Almost All Moved In!

I want to apologize for my long absence from my blog! We got our keys to the brand new apartment that we bought while in the building stages on Monday morning, and by Monday evening we started moving in... Yes, started...
I was hoping to have a great post to share with you about how we frugally moved, but we ended up paying too much for movers, and they ended up doing a terrible job, and not even finishing the job. I'm not interested in getting into all the reasons of the whys and the hows, but lets just say on Sunday my mom and I brought over two car loads worth of things and put them in the yard, on Monday she and I brought over another load or two, on Monday night movers brought over much of our stuff but not all, on Tuesday relatives helped bring two more car loads of things, Tuesday night movers brought over most of the rest of our things and most of the rest of our furniture but refused to do any more, Wednesday we brought another car load or two over, Thursday another car load, and finally Friday, with two last car loads we brought the last of the stuff to the apartment.
It was horrible to do it like that, having the move spread over so long, but it wasn't by choice, and we specifically paid movers to move things so that we could get it all done at once instead of bit by bit and even so it didn't work out... but at the same time, in a way it was good because I ended up being able to put things away a bit at a time, so by the time we got the last things on Friday, most of the other things were already put away, so we were able to do it in smaller chunks. I certainly wouldn't recommend what we did, but... we aren't moving for a long long time again, if not ever, so at least we don't have to worry about this again!


We bought some new furniture and appliances for the apartment, and it's a process to get it all here, some arriving every day, and needing to manage without it for the meanwhile. So far my new office chair arrived, as did the oven and the dryer, but the gas line is only getting hooked up tomorrow so I'm still using a toaster and electric burners. I'm not sure yet when the couches are supposed to arrive, but it did say up to three weeks from Black Friday, so we'll see.

We tried arranging for the phone company to switch our phone number to our new house, but I wasn't able to do it online like one is supposed to, when I tried calling them up I couldn't get past the automated service to talk to a real person, and when I finally got a hold of them, they couldn't find our address in the system since it was a new house so they wouldn't send someone... and finally they sent someone to hook up the phone line, but he didn't connect the internet like he was supposed to, so I had to wait on hold for an hour to finally get connected to the internet, but I'm back online finally!!!

Today I got measured for Ikea kitchen cabinets, also for our kitchen (in addition to what came in the apartment) and for the kitchen for the rental unit upstairs. I have to go to Ikea now and place the order so they deliver it.

The first few nights here none of us had beds; we all slept on mattresses on the floor. Thursday night we built a really awesome bed for the kids, that is enough for all four kids and doesn't take up a lot of room, but that is for another post. Mike and I were still sleeping on the floor until we built a bed for ourselves last night. Ours isn't totally finished, but close enough- it just needs some finishing touches, which I'll also post about in another post when it's totally finished. You might wonder what happened to our old beds from the old apartment, but since the dimensions of this house and the rooms therein are different, we couldn't just use our old beds, but we used materials from old beds, plus hand me down things, wood we had lying around the house leftover from other projects, and scrap wood to build the family's beds, which are now custom built to suit our needs and our space, and cost us nothing.

We still have more building to do. We need to build a bookshelf for the kids' books and a clothes storage closet for our bedroom, and to rebuild our shoebox couch into a bench that is less deep so that it fits next to our front door and is able to hold our shoes. That last one should be a simple job, so it's probably the next thing on the list we'll be doing, as soon as the master bedroom's bed is finished. I also would like to build end tables once our couches arrive and we determine placements for them, and doors for a corner shelf unit in my bedroom. I'd like Mike to build new chairs for our dining room table, but we'll see what ends up happening with that- he'll try one, and depending on how that goes he'll either make more or we'll end up buying replacements for the ones we already have.

In addition to that, we have to get lots of little things for the house, mainly at Ikea or maybe even other cheap places, such as shelving units for the bathroom, garbage cans, little storage items, a few rugs, etc... I plan on picking them up one day this week, and when we do, that will replace the things we have temporarily in their place.

And we plan on painting, walls and furniture, so that it is more cohesive in terms of looks, and it can be a home that we're proud of. But the first step is to first have a place to store everything, making the place functional, and only after that beautifying with paint.

We're definitely not fully unpacked, but we're 75% of the way there of the things that can already be unpacked, and don't need more furniture built or bought to house them. Other than books. But the plan for today is the bookshelves.

Despite not being all the way unpacked, still waiting for things to arrive and be built and the place to be decorated, this place already is feeling like a home, and it is already loads better than our previous place.

I can't even count how many things I am enjoying more about this place than the last, because there are too many to count. But the biggest thing is probably the fact that I don't trip over my kids when there is just the slightest bit of mess on the floor, because we actually have place to walk in our kitchen/living room/dining room, even if it isn't as big as many other people's homes.
Because of the bigger place, Rose, my sensory seeking 2.5 year old daughter, doesn't seen to be getting into as much trouble, as she has more space to play constructively instead of destructively, and a yard to run around in, and things to climb on.
I absolutely love having a second bathroom, and the ability for more than one person to be able to showering/bathing at once.
My kitchen counter and storage space is so much bigger, and will get bigger still as soon as the Ikea cabinets are installed, which means I have room to put things away and clutter free, and I am so proud of how the kitchen is looking now! I'm even managing to keep the kitchen clean and counters spotless and plan on keeping it that way.
I also love having storage space to put things, which means my bedroom is clutter free and house in general can be clutter free, since things that we don't need for the near future can be hidden away out of sight, and all my husband and my work related things can be relegated to the work room/office/guest room instead of the living room or my bedroom as it was in our last home!

I really, truly, am looking forward to a vegetable garden, but the thing is, right now our yard is filled with wood and other materials we're using to finish building the necessary things in our apartment, so at least until we finish building our furniture, I am assuming that the garden will have to be on hold. However, I would like to get that done as soon as possible, perhaps relegating all the wood to one side of the yard and using the other side for gardening, because I want to take advantage of the rainy season.

That said, there are a few things wrong with the apartment- some drains were problematic, and some outlets needed fixing, and there are a few more things here and there that need fixing, but that's one of the perks of buying a house in a new project that is still being built- when there are issues we point it out to them and they fix it, and we don't need to pay repair people.

And now, back to unpacking! But now that I have internet, I'll be updating more regularly, hopefully back to my usual schedule!

How many times have you moved in your life? How did you move? How long did it take you to move it all, and then to unpack? This is our second time moving as a married couple, and our second time doing a really bad job of it....