Moved In!

Moving "day" finally happened!  The weather turned bitter cold and snowy, which slowed things down, so it actually took the entire weekend ~ Friday through Sunday, to get Jessie and I moved in to our new home.


How grateful I was for the help from all the kids plus a couple of their friends!  Sunday night we celebrated being finished with a dinner out!   From left to right: foster son Gary and his wife Marcy, Jessie and her fiancé David, me, DIL Amanda and son Stephen, son's Jonathan and Zach.  Friends Mike and Kristen had helped on Friday and Saturday so weren't here for the dinner.


When I moved from Arizona at the end of April, my belongings filled one 26' truck to the top.  Now, adding my daughter and her things plus what I inherited from my parents, it took two very full 26' trucks to make this move.  Inside the house, despite being well over twice the square footage of my apartment, it is filled to the brim!  Total chaos!  There will be some serious downsizing to come this spring!


It doesn't help that I don't quite have a kitchen yet.  For now, the breakfast room is serving as temporary quarters for all food preparation ~ as well as storage for tools and cleaning supplies.  It's amazing how well you can do with just a microwave and an electric kettle!


Once I got my bed made, it started to really feel like home.  One can put up with an awful lot if there is a comfy place to sleep!


We do have some plumbing ~ a bathroom sink and toilet.  But the shower is out of commission until the tiling gets repaired where the wall fell apart when they went to fix the plumbing on the shower.  Thankfully, I've finally found someone to do the work and it will hopefully happen before the end of the week!


A lot of other things have happened in the past week too.  A big item was getting the back door replaced.  The old one was in sad shape with a huge drafty doggy door that wasn't at all secure.


Now there is a nice snug door that actually latches properly!


We painted both bedrooms and the hallway, though there is still some trim to paint.  Jessie painted her room a pale grey with white trim.


I went with a simple white paint to maximize the light in my small bedroom.  I love these windows!  It won't be long before I need to make some window blinds to replace the temporary sheet curtains I'm using at the moment!


We filled up a 15 cubic yard dumpster to the brim.  How glad I was when they came to haul it away!


Do you see the silly frog peering out over the top?  It was left by previous owners.  It had a rather creepy grin that both my daughter and I found somewhat unsettling, so we were quite happy to say goodbye to it!


In the kitchen, the skim coating continued (shown here before the door was replaced)


A concrete truck paid us a visit.


All because we had to dig a channel in the basement floor to put in a floor drain near the hot water heater.


They did a nice job getting it filled in and smoothed out.


We had more plumbing surprises.  The basement shower turned out to be made entirely of concrete block ~ and the plumbing was actually cemented into place.  It was a noisy and dusty job getting the concrete out in order to replace it.  This shower too will get repaired in the coming week.  All the mess has been well worth it as now I have a lovely old home with all new plumbing and electric!


And in the kitchen, the last skim coat of  plaster went on, the walls were sanded and now it's ready for me to prime and paint this weekend before the new kitchen gets installed on Monday!  Just in time to make our first Thanksgiving Dinner in it!