December Update: Massive Renovation and The Move
And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
The December month that just wrapped up was quite possibly the strangest of my life. Or at least my recent life. So much happened. I'll lay it all out then do my usual yearly summary entry another day.
The entire month was, obviously, dominated by our house purchase, renovation, and the subsequent move itself. Right off the bat was the signing where we signed about 150 pages worth of promises and acknowledgments. We also did the wire transfer of the down payment which is the largest amount of money I've ever moved at one time in my life. It'll probably remain the largest single transaction for the rest of my days for all I know. That was scary but it went off without a hitch thankfully. What made that event even more wild was that we actually ran into the previous owners who themselves were there to sign their side of the paperwork. We had a lovely but brief conversation in the lobby with them. They were a darling elderly couple who lived on the coast and were tidying up the final bits before leaving the area for perhaps the final time. They seemed to like us so much that they actually handed over the key to the house! A magical moment! So many emotions and never enough time.
The next day was the official close (December 4th) and also my final day at work for the month. I had a mountain of PTO saved up and my boss let me take two weeks off ahead of the yearly two week shutdown to renovate the new house. What remarkable timing! So the fifth--a Saturday--was the first official day we could get over there and begin work. Our realtor stopped by to celebrate with us for a bit and be there at the beginning of it. I spent a couple hours running around a home improvement warehouse buying up all manner of tools and stuff. It was the beginning of the madness. Over the next several weeks, it would come to feel like I lived in that stupid store...
That first evening, we began on the first project: Scraping the popcorn-textured ceilings off. After ding some research, we discovered that using a sprayer and water to hose down the ceilings made them easier to remove, and it really did work. We had the ceilings scraped and sanded and primed and painted in about five days. We continued to live out of our apartment but the 45-minute one-way drive twice a day began to take its toll.
As we began the second project--repairing drywall and painting the walls--Nicole's parents arrived from California to help. They brought a garage-worth of all kinds of power tools and we're thankful they did. It was nice to double our manpower overnight but that poor apartment got very cramped and awkward. The painting took another five-or-so days with minor setbacks involving getting a bunch of paint made with the wrong color. Wild times.
The last project we wanted to accomplish was replacing the flooring with laminate, which Nicole's dad and I agreed to install ourselves. We removed the old grubby carpet and got down to the bare plywood floors. At that point, the men and women split up tasks. Nicole's dad and I would drive out to the house every morning for at least ten hours of installing hardwood while the girls stayed at the apartment and packed things up. At this point, the stress and anxiety of the non-stop renovation and work began to take its toll. People were getting short and even I was beginning to daydream about taking even a single day off. Installing the floor took about 5 days and it turned out pretty nicely, actually, but I sprained my wrist which kept me from doing much for days afterward. We were getting close.
The final task was the move itself. We got a small-ish U-Haul truck and blocked a few parking spaces to begin hauling things out of the old apartment. It took about six hours to move everything out and it all magically fit perfectly into the U-Haul. Had we had any more stuff, it would have been a different story. Just before driving away from the apartment for the very last time, we stopped by the office to break the lease. With that, we drove the 45 miles to our house and reveled in the moment. We'd done it. All the renovation and everything was done and now we can move in.
The next day, we unloaded the U-Haul into the house and just about fell down. All four of us were drained and broken from the effort of the previous several weeks. Stress injuries were beginning to appear and we actually took a couple days off. Nicole's parents stuck around a few extra days to relax and enjoy the place before driving back to their home in California. To say we're grateful for having them here would be an understatement. It wasn't a very normal visit and we surely put them to work, but it was a wonderful gift and series of accomplishments. Christmas came and went while they were here and except for the Christmas music on the radio, we just wouldn't have known it was the holidays.
We spent the rest of December getting rooms in order one by one and unpacking. Once we got curtains in the master bedroom hung and then got the bed itself set up, it really did start to feel like a home. There have been lots of little successes like that and as time goes on, they'll pile up. It's now a week into January and there's still a few boxes to unpack but now we're ready to do the fun things like looking for new furniture and trimmings.
So here we are, in our home! We're in a new town sort of our in the country and we have lots to explore. Chip, our dog, finally has a yard to frolic in but he hates hardwood floors, so it's going to be a long road for him to get used to that. We also have a fireplace in this house and have tried it out a couple times. It's just been a wonderful and also scary month. We've got this big huge box to take care of now plus we need to decorate and clean it. I wonder what the years we'll share here will bring... Goodbye apartment living, goodbye "Apartment" tag, welcome back "Home Improvement" tag, hello "House" tag! Our new lives begin!
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass
The December month that just wrapped up was quite possibly the strangest of my life. Or at least my recent life. So much happened. I'll lay it all out then do my usual yearly summary entry another day.
The entire month was, obviously, dominated by our house purchase, renovation, and the subsequent move itself. Right off the bat was the signing where we signed about 150 pages worth of promises and acknowledgments. We also did the wire transfer of the down payment which is the largest amount of money I've ever moved at one time in my life. It'll probably remain the largest single transaction for the rest of my days for all I know. That was scary but it went off without a hitch thankfully. What made that event even more wild was that we actually ran into the previous owners who themselves were there to sign their side of the paperwork. We had a lovely but brief conversation in the lobby with them. They were a darling elderly couple who lived on the coast and were tidying up the final bits before leaving the area for perhaps the final time. They seemed to like us so much that they actually handed over the key to the house! A magical moment! So many emotions and never enough time.
The next day was the official close (December 4th) and also my final day at work for the month. I had a mountain of PTO saved up and my boss let me take two weeks off ahead of the yearly two week shutdown to renovate the new house. What remarkable timing! So the fifth--a Saturday--was the first official day we could get over there and begin work. Our realtor stopped by to celebrate with us for a bit and be there at the beginning of it. I spent a couple hours running around a home improvement warehouse buying up all manner of tools and stuff. It was the beginning of the madness. Over the next several weeks, it would come to feel like I lived in that stupid store...
That first evening, we began on the first project: Scraping the popcorn-textured ceilings off. After ding some research, we discovered that using a sprayer and water to hose down the ceilings made them easier to remove, and it really did work. We had the ceilings scraped and sanded and primed and painted in about five days. We continued to live out of our apartment but the 45-minute one-way drive twice a day began to take its toll.
As we began the second project--repairing drywall and painting the walls--Nicole's parents arrived from California to help. They brought a garage-worth of all kinds of power tools and we're thankful they did. It was nice to double our manpower overnight but that poor apartment got very cramped and awkward. The painting took another five-or-so days with minor setbacks involving getting a bunch of paint made with the wrong color. Wild times.
The last project we wanted to accomplish was replacing the flooring with laminate, which Nicole's dad and I agreed to install ourselves. We removed the old grubby carpet and got down to the bare plywood floors. At that point, the men and women split up tasks. Nicole's dad and I would drive out to the house every morning for at least ten hours of installing hardwood while the girls stayed at the apartment and packed things up. At this point, the stress and anxiety of the non-stop renovation and work began to take its toll. People were getting short and even I was beginning to daydream about taking even a single day off. Installing the floor took about 5 days and it turned out pretty nicely, actually, but I sprained my wrist which kept me from doing much for days afterward. We were getting close.
The final task was the move itself. We got a small-ish U-Haul truck and blocked a few parking spaces to begin hauling things out of the old apartment. It took about six hours to move everything out and it all magically fit perfectly into the U-Haul. Had we had any more stuff, it would have been a different story. Just before driving away from the apartment for the very last time, we stopped by the office to break the lease. With that, we drove the 45 miles to our house and reveled in the moment. We'd done it. All the renovation and everything was done and now we can move in.
The next day, we unloaded the U-Haul into the house and just about fell down. All four of us were drained and broken from the effort of the previous several weeks. Stress injuries were beginning to appear and we actually took a couple days off. Nicole's parents stuck around a few extra days to relax and enjoy the place before driving back to their home in California. To say we're grateful for having them here would be an understatement. It wasn't a very normal visit and we surely put them to work, but it was a wonderful gift and series of accomplishments. Christmas came and went while they were here and except for the Christmas music on the radio, we just wouldn't have known it was the holidays.
We spent the rest of December getting rooms in order one by one and unpacking. Once we got curtains in the master bedroom hung and then got the bed itself set up, it really did start to feel like a home. There have been lots of little successes like that and as time goes on, they'll pile up. It's now a week into January and there's still a few boxes to unpack but now we're ready to do the fun things like looking for new furniture and trimmings.
So here we are, in our home! We're in a new town sort of our in the country and we have lots to explore. Chip, our dog, finally has a yard to frolic in but he hates hardwood floors, so it's going to be a long road for him to get used to that. We also have a fireplace in this house and have tried it out a couple times. It's just been a wonderful and also scary month. We've got this big huge box to take care of now plus we need to decorate and clean it. I wonder what the years we'll share here will bring... Goodbye apartment living, goodbye "Apartment" tag, welcome back "Home Improvement" tag, hello "House" tag! Our new lives begin!