*** SOLD ***

Not Alli, the house!
I am happy to report that James and I are officially down to one house now. I never thought it would happen, but he signed the papers today, his house is SOLD.

(Did not want to jinx it by blogging about it until the ink was dry.)

So here is the story of what we have been up to for the last month:
We started moving stuff as soon as we got the contract so we could do car loads and take our time and make the transition as easy as possible. Joke is on us……I would not call the last few weeks “easy”.

The first week, I took one car load each morning on the way to work. Alli would just stay in the car and it was working great. By Saturday we were ready to move the last of the kitchen and really start living at the BIG house. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday loading our cars at the small house with clothes and bathroom supplies, etc. and then unloading at the big house. I spent half the night putting it all away. (I was about as tired I have ever been.) Alli was super duper good the whole time; napping in the car when driving and playing happily while we loaded the car. I was totally amazed and grateful that she was so cooperative.

Of course, it was not all that simple.........I decided that we should put new carpet in the BIG house. The old carpet was 10+ years old, cheap to begin with and had been intimate with a number of animals over the years. The bathrooms were carpeted as well and I wanted to tile them. We picked some tile and it was installed and that all went rather smoothly and it looks wonderful. I am very pleased with the results.

However, not too long after I ordered the carpet, the sales lady called and told me it was back ordered and would take an extra week to arrive. So be it…….I knew I was getting a really good buy on some super nice carpet and quite frankly I didn’t feel like making any more choices. We moved what we needed to live, the kitchen, our clothes and a bed, but left the rest at the small house hoping to get the carpet installed and then move everything just once. Since I had the extra week, I decided to paint the bedrooms while they still had old carpet and no furniture. The old paint was shabby and not a color I would have chosen. When I started the painting project, I was totally clueless as to how much work it would be. Each of the girl’s room took 2 coats of paint (Yellow does not cover well). It breaks down like this: 1 hour to do the cleaning, prepping, taping, 2 hours to do trim coat one, 2 hours to do roll coat one, 2 hours to do trim coat two, 2 hours to do roll coat two, add for clean up and touch up and you are talking 10+ hours per room AT LEAST! Not to mention the toll it takes on your back. My best piece of advice………hire a professional and if you must do it yourself…….have good lighting and buy good quality supplies. A cheap roller pad made for a terrible second coat in one bedroom.

Just to make things a little more tricky, James finds out he has to do an adventure race the weekend we were supposed to move the furniture. (they won BTW) Great, now we have to move the furniture before the carpet arrives. We decide to just put it in the garage for a week. Malcolm gave us a hand (after I agreed to pay him of course) and the rental place gave us the Big BIG truck for the price of the Big truck. Moving the big furniture went smoothly and happily we were done by lunch time.

Then, 1 day before the carpet was to be installed and after I took a vacation day to finish up the painting, the carpet lady called and informed me there was another delay and that it would be another week and a half before they could install the carpet. Glad we had not yet pulled all the old carpet up. Oh well........I was too tired to care.....just bring me some carpet so I can get my furniture out of the garage and have some semblance of order in the house!

The very next day, I realized that the refrigerator was not so very cold......that my ice cream was really soft. Holly cow, the refrigerator is dead! So, I had to drop everything and do some emergency shopping and buy a new refrigerator. I thought I could find one that day, but that is not the case. Lowe’s now keeps almost all their inventory in a warehouse in Illinois and they got me a new refrigerator in just 5 days. I did get free delivery and installation and 10% off and we did want a bigger refrigerator so it was not so bad, just not the best timing.

The drama is never ending!!
So this morning, a half hour before James went to sign the papers, he found out the lady was not happy with how clean the house was. OMG! I cleaned it once and James cleaned it again. It could not have been bad. So after the papers were signed, he had to go over there and do some more cleaning for the lady. I guess some more leaves had blown into her gutters.

Carpet will be installed tomorrow and after 4 weeks of living without furniture, with Alli’s bed in the bathroom (we were painting her room), mounds of stuff in the basement and garage, I can’t wait to get situated and really settle in.

As I was typing the last paragraph I received a phone call from the carpet store. I can hardly believe it....they made an error and did not order all the carpet and will only be installing part of it tomorrow. My dreams of being done moving are stalled yet another week!! Too bad we already pulled up the old carpet this time. I want to cry, but you have to laugh..........I did laugh.....hard.
Wow, it has been a hectic month!