Moving Day!

Even though the project is not completely done, we desperately wanted to get moved into the house - and we are planning on having Thanksgiving dinner there this year, done or not!  Almost 2 years to the day after we sold our Richmond home and put all but a single carload of our belongings into climate controlled storage, we were able to liberate our stuff from the tightly packed, floor to ceiling, 30x10 storage unit that had held our items.  

I had mixed emotions in the weeks leading up to the big move.  On the one hand, it was going to be so great to get our stuff back again.  On the other hand, it was, well, stuff.  I hated to think that I was getting worked up about a pile of things - it seemed so materialistic.  Frankly, if we managed to survive for two years without it, no issues, no problems, how much could it matter?  Turns out, it doesn't.  Matter, that is, not so much - possessions are not life or death, there was nothing hanging in the balance, and I would have survived never seeing any of it ever again.  Although I think I've always known that, it's been great to have that reinforced so strongly at this stage of my life. 

Having said that, though, once we got through the hectic crazed move itself, there was unexpected comfort, lots of great memories, humor and disbelief, and an incredible warmth in the ritual of unpacking the boxes to see what each one held.  In some cases it was like Christmas - wow, I forgot I had a cherry pitter (who doesn't need a cherry pitter in his or her kitchen??); in other cases the reaction was more like, I cannot believe I paid storage fees on a box of glass jars that should have been recycled years ago.  There were oohs over the unopened Dremel and attachments still in the box - I now own two so I'll never be without - and heavy sighs from Rob that we stored not one, not two, but FOUR completely out of date, boxy, and very old tvs.  We are donating  a lot of items - it's so interesting how a two year break from my stuff gave me a whole new perspective.  I'm not embracing minimalism, mind you, but I am very much in de-clutter and keep the essentials mode.  Rob's about two decades ahead of me in that regard!

The day before moving day did not end on a high note.  I arrived late the night before, making the long drive from Philly after work.  Although I had hoped to roll right into the not-so-comfy air mattress upon arrival to rest up, Rob had other plans.  He was, no joke, in the middle of about three different projects, all of which he planned to compete before our final inspection the following morning at 7 am.  Yikes.  This was not what I had envisioned, but I also went to work and several hours later, we fell exhausted into the air mattresses and grabbed a couple of fitful hours of sleep prior to the 6 am alarm.  That was an ugly sound, it came all too soon and we quickly chugged a pot of coffee trying desperately to wake up.  Thankfully, everything was smooth sailing after that.  The final inspection went without a hitch and we hightailed it out to the storage unit arriving, literally, on the bumper of the moving truck.  Our awesome movers had us completely loaded in a short three hours - the storage unit was clean as a whistle and was due to be re-occupied the next day.  Our mattresses and cushions were all intact - no unwanted guests (aka rodents) had made their homes in them, a nagging worry that was, thankfully, unwarranted. 

A few hours later, we were completely unloaded.  Left to our own devices with mountains of boxes and bags in each room.

There was a mild disagreement about the most important piece of furniture in the mix.  Our king sized bed was my choice - man was it glorious to sleep in a king sized bed again.  This was Rob's pick, although it was a close call, even for him - he loved the king bed, too:

Because we only had the weekend to unpack, there was no way it was all going to get done, but my goal was to get the kitchen done (Rob's was the humidor!).  Everything else could wait for subsequent weekends, but I was determined to clean and line every kitchen shelf, unpack every box, and wash every dish - eating in the camper for so long with only microwaveable meals or eating fast food had taken its toll.  Hand in hand with unpacking the kitchen, I was eager to "oil" the soapstone counters.  The result was incredible - here's a before and after of the small counter by the wine nook:

Here's a few more shots of the oiled soapstone (and an unpacked fully functioning kitchen):

Clean and unpacked, with several boxes of kitchenware awaiting donation, one room down, many to go!