Moving Day

Ketchup stain = mitigated

House = boxed

Truck = on it's way

...It's moving day!!

The plan is to load the truck today, and clean up the Meldrum house for the new owner. Then, Friday we'll do our closings and start cleaning Knollwood for the move-in, which will be Saturday.

Roscoe is freaking out. He basically roamed the kitchen all night, farting and pacing.  I don't think he really understands what's going on. Me? I'm doing ok. It feels weird to have my life in boxes, and the next few days will be tough. Still, the move is going to be good. I'm looking forward to getting in the new house. I wish we were getting the keys today!

Saying goodbye to our sweet little Meldrum house is going to be hard. It's really difficult to see the house all torn apart like this... It makes me realize how much hard work we've put in to making this place a home over the years. It's a bit overwhelming to think about doing it all over again. But, it's time to move on.

I'm ready. (I think??)

Bad Timing

Frankie spilled a bowl of ketchup on our tan carpet yesterday, leaving behind an enormous orange stain in the center of the room.

I wish I could go back in time and tell her that, no, she doesn't need any ketchup with her nuggets. Cause this stain doesn't want to budge. If anything, it seems to get *worse* the more I mess with it.

Dang it.

Someone should totally invent clear ketchup.

Things I'm looking forward to the most about the new house

1) more living space
The new place is three times the size of our current house. It's so exciting to think that I'll soon be living in a house where we won't all be on top of one another all of the time. Also, I'm so excited to live in a house with an upstairs and a downstairs. Stairs...finally! Now, I can buy all the Slinkies I want.

2) a garage
Hurrah! no more street parking! This will be the first time in my entire adult life that I'll be able to park my car in a garage. Next time it snows, I won't have to spend half an hour scraping ice off my windshield in sub-zero temperatures. And I won't have to open my car doors, only to have all the snow from the roof fall into the car and onto the seats, causing me to have to sit in a cold, wet puddle while I drive.

3) tons of closets
We only have ONE closet in our current house. How insane is that??

4) a new neighborhood
Old Town has been great, but I'm getting pretty sick of our neighbors. The neighbor's yard is a trash heap, an abandoned truck has been parked outside our house for *years,* and there are way too many late-night parties at the house next door. I'm so sick of the 2am fireworks displays and all-night PBR bonfire parties. I'm ready for the peace and quiet of Knollwood.

5) privacy
One thing that I really dislike about our current house is that the living room has absolutely no privacy. Anyone walking or driving past can see right into the house, any time of the day. Every time I'm in the front room, I feel totally on display. Plus, our current house has a constant parade of neighborhood kids knocking on our door and peeping in our windows, door-to-door salepeople, petitioners, and passers-by. Knollwood is so much more quiet and isolated. There, I won't have to be worried that the second I leave the bathroom in my robe, the entire neighborhood can see what color underwear I have on.

So, even though this whole moving process is really stressful, we're going to be gaining so much. It's going to be totally worth it.

I can't wait!!

I'm still here...

...Still chipping away at the big moving project. I can't believe it's been an entire week since I last wrote a blog entry. Seven whole days have gone by in the blink of an eye. Crazy!

There's so darn much to organize, it's starting to get beyond my capacity to file it all away in my mind. I've started to get worried that something essential is going to slip through the cracks. Kind of like water spilling out of the top of an over-full glass.

I spent about an hour today making an elaborate schedule of everything that needs to get done in the next few weeks. There are closings to attend, deliveries to schedule, equipment to be installed... A whole host of things to keep track of on top of the process of boxing, moving, and unboxing.

I'm going to be really, really glad when all of this is over and done with. I'm so ready to move! I'm looking forward to waking up in my spacious new house, standing on the deck overlooking the mountains, and breathing a sigh of relief that the whole stressful process over and done with.

Moving is exhausting

I keep telling myself that I need to update the blog, but can't seem to get the motivation. By the time the end of the day rolls around, I'm pretty much exhausted. I can't quite figure out why, either. It's not like I'm doing any kind of hard labor during the day. I've barely even started on packing yet.

I think it's more of an *emotional* exhaustion. I'm t this point where I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of decisions that need to be made at the new house. What appliances should we buy? Where will all our furniture go? Who do we call to get all of the services hooked up? (Can't live more than a day without internet!) What do we need to buy *before* moving in? What can wait?

Plus, the logictics of the move are complicated. We're closing on both houses the same day, so it's been a real pain trying to figure out how to juggle Roscoe, Frankie, moving out of the Meldrum house, closing, and moving into Knollwood. I think we have it all figured out at this point, but it's going to be a really hectic three days. Ugh. Thank goodness Lisa is going to give us all a place to stay on Thursday and Friday nights. Minus Roscoe, of course, who would probably ty to eat her cats, Alf-style.

All of this decision making has had a really weird psychological effect on me. It's like I'm now at the point where I'm nearly incapable of making a decision without second guessing myself. I'm asking myself everything from Did we buy the right fridge? to Did we buy the right house? Obsessively truning every decision over and over in my head, it's hard to move forward. But I know. Baby steps. One decision at a time, and it'll all get finished. It's just hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now.

There are so many projects at the new house that need to get done, and all of them are largely out of my control. I know Matt loves working on the house, building, painting, fixing, but that's not really my thing. I just want to skip right to the part where the walls are painted, the furniture is in place, the artwork is hung, and everything is decorated exactly how I like it. But that's a loooong way off. And it's kind of freaking me out, knowing how *unsettled* we're going to be for awhile.

I know it'll be ok. It'll all get done, it'll all turn out great. It's just the process that's freaking me out at the moment.

Art Lover

Ok, I can't resist sharing this too. This is my other new painting. Technically, it's my Valentine's Day present from Matt. (Thanks, dear!)  I think it's so gorgeous... I can't wait to hang it in my office at our new house!

I don't know how it happened, but I've slowly amassed a really amazing collection of paintings from the 50s and 60s. Most of them are portraits, too. I really can't get enough of them. It's a serious obsession.

Welcome home, Carlos!

Speaking of incredible luck, I was out antique shopping on Saturday and decided to make a quick stop at the place where Carlos, my official blog mascot (scroll to the top left of the screen) lives. He's always been super expensive, hundreds of dollars more than I would ever spend on a painting, but I like to visit him from time to time and fantasize about taking him home with me.

Yesterday was a super snowy day, and the owner of the shop had a really slow week. When I went over to admire Carlos for the millionth time, he decided to cut me an *amazing* deal on him. It ended up being over 80% off, I just couldn't say no. He had to come home with me.

It was meant to be.

Ah... Carlos. How I love you.

Looking good!

We just heard back from the folks at the Knollwood house, and it's great news. They agreed to every one of the changes we asked for, and are even going to buy a new furnace for us.

Woo!!!

Really, the only thing possibly standing in our way now are the apprasials on Knollwood and Meldrum. As soon as we hear that both houses have appraised at or above the sale amount, everything should be completely wrapped up.

I don't want to jinx anything, but it really seems like we've had extrodinary luck so far. Makes me want to dance a jig.

Ok.... That's unexpected.

We've been waiting and waiting for the buyer of our Meldrum house to schedule their inspection of the property. It's something that we were a *tiny* bit nervous about, because in a 100 year-old house... you never know. The gutters are a little weird, the porch is cracked, and the foundation has settled in a way that makes the front room a little (charmingly) off-kilter. I feared we were going to get a "laundry list" of things that needed to be fixed.

We just heard back from the buyer this afternoon, and... she's waiving the right to inspect.

Awesome, but... Huh?

It's such an odd choice. I know I would never buy a house without having an inspector look it over first. I guess it's just possible that she came here when the FHA appraiser walked through, and felt confident that everything was in working order. But still, it seems so bizarre that she would walk through the house *once,* make and offer, and waive the inspection?

Makes me wonder what kind of plans the buyer has for this place?

Still, don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. No inspection = one less thing for us to worry about. That's awesome news.

Inspection Results

Wednesday’s inspection on the Knollwood house went fairly well. The roof, the foundation, all of the major structural elements look really good. There were a few minor issues tied to a fire door, a broken garage door sensor and a non-functioning bedroom outlet, but the only big issue was with the furnace. It’s an old furnace, which is ok. But the problem is that the furnace was subject to a safety recall in the 90s, and the owners never had the Lenox folks over to make the necessary repairs. So, we asked the sellers to have the furnace brought up to the correct safety standards… Important, since as is the furnace has the possibility of emitting carbon monoxide into the house.


Our inspector bumped into the sellers on his way out and briefly explained the situation. Apparently, they didn’t seem very happy about it, especially the wife. I’m hoping that they’ll be reasonable about it, though, and get the furnace fixed. We haven’t heard back yet, but hopefully will soon. Maybe tomorrow?

When the inspector was looking over the Knollwood property, I actually stopped by so I could get another look at the house. Unfortunately, the woman selling the house was there with her son. So, it was really too awkward for me to stay. I really wish they hadn’t been there! I was dying to get in and start imagining paint colors, new appliances, etc.

When she was there, she said two things that were a little odd.

One, she said that her family would “try” to be out by closing. (No try, lady! Only DO!)

Two, she asked us if we would take her cat, since he was “used to the house.” (Um….No thanks.)

It was just so weird actually meeting two of the people that live in the house. At this point, I really think of the Knollwood place as *my* house. Seeing them bum around in their sweatpants felt really..wrong. The house was kind of a mess, too, so I’m really looking forward to getting the furnace thing resolved, getting them moved out, and seeing the place all clean and free of all their junk. And their cat.

Hopefully, we’ll hear back from them soon!