Sunday, February 3, 2013

Moving!

This moving experience was both a complete pain in the @$$ and also not a huge deal.  We're trying to take it all in stride.

First of all, we have three places to move stuff out of: storage, my mom's and my Nana's (in Methuen).  We are done with the first two moves, but have yet to rent a U-Haul (for the fourth time this year?) to get the stuff in Methuen.  At least it's stuff that we don't need.  In fact, I realized that I need about 1/15th of our posessions.  Perhaps we should scale back our stuff even further. (I donated car-loads of stuff before we moved!!!)  It's amazing how much stuff one accumulates...

Anyway, we closed on the house on Friday 1/18.  That Saturday we had lunch with our NICU nurses (to have a little fun mixed into a weekend of hell) and then packed and got stuff ready to move at my mom's house.  Sunday, the movers brought all the stuff that was in storage in Hyde Park at their storage facility to the house.  They unloaded all the boxes and furniture into our garage and basement so that we could have the floors on the first floor refinished.  This meant that we saved money on the move because they weren't bringing stuff into every room--it was a simple, short walk from the truck to where they were dumping stuff.  But it also meant that Carlos and I have to move everything ourselves now that the floors are done.  Yuck.  The basement was filled with boxes stacked from floor to ceiling.

Monday was a holiday (MLK Day), so we dropped the boys at daycare--thank goodness it was open--and rented a U-Haul to get the stuff out of my mom's house.  With my dad and brother's help, we loaded the truck up in a few hours and hauled it all to the new house.  We unloaded and then went for lunch at Panera.  Carlos and I set up the cribs in what is now the TV corner of the basement so that the boys could sleep away from the floor fumes.  We slept there Monday night, the boys in the basement and Carlos and I on air mattresses in the kitchen.

Tuesday the floor guys came to start sanding the floors.  They showed up at 1pm and worked until 6pm...the first coat of polyurethane was down when they left.  We slept in the house no problem.  They came back to put down the second coat of polyurethane on Wednesday and when we got home from work, the smell was simply overwhelming.  They had taken down the plastic between the kitchen and the rest of the house, and wow...the smell made our eyes water and gave us an almost immediate headache.  We ended up packing up what we needed for a few nights--including the boys' pack and plays--and heading to my dad's condo in Bridgewater to sleep.  We didn't actually move the boys into their new room until Saturday.  We bought a mattress that same Saturday but it wasn't delivered until Monday so Carlos and I continued to sleep on air mattresses until Monday evening, over a week after we closed on the house. 

We love the new mattress.  We went to Jordan's Furniture's Sleep Lab and laid on their mattress/computer thingy that tells you where your pressure points are and what kind of mattress is best for you etc.  We got a really nice one and, of course, while we were there, splurged on really nice comfortable pillows and a waterproof mattress cover as well.  I put fleece sheets and a really soft blanket on the bed, and MAN!!  It feels like sleeping on a cloud!  Love it!!!



I had this Monday off from work because of Milton's exam schedule so I spent it unpacking boxes.  I worked all day long and you still can't even notice that I unpacked any boxes.  There is a huge stack of boxes broken down in the garage for recycling, and massive piles of paper (that furniture was wrapped in) on the garage floor.  It will take us 6 months to dispose of all the stuff!  I did, at least, manage to unpack my clothes and the boys' clothes, put all of Carlos's clothes in one spot so he could unpack them, and find the pots and pans and a few other essential cooking items.  I opened up a lot of boxes just to see what was in them...it's going to take me forever to find a spot for everything.  In the meantime, we still haven't cleaned the living room of all the dust (we had to wipe down every surface in the bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, and hallway because they were covered with dust from the floor sanding), and about half of our furniture is still in the garage waiting to be moved upstairs to the first floor.  Fun times!! 

Here are some "in progress" photos.  Things are starting to finally come out of boxes, but there is still soooo much more organizing, unpacking, and cleaning to do!




































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