Moving Day and Early Thoughts on the Joys of Homeownership
After over three weeks of being in two places at once, we are finally completely moved into our new home. Organized or able to find anything, ever… that’s another story. But all of our stuff is physically inside of our new house.
Saturday was moving day. We are lucky to have friends who were willing to spend a perfectly beautiful Saturday helping us move, so it really wasn’t that bad. It didn’t hurt that we were only moving four blocks… and the fact that we were only moving the amount of furniture, clothing, and totally unnecessary junk (it’s amazing how much of that you realize you have when you move) that can fit in a 750 sq ft apartment certainly helped. Regardless, we had everything out of the old apartment and into the new house by 12:30. The hardest part was getting the pizza delivered.
Sunday was cleaning day. We had until 2PM to get the place spic ‘n span so that our landlords could irresponsibly pass our apartment to another poor soul without professionally cleaning, painting, or de-rodentizing. After my landlord brought up the “odor of dog” for the upteenth time, after I had promised multiple times that I fully intended to thoroughly clean the apartment, lecturing me until I finally told him it was time to end our phone call, he followed up with this e-mail, as if we had never discussed the issue: “I have noticed, and many prospective tenants have mentioned about the strong smell due to dogs. Make sure that this problem goes away.” My response was such that Courtney recommended I sign off “snarf, snarf, Johanna.” Unfortunately the Target employee who I asked for “any cleaning supply that smells strongly of unused porta potty” was unable to make any recommendations, so we had to settle for lemon.
But you know, as much as I have complained about the landlords, rodents, roaches, and other unpleasant creatures, saying goodbye to our C St. apartment was hard. Pests aside, it was our happy home for over a year, and it’s filled with lots of good memories. It will always be the first place we lived in together. It served us well for the time we were in it, and if I were to go back and do things again I wouldn’t do them differently.
Back to our new house…
Unfortunately getting everything in the house was about as far as we could get for the time being. We decided right away that we would redo the kitchen floor before we moved in. It desperately needed to be done, and what better time to do it than when you have another place to stay right up the road? Well, that would have been all fine and dandy, until the job didn’t get done on time and we no longer had another place to stay.
My cupboards, oven and refrigerator have been sitting in my living room, along with all of the kitchen stuff we can’t put away. We haven’t been able to let the dogs out back, because the kitchen floor can’t be walked on, and is the only route to the backyard. Yesterday Lila peed all over her leash and Jim peed all over my feet as I desperately struggled to get them not to use our front garden as a restroom. Oh, and I haven’t been able to cook since last week. Luckily Laetitia was kind enough to bring us tofu parmigiana and three bean chili, so we haven’t been completely without healthy, home-cooked meals.
I was slowly losing hope that they would ever finish the job… until I came home today to find a beautiful kitchen with a finished floor and the walls painted yellow! This is good news for me, since I was on the verge of going completely crazy. This is also good news for them, since contractors hath seen no fury like a woman gone mad. I will share photos soon. Once I find my camera cord that is.
