Tag: moving

Short Post

Thinking about these bar stools for the new house… $100 for two of these knock-offs sounds SUH-WEET when evidently the French TOLIX ones (you can get at DWR, I guess) cost like $300 each. OUCH! 1/6 of the price? Thank you, knock offs.

Tomorrow is moving day. We have already moved in a fridge, a bookshelf, two chairs, and… that’s about it. Not too impressive. Oh and a couple boxes of books. The goal was to have all of our IKEA stuff put together before “official” move-in day, while we still have wide open spaces, so I’m going to lobby for that task being finished tonight. That way we’ll actually have somewhere to put our items rather than the middle of the floor. On the wardrobe, we have to put the doors on. The dresser….. is still in its 2 ultra-heavy boxes.

Well, there you have it: the small brain dump I can fit in my lunch hour between playing with the pupster (who now has his own twitter), making lunch (creamy chicken-flavored ramen with tuna and paprika… ultra cheap ultra delicious, bee tee dubs), and getting back to work on time.

Lastly, does anyone else get bummed out when YHL only posts once on Fridays? I know, I know, totally selfish. Let them have lives!

Wouldn’t You Know It

“As soon as we __________, then you know __________ is going to happen”

Haven’t you heard this phrase? Like, you’re standing in line for ages and ages, then the moment you sit down, the line moves.

Well, over a month ago we decided to buy a queen-sized mattress. We had been saving our pennies for a while, and spotted a great deal at Ashley Furniture. Poor 6-foot-plus Doug had been sleeping, for more than a year, on the full-sized mattress I inherited from my roommate when she moved. (Never mind the fact that she had inherited it from someone else. Sketchy…) His feet dangled off the edge and totally messed up my perfectly-tucked-at-the-bottom-of-the-bed sheet, wreaking havoc on my psyche every time I decided to make the bed (playing a contributing factor to the crash-and-burn of this new year’s resolution). So, the mattress arrived, we drove to Salina to pick it up (thus saving around $60 in delivery fees) and we put it in the storage unit.

Why the storage unit, you ask? Well, at the time, we thought the new house was going to be a swift turnover. We intended on staying with the full until we moved, which in our minds was going to be a few weeks, thus sparing ourselves the effort of lugging the new mattress up (and down) the 27 steep stairs to our apartment. However, once we got word from the realtor (via Doug’s parents) that the closing date had been pushed closer to the end of October, we decided we didn’t want to wait that long for the new bed. Not to mention we were eager to donate the full-sized to a community outreach that gives furniture and appliances to those in need. So Doug enlisted the help of a friend (who we’d helped move twice, by the way) to cart off the old mattress and bring the new one upstairs.


Step one: adjust bed frame and situate new mattress in it’s new home.

Step two: cover new mattress with waterproof mattress cover from Target. In April I never would have admitted it, but we are now “those people” who let their dog sleep in their bed. The pup has had one or two accidents in the last 5 months so on goes the waterproof sheet. And there you have it. Protecting our investment for only $20.

Step three: Put on brand new queen-sized sheets snagged on sale from Crate and Barrel. Admire the vibrant green and crisp white. Feel a minor pang of sadness for the dearly departed light green bamboo sheets, which were, admittedly, softer.

Step four: Make bed, then mess up the freshly made bed by laying down and enjoying the firm-yet-soft big new mattress!

Anyway, to conclude this post, and to tie-in back to the first statement, we kept saying “Oh, you KNOW as soon as we lug that mattress upstairs we’ll get good news on the house.” Sure enough, approximately one week after we made the big move, we got the good news that we could get early possession and get into the house whenever. Of course. Well, the good thing is that the news came after the 15th of the month (the 15th is the cut-off day for notifying our landlord about moving out) so we have all of September in the current apartment. I’m relieved because this way, fixing up the house and moving in can be two separate processes instead of trying to do both at the same time.

PS: Beirut has a new album out, and I’m liking it. Listen on Spotify.

First Things First

Moving into a new house.
Yes, you heard that right.
We’re going to be moving MUCH sooner than anticipated! We got the keys from our landlords (cough, cough, my in-laws) yesterday! Instead of late October, as our last news had indicated. The sign is out of the yard and the keys are in my hand.

Now, we’re not going to cart all of our junk into the house just yet. There is a LOT to do before establishing residency in our new abode. In fact, we are planning on staying in our current place well into September. Side note: the word “abode” looks like “adobe.” Which is ironic because the new house looks like adobe. You’ll see pictures tomorrow, I promise.

  • Take out all remaining nails (left over from hanging items on the wall)
  • Spackle all holes left by said nails
  • Wipe down all the walls with a wet (very slightly soapy) sponge
  • Scrub all the baseboards with a Mr. Clean magic eraser (be careful; the magic eraser can and will remove many kinds of paint. We plan on paining all the walls and trim so we aren’t worried about damaging the existing paint)
  • Sweep all the floors (there’s no carpet in this house, just tile and wood). After being vacant for a while, there are lots of cobwebs and dead bugs. Gotta take care of that before my lil’ pupster starts running around free in there.
  • Scrub the floors. Hardcore. I don’t know who or what was living in this house before it went on the market, but they were slobs. The floors are reeeeeally icky! Icky floors, meet Mr. Pine Sol. And Mr Elbow Grease.
  • The yard: I have left this one up to Doug and his family because I’ve never done a day of yard work in my life. They’ll trim some tree branches, Dig up some soil. etc.
  • Call the exterminator. Before moving all of our stuff in, I’d like to make sure it’s a bug-free zone. Especially the basement.
Other things on the “before move-in” to-do list but not imminent are:
  • Paint every available surface (you’ll see once I post pictures)
  • Plant some pretty plants in the dead-grass-patch in the front of the house
  • Replace the garage door (my in-laws are taking care of this–it is their property)
  • Take inventory of all the stuff previous inhabitants left behind, decide what to keep, what to trash, and what to donate to charity. (Free Christmas tree for us!)
The slip of paper we found on the kitchen floor, from a long-since eaten fortune cookie said, “All things are hard before they are easy.” Ain’t it the truth!
The next post will be less list-y and more picture-y. Get pumped, y’all; this blog is going to get exciting again!