respublica

The End of the Move

Can you picture a house full of boxes and boxes and boxes? Well, that is our Collinsville house right now. The movers were fantastic, a great group of men who were all hard working and more than that, good-humored and funny the entire time. Lots of good joking around with us and hearty laughter which made things less stressful. 

From the campus to Collinsville the next morning.

Now we have furniture and not really sure if each thing will stay where it's been placed. Also the lampshades were taken off each lamp for the move and now it's a puzzle to remember which shade went with each lamp.

We have a bit of work to do to get whatever is in each box placed somewhere, but we rented a storage locker so we can get some of them out of the way for a while. It's hard to think straight while walking around stacked up boxes. We will make it, but it will take time.

Our first night back we ordered a pickup dinner from Fassi's Greek American and it was so good, just what we needed.

More floors

Yesterday we finally got to see how all the floors on the main floor looked since they were refinished. We had to be careful to only walk around with socks on and it was really something special.

The kitchen which joins the family room. The two rooms are open to each other

The front door opens to the living room which opens through french doors (not pictured) to a library. At least we call it a library, it's basically my room with computer and books once the furniture gets back in.

The other side of the living room and dining room is too the left.

We're really happy with how this all came out and and hope all the moving in doesn't wreck the place.

 

Moving is hard they said

It's an understatement that moving is hard. It's almost insurmountable. I'm posting some of these experiences so I have a record that I can look back on in the future. Like around Christmas when everything is over and all in place.

But, one thing I've leaned is that I just cannot stand the scented trash bags. What on earth made trash bag companies believe this is a helpful addition? The smells of the various scents make me almost dizzy. I have them now because since the virus hit, people bought trash bags like toilet paper and most chose the unscented. Now about all you see on the shelves are the scented ones.

So, yesterday we spent most of the day in Collinsville because the flooring guys (part 2) came to begin the process of sanding the main floor hardwood floors. That work is a science in itself and the two men who are doing the work are very congenial and work none-stop. By the end of the day, most of the floors had been sanded. Today they will start the touch-up (I think) which will take awhile but maybe even begin the clear coat.

In the midst of all this our new oven and microwave were delivered. I was surprised that it took longer to set in the microwave than the stove. The stove went in really quickly while hefting the old microwave out and hefting the new one in was more of an effort.

Today I'm left with walking around the sem house looking at all the darn small things I have no idea what to do with.

Lesson? Don't keep stuff you don't use. Don't keep buying things you think are cute or special in some way if you don't really need them.

Kitchen work

Katie was in town to help us pack up stuff before the move. Lizzie was also over helping. We packed a ton of boxes and really, not overly much is left but what is left to pack are weird things that sit around in every room. I'll deal with those later in the week. But the Collinsville kitchen is what we went over on Saturday. We cleaned and cleared out things that made no sense since Dale and I were basically just camping out there for 15 years. Now that room looks great and ready for the oven and microwave to be swapped out tomorrow for stainless. The white ones have been there for 19 years.

Getting closer

Yesterday the man from the moving company brought by many boxes and rolls of packing tape. He explained how to tape things up, especially the garment boxes. I never knew there was such a thing, but they are amazing. They open up tall and have two holes near the top into which a hanging bar goes. Then all you have to do is hang your clothes on the bar and tape up the box. When the box gets to the other house, we will just hang them right back up.

However! Who comes downstairs this morning carrying a big load of his clothes on hangers and out to the car. I said, what are you doing? He said he was bringing them to Collinsville. So much for the garment boxes!

On the other hand, Katie came into town yesterday and she's been a help with deciding just how to box up what. We decided that emptying closets will mean a box that contains her former things, Lizzie's former things, and ours. Each will be labeled. Actually all the photo albums and old school papers were making me crazy so this helps a lot.

Also what I like about taping up these boxes is we don't have to over tape them as we would if we were shipping them with UPS. A couple swipes of tape and that's it.

We're going to Terry's Appliance store today to get a new stove. We were talking recently that the one that's in the house we got in 2002 which means it's 18 years old and not working well. How time flies.

Down to brass tacks

Yesterday the flooring people came and laid new carpeting on the second floor and down the stairs. It was amazing how quickly (generally speaking) they did this. I mean it took most of the day, but they got it all down and they removed the main floor carpeting ahead of today refinishing. What we were pleased about, or maybe, grateful knowing, was how many compliments they gave us on how well built the house was. They loved all the molding and baseboards too. But they didn't have to paint around all those, ha.

Today comes the end for floors and everything else needed to get moved. It's a relief but also a bit of inner panic over just how all our things will be put in place.  Dale took these pictures ans as good as he is in many things, he hasn't a composition gene.

Our bedroom. The carpet is actually much lighter than it appears in these photos due to odd light.

The second bedroom which is showing only a small part of it.

Here is how the floors downstairs look before they finish. Actually the flooring guys said the floors are in great shape even though I see spots where at some point in time a former owner must have had area rugs because of the rectangular darker spots.

The library or as we like to say, my room.

Living and dining. We found the floors aren't just laid in one direction but what they called laced at corners which is pretty.

I'm looking forward to going over tomorrow and seeing the change.

One example of "why do we still have this?"

Emptying out a closet in Collinsville today ahead of the flooring people, Dale came across this and sent a picture. My guess is he wanted to know if we should keep it or not. It was his baby scale from when he was a fairly small baby.

To be honest, I checked online to see if there was any value and there isn't. Sentiment? Maybe. But it looked too dangerous to use even when our kids were born so I'm leaving it up to him as to whether to keep it or not.

One tiring weekend

We spent most of our weekend going back and forth to Collinsville trying to get the house ready for our move. It's just exhausting to take a look around and see the things we have and don't even know why. I found all kinds of papers and photos and books dating back to my grade school days, not to mention our kids grade school days. These things take up lots of space on shelves which we don't notice until we have to make room for other things. We are under the gun, so to speak, because the flooring people are coming today to put new carpeting on the second floor. After that they will refinish the downstairs hardwood floors. This meant getting everything out and off the floors.

The upstairs is empty of things, but the main floor is still a work in progress. On Saturday we brought our oldest grandson with us to help and I was under the impression he'd be helping with getting things our of the way before the floorers. But no, Dale's idea was for him to help with those darn basement bookshelves he's been making.

They got a lot down, but oh, boy, is there more of other things to do.

The shelves keep multiplying

Dale has continued putting together more and more glass front bookshelves over in Collinsville. I first posted about them at the end of May. He has really expanded them since. I do wonder aloud at times if there will ever be an end point or will these shelves eventually circle the entire basement. Here was yesterday.

All of this involves putting old seminary faculty homes windows into frames which involves a lot of routing and other stuff before they are hung. He does have a lot of books, but there are a lot of windows still stacked up. This may or may not ever end.

Thus ends the painting

For the past two weekends I've been painting the downstairs of our house in Collinsville. I mentioned this last week when I painted the living room and dining room. This week I did the library and downstairs hallway. I am so glad to be finished with this, it took more out of me than I'd like to admit. But it's down. However....

The man who built this house back in the late 20's or early 30's owned the city's only hardware store. Krite Hardware on Main Street was something of an institution back in the day and he had the resources for good materials. And that is an understatement. The house was built in the Craftsman style with the front porch etc. For some reason Mr. Krite thought it was a wonderful idea to have strong wood moldings around every door, window and baseboard. These add to the look of the interior for sure, but boy do they make painting harder and take so much longer.

Thanks to a wonderful neighbor we had (who died on this date last year) I learned a lot about painting and many other things so I'm fairly decent at this kind of work. But it was still physically hard.

This is the hallway I finished yesterday and it is a great image of all the trim molding. I about went out of my mind.

The front room before I began last week. Daunting for sure.

I'm so glad to be done. Now all we are waiting for is the flooring people to take up the carpet and refinish the hardwood floors underneath and we're done.