The Day Before Tomorrow (Friday)

The Plan: Wake up. Send Brendan off to work after he loads the boxes I have already packed. Pack more boxes. Drive each load over. Go to Lowe's and finalize vanity plans as well as check out shelving options. Be at house between 1:45- 3:45 for the washer/dryer delivery. Make sure I am in and around the house from 10 am on so when the carpet guys call I can get to house within 30 mins. Get carpet installed.

What happened: Wake up. Get phone call from carpet guys that they are on their way @ 7:30 am. Panic. Call Mom to have her or someone go by the house. She sends Dad. Carpet people call- no one at the house. They are at the wrong house. Dad calls, they won't lay the carpet without heat. He starts space heaters, but they refuse to come back later. Bedroom remains carpetless.





I run to Lowe's and yell. Spend next few hours trying to get a plumber to attach radiators and or a carpet installer to,... well install carpet. Eat left over indian food at like 10 am.



Pace through cold house. Freak out in warm car. Washer and dryer arrive 45 mins early. Dude refuses to push it in all the way, plays the "language card", until it comes time to explain how I can rate him afterwards, 5 is the top rating. Dad shows up and pushes it in for me. Washer/dryer dudes leave.



Later I find they broke my screen door frame. I unpack boxes that are in the car. Discover and kill nasty bugs.



Brendan arrives. We go out to dinner. (I swear this is the last time my fridge looks like THIS on the inside.



Determined to do SOMETHING productive and right, I prime the bathroom while Brendan does work in his office.





And then we go home to the apartment for the last time.

P.S. This is all from LAST Friday (04/23/10). I am just a week behind in posting.

They Came Bearing Muffins, Fruit, & Juice

Sunday morning we arrived and Bone Daddy had already arrive with Aunt Debbie AND had already started cleaning house.




At times the work was 'fun.'




Other times it was downright scary.




Mostly it was exhausting.




But after those moments of spite and rage against inanimate objects subsided...




...there were moments of victory that made it all worth while (yes- I found and destroyed yet MORE wallpaper).








Victory or slight delirium?




All in all we got some trim painted, the yard and house perimeter largely cleaned up, the downstairs bathroom primed, kitchen scrubbed, and one toilet taken apart/one toilet put together. There was caulking and scrapping and disposing of sorts. The muffins were awesome; we need a wegmans up here in the boonies.

Coming up... the big move!!!

Packing? or Something Like That

Brendan sweeping the mountain of dirt left behind from our carpet we brought to the house.




A few last looks at the yard I will soon be leaving.






Gaining closure...

...and besides, my new yard has charm.

Passive Progessiveness

Saturday was marred by a dentist appointment midday (I have 4-5 cavities), but otherwise we had the carpet area measured and the cable guy.

Surprisingly the wires leading to the house were old and needed to be replaced. Fortunately this was not MY problem. The Optimum peeps took care of it.


Brendan put the mirror/medicine cabinet in the wall in the upstairs bathroom.



This is the vanity I am putting in there.




My bedroom now has cable & baseboard.




The living room has cable as well. (I know what you are thinking... cable in my living room AND bedroom? That's right, I'm a fatcat banker.)




This is the cover for my plumbing; it needs to be painted. Also, as you can see-we've started taping for trim painting.

New Pics & Updates coming soon!

So this one time Brendan & I were driving our friend to the train station after he had come to visit. It started out well but we ended up dealing with some bizarre intermittent rain storms that were so heavy, the highway of traffic slowed to like 5-10 miles an hour due to lack of visibility.
For hours we were in that car, continually on the brink of being late- then making up time. We dubbed it the lamest race against time ever. We lost it. Had to drive him all the way into the city to catch his bus.
But this feels like that. I have all the stress of running late, lacking time, needing to get things done... but I can't really do anything until Friday. So every day I come into work exhausted and moderately panicking and can't do anything about it. I've been distracting myself googling bathroom vanities. LOTS and LOTS of bathroom vanities.

Booked the moving truck. Budget (name of the brand): 250$ with tax and all for 2 full days, unlimited miles. I think that will work well. I was going to use U-Haul but it was like 130 for the truck and included 48 miles for one day. Just the trip from my apartment to the house is greater than 48 miles, never mind storage space or making more than one trip, ... so I went with Budget. Doesn't come with the dolly cart like my UHaul one would have, but I can try to get one of those myself.

Anyways... back to work. :)

Progress

I thought I would just post a few pics of the current status of the house.


Things that haven't really changed:

First Floor Bathroom:


Attic/ Harry Potter Room:



Minor changes:

Stairwell:



Big changes:

Bedroom:


Second Floor Bathroom:


Office:


Kitchen:


Livingroom:


Radiators:



Things I am glad not to change:

Curb:

How Appropriate

From dinner last Saturday...

Odds & Ends...well really just odds...

I get inspired by some unique items. No clue where they will go in the house.


Found this at the dollar store...isn't it dignified looking?




Easter gift from Brendan as I had longed for it whilst fan shopping at Lowes and he noticed!




I thought she was pretty (came from Marshall's).




Hmmm,... seems like I have a thing for dignified water dwellers. Got this bad boy from Home Goods.

Two Months

This past weekend marks two months since the blizzardy day I closed on the house (according to my documents). Technically I signed over power of attorney that day so my lawyer could close for me (the sellers didn't want to come out in the blizzard) and we dated the documents Feb 10 so my rate lock wouldn't expire.

So here I am 2 months later. Sunday, lugging a few boxes in, kinda mystified that move-in is around the corner. It doesn't look move-inable yet but it's gobs better than it began.

So far brought in my Christmas decorations, and about 10 boxes of books, cds, and dvds. Also brought the spare towels and some other odds and ends...
...One small step for moving, one giant leap for making my house a home.

The Move In Day That Wasn't

I was supposed to start moving in today, and that just wasn't in the cards. Last week the floors were finished, a the pipe through living room wall taken out, and the electric upgraded.

So today, what I did do was pick out kitchen and downstairs bathroom tile, carpet, and tile. Thanks to Nanie I got a new ceiling fan and floodlight for the backyard, as well as a few other goodies, and I am looking forward to a pretty solid day tomorrow of work.

While Uncle John worked on the door (he got me the right side this time), the rest of us cleaned up the yard. As you can see there were some big lugs that needed removing (kidding Danny!)












After all this hard work, Danny had a good steam.




No no no... actually we just went out for Chinese! Hunan Taste in Denville.

iCOLOR! 2

Downstairs bathroom: the tile in the bathtub is like a grayish blue, the walls will be a gritty beige, the tile is a mix of the yellow and grays, the grout dark to bring out the gray tones and the saddle (not shown) goldy looking to tie the beige and yellows in the tile and walls into the hall where the walls are gold.




Upstairs bathroom: the tile is a little more blue in it than the downstairs with similar grays and golds to bring in the sea pine colored walls (similar to the dark blueish greenish square in the pic), the gray speckled white tile in the shower, and the tan glazed white vanity. The grout is tan/gold in to try and bring that out a little more, as well as connecting to the goldy saddle that again runs out to a hall with (this time lighter) gold walls.




This is the carpet I am getting for the bedroom and upstairs hall.