Lessons Learned in Moving (aka We're Here!)

I feel so weird. :) After a couple months of coming down here to do little maintenance and update projects on the house, we're living here. It's so strange. But oh so cool.

We spent the rest of yesterday doing very little due to exhaustion. We'd packed up any non-boxed stuff into our cars to haul down, and the trips up and down three flights of stairs killed both of us. Dinner (with celebratory margaritas) was spent at the Texas Roadhouse down the street. Bed arrived soon after. Both of us were out by around 10:30.

Things I've learned this move...

Getting movers was the best idea ever. They might be somewhat expensive ($1,200, in our case), but were worth every penny. They showed up at around 8:30 yesterday morning. They cleared the entire apartment out by noon. Had lunch, drove down, and had everything unpacked and into the house by around quarter past three. It saved our backs-- and our friendships with all of our friends. :)

Color-coded room tape from U-Haul rocks. Once we directed the movers for the individual pieces of furniture, they just moved all the boxes in by themselves. We just taped pieces of white paper with a slash of each individual room's tape on the doorways... they were able to do half of the unloading by themselves. The tape costs $25 for a 4-bedroom pack and saved tons of labelling and sorting time on both ends of the move.

Starting early to pack was key. Since my life had been enveloped by the office move until about mid-June, I hadn't had time or energy to focus on the apartment move. Taking two weeks off before moving was a lifesaver. Save a few hodge-podge items and the bathroom, we were completely done packing by around 8 p.m. the night before. We actually got a full night's sleep before moving. Which is nearly unheard of. The only thing I would have changed as far as our packing was concerned was start a bit earlier with items we didn't use as much-- cleaning through drawers, throwing junk out. It would have made the last two days much more relaxed as far as packing goes.

But we're here. And I've already managed to unpack most of the dish boxes. I'll be doing double the work in the kitchen-- I need to wipe out and re-paper the dish shelves, but we're doing so much furniture moving that I just wanted to put all of the dishes safely away in cabinets for peace of mind. If they need to be washed, no big deal-- we have a dishwasher for most of that. :)

The cats are doing okay. Gus is completely traumatized and spent most of yesterday in a fetal position in either the cat carrier or under hiding places. He's getting a little bit braver today, but his tail is firmly tucked between his legs, and he's slinking around very low to the ground when he actually goes anywhere. Colley's getting a bit more calmed down, after spending yesterday wedging himself into very good hiding places (as is his signature style in strange places). Fizz has been the brave one, being the first to really explore. She's completely on edge, though, and is hissing and growling if any other cat approaches her at all.

All three cats insisted on accompanying us to the bathroom in a pack this morning, and then back to the bedroom. I found that very amusing.

So today's going to be fairly laid back. A few boxes done, a few furniture placements, a little shopping. Nothing frantic, though. We got through the hard stuff. It can go slowly now. :)

It feels so good to actually be home.