up with this idea. We put the washer on the appliance dolly, and rigged the dolly to the bumper of the Jeep with strapping. I backed the Jeep up, and pulled the washer up the stairs and out the bulkhead while James guided it. When we got to the new house, we drove the Jeep to the bulkhead. We attached the strapping to the dolly, through the bumper and I held the strap around my back (think repelling) I fed slack to the dolly while James lowered the washer to the basement.
We have a lot of stuff....way too much. I knew we did, and we even did a deep purging while we were packing. But, it is not until you see everything in a big mass that you really understand how much you have. Fortunately, we have a garage, and everything that does not have an exact place to go will stay there. After we complete the more urgent things, like build a kitchen, we will have time to go through and get rid of more. I want half the stuff gone!
Today is the last day here at the old house. We will sleep here tonight, and in the morning pack the few things we will have here, and drive off to our new home!

The New Look

Although they have a poor sense of time, the floor guys have done an amazing job. The two photos below are from yesterday, after the first coat of poly went on. The photos do not to the real thing justice! Also, I made progress on the kitchen floor, it is about 85% complete. I wanted to get enough done so we could move the fridge in, as well as some things to use as counters temporarily.




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The last photo is what the room looked like when the former owners lived in it.

Contractors Have Their Own Time

I mean really...do contractors buy watches and calendars at the same place as the rest of us?? I think not, they have their own special place where they can buy timepieces that make time stand still for them, and still move on for the rest of us.
Our floor guys were suppose to be done by last week, no later than Friday. This is what they said when they gave us the quote, and they knew we had to move in this Saturday. Guess what?? They just applied the first coat of sealer yesterday, and have a few more to do. Ugh. They promise to be done Friday.
The electrician we hired to do work last Friday we began calling last Wednesday to confirm..he never called back. We left many messages with the answering service, and he did not have the courtesy to return our calls. Screw him, we hired another guy for a bit less money who will be at the house today. Take that Cyr Electric!

This means of course, we are not where we wanted to be for when we move in Saturday. It will be OK though. We will have no kitchen, and only some electric. The house won't be clean at all. We have a gas grill, and we can set up the fridge in the kitchen. Luckily, we can leave what is not needed right away on the moving POD or in the garage for now.
Here is the dumpster, full of what was in the garage. Also, Nony was working on the gardens yesterday!

Progress on the Floors

The wood floors are sanded, and will be sealed in the next few days. We are told the floors are beech wood. They are quite lovely, a vast improvement from the way they were before.
Kris has been working on the kitchen floor. We chose a 'peel and stick' vinyl tile that has a look similar to stone ceramic tile. This floor we will keep for a few years, till we decide on what to put there permanently, probably real ceramic tiles...LOL

The Greening of the Yard

With all this rain, and warm May sun (when ever it is out) the yard is beginning to blossom. When we first looked at this house in March, it was snowing. Now we can begin to see the real beauty of our new home!!!

Tristan's New School

As some of you know, my soon to be 13 year old son Tristan is having a hard time with this move. He has lived in our current house since he was 13 months old, it's the only home he has ever known. He hates the new house, dislikes the town...nothing so far has been positive. 13 is a tough age to be moving 100 miles from all you know, it must feel like we are moving across the world.
However, he will be going to a wonderful new school, read here: http://farmschool.org/html/chicken_coop_school.html
Today was open house day for the 6 new students, Tristan being one of them. I am happy to report, he really, really likes the school, the teachers he met, and his fellow classmates. Whew! After the open house, he and I went to the local card store (a la Magic Card). Tristan liked the store a lot, and the owner spent a while talking to him about Magic, and the tournaments they host there. She was a sweet lady. Tristan confessed to me that he was very surprised how nice and friendly everyone he met was, he was expecting them to all be "hicks"
Below are a few photos from the school.

Parallel Electric

Here are some details on the work James has been doing. He is installing a whole new electric system, right next to the old one. When done, he will disconnect the old system, and turn on the new. That way we can pull out the old system a bit at a time, saving time now. Notice our new bathroom ceiling fan/light, and where the old one was...See our lovely plastic shower stall to the left..ugh...but renovating the bathroom will have to wait.

Moving Forward

James is almost done with the electrical work. We have to get light fixtures for the bedrooms and the kitchen. I am amazed and impressed that he could do all that work, who knew!! I married Mr. DIY for sure.
We selected a plumber and a floor guy. We are not able to use the wood in the kitchen as mentioned in the post below. So, we will be installing ourselves a sub floor and some vinyl tiles for now. In a few years, we would like to switch it to a tile or a wood floor. The refurbishing of the wood floors in the dining/living room, hall and bedrooms will begin on May 15 and take 3-4 days. We will have the plumber come just after we move in. He will be installing a vent in the kitchen, new sink and related pipes, install the dishwasher, and redo the washer hook up in the basement.
After looking at lots of samples, we did decide on a kitchen floor tile, and a paint color. I think that picking out the decorating stuff is a lot harder and more stressful that tearing out a wall, or deciding to rip up carpet. I don't see the fun in it yet, like on all those home decorating shows...LOL. The kitchen cabinets are birch (light colored) the floor will be a mottled off white, and the walls will be a deep royal blue, almost navy. This will lead to the dining/living room, which will be knotty pine, brick fireplace, birch wood floor, and the walls will be some shade of earthy red (we think!)
At some point this weekend, James and I will head to IKEA and see in person this kitchen we have picked out from the website!
Tomorrow the moving POD arrives, and we can begin the serious packing and throwing out.

Visiting Contractors

Poor James, I sent 3 contractors to the house today while he was beginning to get the electrical done. Two were plumbers, one was a floor guy. Floor guy said we can't use the wood floor in the kitchen, but happily quoted us a price to install a new one. No thanks, we will just do peel and stick vinyl tile, and have the wood floors we already have refinished. The plumbers were good, one gave a good bid and the other guy is getting back to us. He wants to sell us a sink and faucet as well as fix the pipes and install the dishwasher.
We have 2 more floor guys coming, one Tuesday and one Wednesday.
James did get a good amount of electrical done today. He is spending the night at the house to get an early start tomorrow (he took this week out of work to rewire the house)
We have decided to rent a moving POD. It will be delivered this Friday, and moved to the new house May 27th.

Since no post is complete with out a photo, here is my lovely soapstone sink located in the laundry part of the basement. It's pretty dirty, but will clean up nice! I'm happy to have it, sure will be handy.