We moved a bunch of fragile-hard-to-pack stuff (lamps, picture frames, bikes, etc) to the new house in carloads days before the moving truck came. We traveled each night to the new house to check on the progress of the AC and get as much done as possible before the big moving day.
I was pretty thankful we didn't have to put all that stuff in boxes. We're going to be in trouble if we ever move across the country. I suspect we'll have to plan better.
But this post isn't about the stuff we did to prepare for the move.
It's about the stuff that happened that we weren't prepared for on moving day. Because when stuff like that happens, you tell yourself, "We'll look back at this in 30 years and laugh."
I'm hoping we can laugh a bit sooner than that.
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On the day of our move we both woke up at our normal time (5 for Ryan and 6:30 for me), neither of us slept well because no one sleeps well the day before they move, especially people who have at least 26% of their house left to pack.
We tried to pack earlier, but you know how that works. You keep finding stuff you had forgotten you owned. The more we packed, the more random the boxes got:
Ryan got us food, the first of about 5 days straight of eating every meal out.
We packed as much as we could, and I took the puppies and a car-load of stuff to the new house. Ryan continued packing. He would have taken the puppies while I packed, except that he had gotten a steroid injected into his back the day before and it was painful to drive.
When I got back to the townhouse around 9am and the movers were already packing the truck with the boxes we finished. They made one full layer of boxes, then put in all the furniture, then finished the boxes.
We sent them with about 90% of our stuff, and then we took some stuff in our cars too.
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"Isn't it ironic...don't you think?
It's like raiiiiin on your wedding day...
Who would have thought...It figures"
Did you all just sing that song in your head? If you were born before 1990 you probably did.
No. I feel like rain on your wedding day is good luck or something. (at the very least, we can all agree that it's not really ironic.)
The song really should be:
"It's like raiiiin on your moving day."
Mixed in with all the emotions of moving is the fear that my perfectly matching 60 cent boxes from Lowe's might melt.
Or that my couch might be soaked. I wasn't prepared to deal with rain. There was no turning back. Stuff was in the truck. All I could do was just pray the clouds don't dump rain until we get it all moved in.
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If this pile of drawers looks precariously balanced, it's because it is.
I covered the drawers in trash bags due to the rain. Gotta have dry clothes to wear.
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I just wanted to let you know this can of WD-40 I found under the kitchen sink is preciously small. You can keep reading now.
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We can't leave this last lonely box empty! I need to fill it!!
Good news! I just found a whole cabinet full of stuff! It will be used!!
(Turns out we has to re-use at least 5 more boxes.... you know how it goes, you always find more stuff)
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Good news, we have a wind chime. We'll blend in with the neighbors. We just gotta buy more over time so we can catch up.
Each of our neighbors has at least 8 wind chimes.
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I let the movers know we had no water at the new place but we had plenty of room-temperature bottled water if they get thirsty (we had no fridge...yet)
Turns out when you pay for professional movers, they've moved a few times. And I'm not saying they turned on the water, I'm just saying they knew how to.
I was so happy I could cry!
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You can tell what's most important to me. This corkscrew/beer opener was on top of my purse. The top.
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Our pups love the front window! Will they be devastated when the movers put a couch there?
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The movers helped us from 9:15 am to about 2:45 pm. At that point, we had about 90% of our stuff in the new house, and I knew where nothing was! We were starving and needed something quick.
Our friend Amberlee brought us lunch! Fresh salads from Chick-fil-A! We were so thankful.
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Arriba. Ayudame. 123.
Our fridge arrived about an hour later. The men spoke mostly in Spanish. Only they counted in English.
The fridge was so heavy they had to take our front door off to get it inside. Then they got the fridge into it's spot. The handles on the door recommended we avoid removing them. We'll work on that.
But the fridge was too big to push in all the way.
One of the men suggested we take the trim off of the bottom of the floor.
It still didn't fit.
But these men didn't give up so easily. Next they suggested we take the trim off of the door frame. They were really worried about how this would look, but they assured us we could cut the trim and re-apply it above the door.
We were just thankful we didn't need to buy a new fridge. We took a zillion measurements when we bought the fridge, but we didn't measure the trim!
We unpacked a bit and found the first casualties of the move:
[A small piece of those glasses managed to find my ankle. I'm glad I picked it up before the pups stepped on it]
[How did this lid even break??]
[This is what happens when you pack pepper but forget to close the lid]
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That night I decided I wanted tacos for dinner. I typed in "taco" into my maps app.
The first (closest) option: Taco Bell
Just a bit closer were: Good to go Taco (closed in the evening).
[My I'm-ready-for-tacos-face]
Then we just picked an old favorite that wasn't too far away. Taco Joint. Sup-par salsa and beverage selection if you ask me, but their avocado queso was fantastic!
Turns out we needed body wash too, now that we had water. Apparently, being the awesome guy that he is, Ryan ran out of body wash on the exact day we were moving so that I would have one less thing to pack.
He's so sweet like that.
Naturally, we stopped by target. I decided we also needed beer. Because who doesn't need beer after moving all day?
Plus, our fridge was lonely and I wanted to use it after taking out all the sticky things inside.
[Sticky things in the fridge]
On a whim, I decided we also needed granola bars for breakfast. We had originally decided to go back to the townhouse to shower and get those things, but we decided to stay at the house now that we had water.
We only had our travel toothbrushes. (I didn't pack the real ones thinking we would go back... so that was fun.)
[The only thing we had in our fridge was beer]
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That evening we put our dryer together. The people who flipped our home put in a range-plug instead of a normal plug, so we had to get a new one. A super kind, older man at Home Depot explained how we were supposed to attach the plug to the dryer.
[Range-plug-in]
[Range-plug in vs traditional 4 prong dryer plug]
But it was much easier said than done.
Especially when you're drinking the lonely beer from your fridge.
Something about colors and AC vs DC current. Twisty wires plugging in and a big metal tubey-thing that goes on the back of our dryer.
We defeated it. I win!
[Hook things and tube things]
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When it came time to shower I turned it on, and while I was waiting for the water to get hot, I went potty. The toilet wouldn't flush right, but I chalked it up to old plumbing. I turned off the shower and tried to flush again, but still nothing.
I let it sit a while and used the other shower.
I still couldn't find the hot water, so I hopped in and out really quickly and I only washed the important parts!
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Then Ryan told me he saw a Big roach in the bathroom (the one I abandoned because of the slow-draining plumbing.
Big roach? Where did he come from?
I know we re-used a bunch of boxes from our garage. And we found our world-map shower curtain in our garage, could he have been living in that?
[World map!]
But really, does he have any friends??
Because if I see Mr. Roach's friend, I may cry.
Thankfully, Ryan killed it for me!
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By the time we got into bed it was 10:15 at night. Not super late.
But I was so tired! All the moving, combined with a cold shower and some terrible-for-me food must have done me in. But thankfully, the next day was Friday and I had my work jeans-and-T-shirt waiting for me.
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I had no idea where my shoes were the next day. I found a pair of blue-and-white espadrilles so I wore those. People kept telling me I looked so beachy! Note to self: pack shoes along with your next-day-work clothes!
After work I didn't care about cleaning, I was just still so tired.
Ryan had stayed home that morning for the insurance inspector to come by and make sure it was really worth what they were insuring it for. He told Ryan that the gas pilot light was out, which is why our water was cold. Ryan turned it on, went to work, and then we both got home around 5. I tried the hot water and it was still cold. Ryan decided to call back our A/C repair man because the hot water was working until we got our A/C fixed. He asked us a few questions, which Ryan had to look at the AC/heater closet for.
And when he opened the door, a huge rush of gas wafted out.
We freaked out a little.
The guy was super nice and said he would be out the next morning (Saturday) to look at it. (If you need an awesome AC/Heater/General repair dude, We've got a good one for you, he's in north Dallas!)
I was able to convince Ryan that we needed a night to rest so that we could unpack more the next day. Since his back was still super painful, we just had some food and watched our new favorite TV show, Psych!
[The pups and Ryan, mostly asleep, but really watching Psych!]
I wanted to be adventurous that night for food, and try a new local place. I typed "restaurants" into my map app and it came up with a few. The best restaurant with only one $ on yelp was called FireBox, a "Japanese fast-food" place that had a hibachi grill and sushi.
Can't be half-bad, right??
The logo for FireBox had what I thought was a pear of chopsticks in the middle of the words. The map directions kept calling it Fire X Box, and all I could think about was video games.
The food was ok. Neither of us got sick, which was a plus!
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The next morning I had a haircut, and thankfully, she washed my hair for me since our water was still cold! When I got home, Ryan was switching out the door locks.
I decided to help him get it done faster.
30 minutes later, we're back where we started, when our heater-repair-man, Seth walks up.
.....................................................
That night I decided I wanted tacos for dinner. I typed in "taco" into my maps app.
The first (closest) option: Taco Bell
Just a bit closer were: Good to go Taco (closed in the evening).
Then we just picked an old favorite that wasn't too far away. Taco Joint. Sup-par salsa and beverage selection if you ask me, but their avocado queso was fantastic!
Turns out we needed body wash too, now that we had water. Apparently, being the awesome guy that he is, Ryan ran out of body wash on the exact day we were moving so that I would have one less thing to pack.
He's so sweet like that.
Naturally, we stopped by target. I decided we also needed beer. Because who doesn't need beer after moving all day?
Plus, our fridge was lonely and I wanted to use it after taking out all the sticky things inside.
On a whim, I decided we also needed granola bars for breakfast. We had originally decided to go back to the townhouse to shower and get those things, but we decided to stay at the house now that we had water.
We only had our travel toothbrushes. (I didn't pack the real ones thinking we would go back... so that was fun.)
...............................................
That evening we put our dryer together. The people who flipped our home put in a range-plug instead of a normal plug, so we had to get a new one. A super kind, older man at Home Depot explained how we were supposed to attach the plug to the dryer.
But it was much easier said than done.
Especially when you're drinking the lonely beer from your fridge.
Something about colors and AC vs DC current. Twisty wires plugging in and a big metal tubey-thing that goes on the back of our dryer.
We defeated it. I win!
..............................................................
When it came time to shower I turned it on, and while I was waiting for the water to get hot, I went potty. The toilet wouldn't flush right, but I chalked it up to old plumbing. I turned off the shower and tried to flush again, but still nothing.
I let it sit a while and used the other shower.
I still couldn't find the hot water, so I hopped in and out really quickly and I only washed the important parts!
.................................................
Then Ryan told me he saw a Big roach in the bathroom (the one I abandoned because of the slow-draining plumbing.
Big roach? Where did he come from?
I know we re-used a bunch of boxes from our garage. And we found our world-map shower curtain in our garage, could he have been living in that?
But really, does he have any friends??
Because if I see Mr. Roach's friend, I may cry.
Thankfully, Ryan killed it for me!
........................................................
By the time we got into bed it was 10:15 at night. Not super late.
But I was so tired! All the moving, combined with a cold shower and some terrible-for-me food must have done me in. But thankfully, the next day was Friday and I had my work jeans-and-T-shirt waiting for me.
.....................................................
I had no idea where my shoes were the next day. I found a pair of blue-and-white espadrilles so I wore those. People kept telling me I looked so beachy! Note to self: pack shoes along with your next-day-work clothes!
After work I didn't care about cleaning, I was just still so tired.
Ryan had stayed home that morning for the insurance inspector to come by and make sure it was really worth what they were insuring it for. He told Ryan that the gas pilot light was out, which is why our water was cold. Ryan turned it on, went to work, and then we both got home around 5. I tried the hot water and it was still cold. Ryan decided to call back our A/C repair man because the hot water was working until we got our A/C fixed. He asked us a few questions, which Ryan had to look at the AC/heater closet for.
And when he opened the door, a huge rush of gas wafted out.
We freaked out a little.
The guy was super nice and said he would be out the next morning (Saturday) to look at it. (If you need an awesome AC/Heater/General repair dude, We've got a good one for you, he's in north Dallas!)
I was able to convince Ryan that we needed a night to rest so that we could unpack more the next day. Since his back was still super painful, we just had some food and watched our new favorite TV show, Psych!
I wanted to be adventurous that night for food, and try a new local place. I typed "restaurants" into my map app and it came up with a few. The best restaurant with only one $ on yelp was called FireBox, a "Japanese fast-food" place that had a hibachi grill and sushi.
Can't be half-bad, right??
The logo for FireBox had what I thought was a pear of chopsticks in the middle of the words. The map directions kept calling it Fire X Box, and all I could think about was video games.
The food was ok. Neither of us got sick, which was a plus!
..................................................
The next morning I had a haircut, and thankfully, she washed my hair for me since our water was still cold! When I got home, Ryan was switching out the door locks.
I decided to help him get it done faster.
30 minutes later, we're back where we started, when our heater-repair-man, Seth walks up.
He saw us struggling and put in the new door lock for us in 3 minutes flat.
Awesome! He said consider it a housewarming gift!
He goes to look at our water heater and says that his guys must have split a valve, so it's his fault that our water heater has a gas leak. He fixed it for us, free of charge, in the next 20 minutes. He was so friendly and taught us all the stuff he was doing so we could check for our own leaks (with a spray bottle of soapy water, which is how my dad checks for leaks in tires, but I never thought to check for a gas leak!)
The water was hot!! I was so excited to take a shower that night :)
Ryan and I made a trip to Lowe's for a new set of keys for our lock.
Then we went to Sears to buy a lawnmower. I had a coupon for 50 dollars off an appliance at Sears. The sales guy wouldn't even try my coupon.
Is a lawn mower an appliance?
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We finally went back to the apartment. Look at all this stuff we have still! This is only about half of what we left.
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Then we had a date night opening boxes.
We opened a wine bottle I bought in 2009 when I moved to Dallas and we drank it the night we moved into our first house in 2014
We ate it with some pizza from Tony's Pizza and Pasta. (I tell you this because they were on the Travel Channel, not because I'm trying to bore you with the details of my life.)
Then a friend came and helped us unpack. She also took a photo of us in front of the house.
If you and I swap Christmas Cards you'll get your very own copy of that photo in the mail (with our house number in it) along with our new address, just in time for the fall.
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Overall, we've gotten a lot of support: Amberlee helped, Diana offered to help, Paul helped. Mom and dad sent encouraging texts, other friends were excited for us and listened to our stories.
You all are awesome :)
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I would love to tell you we slept soundly Saturday night. We had some yummy pizza and some wine, we worked hard putting stuff away late, and we were exhausted. We had all the ingredients for good sleep.
Until our fire alarm went off at 3:00 am. It only went off for about 5 seconds. Long enough to send adrenaline shooting through our bodies. Ryan checked it out. No fire, heat or smoke. We went back to sleep.
Until it went off again at 3:30 am.
And at 4:00 am.
It wasn't nearly as funny as I make it sound. But yes, thankfully nothing was on fire.
To our knowledge anyway.
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I guess I never told you we got more than one new home when we moved.
Our other new home is Home Depot.
If you live in a house, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
At first, I thought this second home would be less expensive, no mortgage payment or anything.
But the more time we spend in our house, the more money we spend at Home Depot.
And it's stuff we actually need. Stuff to unclog the drain, a gas can for the lawn mower, work gloves, a new lock, new keys, a dryer plug....
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After our trip to Home Depot, we split up to cover more ground. I went to the grocery store and to the old appt to get the (hopefully!) last load of stuff. Ryan stayed home to mow the lawn and clean the drains.
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The ride home with the last of the stuff from our townhouse ridiculously full. I had to stuff things so much that if you opened 1 door, all the things would fall out.
I noticed a spider on the rear view mirror decor.
The first third of the ride I willed him to hold on with all his might, because if he was there than he couldn't be in my hair.
The second third of the ride I hoped he would keep holding on, and also that he was super lonely. Because if he had friends than they could be anywhere. Like my hair. Eeeeeee.
The last third he disappeared and I made myself wish I had just pulled over and escorted him out of the vehicle. That left my stomach tied in knots for the rest if the ride.
I was going to be so thankful for my shower that night!
I unloaded the food into the house, mad that Ryan wasn't helping. He was just climbing on the roof with our neighbor.
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Not sure which is worse: having no water, or unknowingly having no sewer drainage.
Long story short: all the drains got plugged. That's why Ryan was on the roof. Which our inspector checked, only I guess maybe putting body excrement down the drain made it dysfunction or something. All I know is something about some roof drain being full of roaches and now there's poo in the bottom of our shower, and more poo comes out every time we wash our hands or flush our toilets or shower.
I've never cried so hard in my life.
Well, that's not true. I have never cried so hard in my life about bugs, plumbing, or housing.
We can't shower, we can't even pee or wash our hands because otherwise the it pushes more poo up into our shower.
And I may never be able to walk in our bathroom again until all the bugs are gone.
Seriously, any other big would be better.
I'm regretting not keeping my baby spider friend around. He was the least of my worries.
My sweet husband was on the phone at 7:45 pm trying to get a plumber out. They said it would be an extra fee for a Sunday night.
We'll pay anything. Whatever it takes.
Turns out we couldn't get him to come out, there was just a recording. So we made plans to shower at a near-by friend's house.
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Man, this house stuff is hard.
We've lived here for 5 days and I have yet to take a legit non-cold shower.
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We showered at a friend's place. At least I felt better about myself, even if I couldn't fix anything in the house.
By the time we got done it was 9:15 pm on Sunday night and we hadn't eaten any dinner. Not that I was super hungry with the smell of poo wafting through the house. We stopped by Kroger to get some comfort foods: oreos and milk, cheese, crackers, and wine.
Because if I was going to sleep with possible roaches, I needed the wine. With a side of oreos.
[trying unsuccessfully to unclog the toilet]
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That night we went to bed. I got all my stuff ready to go for the next morning. I planned to get dressed and then run out the door to work so I could pee there. I could eat and do my hair once I got there.
Ryan told me I had to hold my pee because we couldn't use the bathroom, as it would only shoot more poo up into our bathtub. Well, he also gave me the option to go pee outside behind the shed.
I really think he was serious.
I held it all the way to work the next morning. I wanted the plumber to fix things ASAP. So I called them at 7:45 because our office opens at 8, but we have office staff there at 7:45 to answer the phones. They didn't answer.
So I called at 8:00, 8:02, 8:05, 8:08, 8:30, then 8:45
[Proof I called]
Then I called the house insurance dudes again and made them give me another number. The lady was really rude about it. She couldn't understand why I would need a new plumber so quickly.
Clearly, she's never had poo in her bathtub.
The new plumbers could be at the house between 1 pm and 5 pm. I said awesome.
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I left work as soon as they called me (at noon). I showed up at the house just a few minutes before the plumber. I showed him the problem in the toilet (not flushing), and the problem in the shower (poo). He figured out the problem in 3 minutes flat.
Then he showed me how the main drain was clogged, which I thought was really nice of him to show me.
[Our main drain is located here. The one farthest from the house is the main drain. I'm not sure what the other tube is, even though the plumber told me.]
Then the plumber called to verify our insurance.
The home insurance told him they would not cover the main drain because it's "not inside the home." Are you kidding me?? I had a polite fight on the phone with the lady. I kept saying "But the blocked drain is inside our house, why isn't it covered?" and she kept saying, "The opening to the drain is outside your foundation, which is not covered."
I was so over it. We paid the nice guy since he was already there, and I had already taken the afternoon off work.
He cleaned the clog in about 10 minutes.
[the poo]
I promise I cleaned the tub about 6 times with bleach and then another 8 times with all-purpose cleaner, but I won't judge you if you choose to use the walk-in-shower in the guest bedroom if you need to shower.
After he left I was so bummed that I forgot to ask him about our faucets. See, the people who flipped the house installed ALL the hot and cold water knobs backwards. Even the ones that are color coded with red and blue on them! It's driving me nuts!
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Now we're mostly moved in. All our stuff is in the house, but we still need to hang up clothes and we still need to unpack a lot of boxes.
So I called at 8:00, 8:02, 8:05, 8:08, 8:30, then 8:45
Then I called the house insurance dudes again and made them give me another number. The lady was really rude about it. She couldn't understand why I would need a new plumber so quickly.
Clearly, she's never had poo in her bathtub.
The new plumbers could be at the house between 1 pm and 5 pm. I said awesome.
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I left work as soon as they called me (at noon). I showed up at the house just a few minutes before the plumber. I showed him the problem in the toilet (not flushing), and the problem in the shower (poo). He figured out the problem in 3 minutes flat.
Then he showed me how the main drain was clogged, which I thought was really nice of him to show me.
Then the plumber called to verify our insurance.
The home insurance told him they would not cover the main drain because it's "not inside the home." Are you kidding me?? I had a polite fight on the phone with the lady. I kept saying "But the blocked drain is inside our house, why isn't it covered?" and she kept saying, "The opening to the drain is outside your foundation, which is not covered."
I was so over it. We paid the nice guy since he was already there, and I had already taken the afternoon off work.
He cleaned the clog in about 10 minutes.
I promise I cleaned the tub about 6 times with bleach and then another 8 times with all-purpose cleaner, but I won't judge you if you choose to use the walk-in-shower in the guest bedroom if you need to shower.
After he left I was so bummed that I forgot to ask him about our faucets. See, the people who flipped the house installed ALL the hot and cold water knobs backwards. Even the ones that are color coded with red and blue on them! It's driving me nuts!
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Now we're mostly moved in. All our stuff is in the house, but we still need to hang up clothes and we still need to unpack a lot of boxes.
[changing out the keys! We officially only live in a house!]
We had to wait to hang stuff in the closet until Ryan could re-enforce the clothes-hanging rods. They were sagging a lot in the middle. He's mostly done with that.
[Saggy]
[Supported]
But I'm off to shower. Here's to hoping we're finally done!
I mean, if home ownership is a fraternity, I feel we've been thoroughly hazed already. We've had our AC repaired by Jesus, our water finally turned on by Jerry, our door trim around the fridge remodeled by Sears, our water heater/gas line repaired by Seth, and our plumbing repaired by Gavin. I'm not sure how much else we can handle!
We had to wait to hang stuff in the closet until Ryan could re-enforce the clothes-hanging rods. They were sagging a lot in the middle. He's mostly done with that.
But I'm off to shower. Here's to hoping we're finally done!
I mean, if home ownership is a fraternity, I feel we've been thoroughly hazed already. We've had our AC repaired by Jesus, our water finally turned on by Jerry, our door trim around the fridge remodeled by Sears, our water heater/gas line repaired by Seth, and our plumbing repaired by Gavin. I'm not sure how much else we can handle!
You made it! Man, I have to say that I don't think that this is all normal (although my sister had a similarly awful/crazy time)
ReplyDeleteI know moving to a new house is a lot of work, and starting it off with a plumbing problem didn't help matters. It must have been very taxing for you guys to get through that. If there's any consolation, the plumber took care of the problem rather quickly. Well, if you're going to have that inevitable plumbing emergency, at least you know who to call. Take care!
ReplyDeleteLovella Cushman @ Perfection Plumbing & Draining