Post Move Updates

The move is complete and we are spending our first real, non moving weekend in the house. Of course there is still a lot of work to be done but it's nice knowing that we can take our time a bit more and do some fun things here too. We are now official residents of Marietta having changed our address with the post office and started our trash service here. We still have no internet (right now I am using a neighbor's unprotected wireless network which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't) and we have a few other loose ends to wrap up (like the lack of stove/oven), but mostly we are all settled in. It has been really fun to decorate and organize as well as to watch the cats explore and become comfortable in their new home. I have to say that I am so in love with this house it's ridiculous. Every time I wake up here I am amazed that I get to live in such a nice house, and what makes it even better is the amount of work we put in to it to make it nice, it's very satisfying.

Here are some pictures of the cats settling in from the past week. I have a lot of posts coming up since I haven't done much because of our lack of internet. Stay tuned for more :-)

The cats enjoy having furniture again, here is Westley lounging on the living room sofa.

Bedroom, mostly put together and art on the walls. I am so happy with the color in here, it's very peaceful for a bedroom.

Dining room-cleaned up and ready to be used (if we can get the cat off the table).

Reese peeking down from the loft on her first day in the new house

Silly Cats

The cats are acting nuttier and nuttier as thins disappear from the house and the deep cleaning begins. It is probably not a very good testament to my abilities as a housekeeper that the cats are terrified when they see me pick up a broom. It happens so rarely that they know it means either A: company is coming over or B: we are moving! I snapped a couple of cute pictures of Willow and Reese in the midst of all the moving chaos tonight (Westley is smart enough to spend most of his time outside and thus stay clear of said chaos). I couldn't help but share these :-)

Unlike Willow Reese is not completely terrified of the cat carrier. I pulled it out early to give the cats time to adjust to it's presence before the move and while Willow still avoids it like the plague Reese thinks it makes a comfy bed.

Willow likes using the packed bags and boxes as furniture, it's not like she has anything else to sit on.

More updates are coming soon. Probably this weekend (or whenever we get internet set up at the new place). Happy Wednesday everyone!

Moving Part Two: one week of city living left.

We moved sooo much stuff this weekend, we worked super hard (and played pretty hard too) and now we are exhausted. We have one week left in our old house and we are so excited to finally move in to our new one. The old house is a pretty sad place to be this week. We have almost no furniture left, no pictures on the walls, no food in the fridge much less anything to cook it in or eat it off of. We are really down to the bare essentials this week and it makes it tough to be here honestly. Right now we just have the bed, the computers and the cats plus some clothes. Speaking of the cats they are starting to really not trust us, especially my cat Willow who has always been remarkably skittish. She wouldn't accept treats from me last night which is a bad sign, she seemed sure that I was trying to lure her in to a trap (which come next Saturday I will be). If only there was a way to explain to her how much she will love the new house and how happy she'll be after the move, oh well :-)

In addition to working our butts off moving and unpacking things this weekend we were also able to have a little fun in the new house. This is something I have really been wanting to do so that I don't just associate my new house with hard work. We had my parents over for a little cookout and were able to enjoy eating on the back deck, also Eric hosted a little guys game night which was lots of fun. Entertaining in the house really makes it feel like home, I can't wait for the housewarming party!

Here are some pictures of the progress from this weekend. Basically it's still a mess but at least it's getting to be more moving mess and less construction so it kind of feels like "my" mess.

Our sad, empty living room at the old house. I plan to spend a lot of time this week cleaning so we won't have to do it this weekend when we are also moving the last of the stuff

Dining room table and chairs moved in, all ready for entertaining :-)

My Christmas cactus is confused by the move, it really shouldn't be blooming now.

Our Azaleas are budding out at the new house, the Dogwood out back is about to burst in to bloom as well. Spring is here!

Grilling out on the patio for the first time, mmmm

I think I will never get tired of this room, still a mess but feeling a bit more homey now.

bookshelf in place and books starting to be put away, have I mentioned that we have a lot of books?

Boys assembled for game night, my Dad is pleased to be close enough to attend easily now :-)

bedroom is finally starting to be cleaned out, ready to move the bed in here next weekend!

Moving

Now that the majority of the renovation work is done (at least for the time being) we are starting to move. We are supposed to be officially out of the old rental by April 1st so we have some time but we are trying to spread it out so it won't so much work on that final weekend. This is good and bad. It's good because we won't have a crazy amount of work to do all in two days and it's bad because now we are in mid-moving no mans land where half of our stuff is at one place and half is at the other. We have already moved a good bit of clothes, furniture and kitchen stuff and inevitably whatever we want is at the other place. It could be a sweater I haven't worn in years but for some reason I have to have it now that isn't an option to me.

I'm not one of those organized mover types either, I don't sort things in to boxes logically and label them according to what room they go in.  This means that I will have to unpack every single box in order to find anything after we move in. Luckily the week after we move in I have Spring break so I will have a whole week off to unpack and organize.

As the furniture slowly goes there are less surfaces for the cats to sit on and they are starting to freak. They will now sit on any available shelf or stack of paper on the floor but they know what's up, they remember this from the last time, and it's making them needy and a bit nervous.

My last thought on moving for the moment is that you never really know how much stuff you have until you try to move it all. And once you get a house, whether it be a rental or one you own, there is no going back. You accumulate so much more stuff in a house, not only because you have more room but also because you suddenly need tools and lawn equipment. The main thing I've discovered while moving (and I already knew this consciously, I just didn't understand the full magnitude of the situation) is that we have so many books! Oh my God we have a lot of books, how did this happen? Eric has about a million paperbacks and I have a ridiculous amount of heavy, hard to move or even fit on a shelf, art books. I really have no idea how we crammed them all in to this little house. At least at the new house the books will have some room to stretch out a bit. Who knows, maybe we'll even get rid of a few :-) Here are some pictures from the moving process so far. We are planning to do a lot more moving this weekend so there will be more to come soon.

Piles of stuff stacked up in the master bedroom of the new house (yeah, not the most organized movers). See all those books piled in the corner? That is only a teeny, tiny fraction of the books we own. I think I have finally moved all but a few of the books at this point. As you can see we are also running out of boxes and resorting to using shopping bags. This weekends moving should be interesting..

Willow taking advantage of the empty shelves

Weekend Progress

Since we (pretty much) finished the floors we have gotten more in to moving mode and less in construction mode. There are still renovations that need to be made but basically we are sick of it and we need a break for some fun stuff like arranging furniture, unpacking and decorating.  We still did a few things like painting and nailing up baseboards but we are taking it a bit slower now. Here are some updated pictures of how things are looking.

Hall bathroom in progress (with bad lighting)

Hall bathroom, done with painting (with better lighting)

Hall bathroom from another angle

Painting baseboards on the back deck

Dining room with a placeholder table until we get our real table in there, art is starting to go up on the walls as well.

taking a break on the newly arranged furniture. It took us forever to find an arrangement for the couches and chairs that we were happy with but I think finally got it.

Living room top view

Studio with all the furniture moved in, I still have some cleaning and decorating to do in this room but it is mostly done.

This desk and drafting table arrangement let's me swivel back and forth between the two, just what I wanted :-)

I have more posts coming soon but this is the overview from the weekend. Hope you all enjoy the pictures, we can't wait to have everyone over :-)