So. We moved. We got a new place, and it's spectacular. The neighborhood is great. And get this: we've already met our neighbors! By name! Two weeks we've been here and we have met three sets of neighbors. Two years we were at the old place - never met a neighbor by name. Ever. I haven't been riding the Metro recently, so my Cheese People experiences are few and far between. Never fear, though - I start my public transit commute again next week. I'm sure a 1.5 hour commute one way will allow me plenty of time to come up with wonderful stories for you.
A new-ish friend of mine, Chris Illuminati, has recently moved as well. Last week, he told us four steps to move properly. Ohhh hindsight, you are SO lovely. So, I told Chris, that I would counter this - and advise you of ohhh let's say, 4 things you should NOT do when moving.
1. Don't throw away your Ikea tools.
We have quite a bit of Ikea furniture. That includes a bed frame. We had to take said bed frame apart. This is impossible with normal tools. You need your Ikea tools if you ever plan on taking apart and moving your Ikea furniture.
2. Don't think that you will just easily pack your stuff on the day you move.
Because two weeks later? I'm still moving unpacked shit out of the old place. The worst things to pack and unpack are books. We are not keeping the book case we had, so our second bedroom now has books all over the place... Bathrooms are the second worst. I pray that things in the bathroom were expired so they wouldn't go into our moving box. Moving time is definitely a good time to weed out that crap you just never throw away (see: really old makeup).
3. Don't move extra large boxes without a handtruck.
I did this yesterday. The picture below shows my bruises. The damn box probably came up to my waist - and was probably 2 feet square around. I packed it light specifically for this reason, but when you load up all my shoes into a tall box, it's still not that light.
And finally?
4. Don't think you can do it yourself.
We were moving 50 miles away from our old place. I got a great estimate from a moving company that would pack/unpack and move all our stuff for us. For some reason, we decided against that. Between the traffic back and forth, still moving stuff out of the old place, and my bruises.. I think paying the extra money for movers maybe would have been worth it.
So we moved. And those are some lessons that I learned. As annoying as this move was, it was not stressful. I will be getting a u-haul trailer and a hand truck next Friday, shoving the rest of our crap in there, and taking it over to the new place. I deem next Friday our final move out day.
Enjoy your holiday weekend. We're going to sit out by the bay. Read more...
