Unloaded

Just a quick update. On Thursday we unloaded the truck. We now have boxes in the basement and a garage full of boxes. We could have fit everything in the garage except there's a bunch of wood in there that the previous owner was burning in the stove in the basement (which we are not using because it is not up to code). I'm slowly emptying boxes and getting things put away.

January 19 - Adding a few pictures in here.

Here I am in our partially-filled U-Haul truck. We had our belongings in a 10' by 20' storage unit. The truck we rented was 26' long. There was a little bit of concern about whether we could get it all in. We were fortunate that many of our boxes were one of 2 sizes. We'd stack them up and then put odd boxes and other items on top. Our friend who was helping us was very experienced in packing trucks for moving so things worked very well.

And here's the truck fully loaded. We're so pleased that everything fit. We saved the furniture and bulky items for the last part. The idea is that they help to hold all the boxes in place. It worked, everything was in the same place when we opened the back as it was when we closed it.

Here's our garage before. Notice the wood piled nicely? When we moved in all the wood was piled up almost against the big garage door. DH got the kids working one day piling the wood farther in the garage so that we could actually move our things into the garage.

And here it is after everything was unloaded. It's so nice having the garage to house things till we get some more stuff done in the house. We still want to paint the living room and that will be much easier without all of our belongings in the way. Now we can take things out as we have a place to put them.

These boxes are in the basement, not everything fit in the garage. It would have if we hadn't had the wood in there. Notice how the boxes are pretty much all the same size? These boxes were amazing for moving. I love how they have the punch-in handles. The handles make them very easy to carry (as long as they're not overloaded). I did make sure to put my books in smaller boxes so they wouldn't be to heavy.

As I've been unpacking I've noticed a dilemma. There are some things that I can't put away because I have no shelves to put them on. At the same time, I don't want to get a whole bunch of shelves for things and then decide that I don't want those things anymore or that I don't like the style of shelves. So, a lot of things are staying in boxes until I figure that stuff out. I'm quite pleased with myself that as I'm unpacking I'm also putting things in a box to take to donate. It will be nice to no longer have so much clutter.

As for accomplishments today, we re-assembled our digital piano. The piano takes up way less space when it's assembled than when it's in the box. Assembling the piano also meant that I needed to find a place for my baby wraps/carriers since they were helping to cushion the piano. I had the genious idea to hang them on hangers, they look so neat.

We were also able to get a washing machine from Kijiji for $60. I'm quite pleased to be able to wash clothes at home now. Our awesome friends down the street were letting us do laundry at their home (with their super-cool washer and dryer). It's so much easier to just do it at home though.

The other thing we got today was a dog run for the dogs - remember how both of their ties broke? We were debating about buying one off Kijiji or from a pet store. The Kijiji guy hadn't gotten back to me by the time DH had to go to the city so DH just picked up one at the pet store. We may return it, I'm not sure. To be honest, at this point, I just don't care. I'll help set it up if I need to but other than that, I don't want to think about it. I have too many other things to think about - like the lesson I agreed to give in church tomorrow.