The Move

Oh where to start :)

So, Thursday night we signed all of our papers for the bank and had a final walk through of the house, where we learned that the seller still had a few things there but that they would be getting them out Friday. We were also told that we weren't closing at the same time as the seller, no big deal. So that night we raced home and tried to finish packing - it was a long night.

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Friday morning we closed, which seriously took like 5 minutes. Then we made our way to the new house to get the AC going and check it out. While we were there we realized that the seller had been there because some of the stuff was gone.... when all of the sudden the side door flies open and this man comes flying in asking if he can help me because he owns this house. I stammer that I was one of the new owners and that we had just come from our closing to get the house opened. About that time Doug came in the room and the guy backed off a bit, but then said he didn't know we'd have keys yet since we hadn't closed, apparently no one told him we weren't closing at the same time. He then tells us that the water department had just been there and turned off the water. Crap.

Doug had talked to the water dept. before and they had said that we would need closing papers to put it in our name, which we didn't have yet since the seller hadn't signed. But we were worried about what time they would close and had a major fear of having no water all weekend, so we took what few papers we had and went to the water dept to beg for service. The woman there was so nice! She went through all the papers we had and found something that would work. We started telling her about the run-in with the seller and she laughed and said he had seemed kind of high strung. They were so helpful, they had the water back on within an hour!

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Doug's dad had foot surgery two days before our move, so we were a mover short. However, the help we had so more than made up for it. My uncle and Doug's bff were total lifesavers. They carried big heavy items out of the rental (down the 6 steps) like it was nothing. They took our bed apart in the blink of an eye and had the box springs out before I even knew they had started on the bed. Those two guys were incredible, and we sooooo owe them. My dad helped too, he was awesome about stuffing a million things into their van, mainly breakable items or things we thought wouldn't travel well in the multiple trucks. My dad totally rocks.

Doug was awesome about getting everything packed up incredibly quickly and whisking it out of the way, that boy moves quick! And I suppose it's ok to toot my own horn a little. While the guys were busy getting all the big stuff ready to move I literally stuffed my SUV so full that there was barely room for me in there! I literally could not fit anything else in. And Saturday night Doug told me that he was really impressed with me because I had no problem jumping in and helping with moving the big stuff, carrying a million boxes, and crawling around on the floor unplugging and unhooking things. Go me! lol

And our moms and my grandma were awesome too. My mom and grandma went to the new house while we were all at the old one and vacuumed and cleaned everything. Then after we brought over the first load of stuff they started unpacking stuff in the kitchen, because they know how important that room is to me. Doug's mom was great too. She had a crazy job of helping us out and then running home to check on Doug's dad. She was great about bringing over a few things, helping for a little bit, and then running home - and she always brought stuff back every time - like Pledge for my incredibly dusty furniture, or DQ for the starving moving crew.

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For the most part the move went really well. We had been really worried about moving the fridge and stove out of the rental but that part didn't go too badly. The fridge rolled off the dolly halfway down the stairs and the door of the stove flew open on the stairs but the incredible moving duo saved the day both times. They had to take the feet off the couch to get it out and then it had to go partially over the railing to get outside, but they made it work.

The bad part came at the new house. When my uncle tried to unhook the stove that was already there the gas line did not want to come off. It took some WD-40 and a ton of elbow grease to come off and then our stove did not want to connect. I don't totally understand the problem but basically our line isn't the right size for the gas line and the connector my dad bought didn't want to fix on. We have a guy coming this morning to hook it in, thank goodness! I'm sick of fast food!

And the big issue: the fridge doors. We had to take them off to get the fridge out of the house. Well, the doors were held on by a couple brackets. When the doors came off one bracket got stuck back onto the fridge and the other went into a bag with all the screws and everything. Well, at one point on the way to the new house that bag spilled and came open and apparently the bracket came out. We all hunted through the truck for it, paced the yards at both houses looking for it, checked every box we thought it could have gone into, I even took every.single.item out of the trash bag that had been in the kitchen at the old house to look for it (and that was extra fun because the water had been shutoff - ick) - no bracket.... anywhere. Luckily Saturday morning my dad went up to the appliance store in town and found out that they could order it and that they had a similar bracket that could hold the door in place until the right one came in. So right now there is a backwards bracket and some packing tape holding the freezer door on so that we can use the fridge side. It's a pain, but considering how bad it could have been we aren't too upset.

The only other casualty was my dresser. It was already falling apart and the move just made it worse. So last night my dad brought over a spare dresser they had for me and took the old one away to use in his storage room. Have I mentioned that my dad rocks?

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So that's pretty much it. Saturday morning we brought over all of the boxes that we had taken to Doug's parents' house and got them stuffed into our garage until we paint. Then Doug grilled out for everybody who was still hanging around and then Doug and I decided to go clean up and empty out the rental. Two hours, 5 trash bags, 2 truck loads/trips between houses, and a ton of sweat later we were totally done with that house. Yay! I started taking out nails and screws last night and we're going to start filling holes to get the house ready to paint after our concerts this weekend. So look for some before and after picks to start popping up in the next few weeks. I'll try to get some pics taken of the house so you all can see it. And once we get settled I'll be back to blogging more, promise.