Moving Prep - Phase III: Packing & Loading

Whew! We made it! We are finally all settled and mostly organized in the new house. With the exception of hanging pictures and debating to-paint-or-not-to-paint, most everything is finally in the place it will remain. By the way, we love the house! For a property that we hadn’t seen until we pulled up with the moving truck, we sure are pleased! More to come on the house.. I am getting ahead of myself.

Back up a week or so – last week my sister Angie flew to Florida to help us pack, clean and watch Adam while we packed and cleaned. She was a HUGE help, especially on loading day. She also watched Adam while we had some final social gatherings with our closest and dearest friends in Florida. I am really trying not to think about how much I miss them!

On Tuesday we picked up the rental truck and then loaded it with items we had stored at my parents’ house or at their storage unit. This included an armoire (from here forward referred as to The $%#&@! Armoire due to its heft), a dining set, a few bookcases, an upholstered rocker, a large outdoor cooler, a half dozen or more boxes, plus a futon and computer table. You know, just a couple of things. We also set about pulling items down from the attic that we hadn’t seen in some time. The problem with having an attic about the size of your condo is you tend to use all the space available. We pulled down 20+ boxes from there – holiday decorations, lots of boxes of books, a Bowflex, golf clubs, yet-to-be-used wedding gifts, bowling balls… Lots. Originally I had plans to pull all this down way in advance and go through what I hadn’t seen in years and discard and consolidate. That didn’t happen for lack of time, and frankly, lack of space. Lesson learned #1.

On Wednesday morning the 3 loaders we had hired showed up right on time and started moving boxes to the parking lot. Well, first they had to unload the items we had picked up from my parents’ house, but then they were on to the rest of our things. Man, they were quick! I suddenly felt so rushed to get my dresser drawers emptied and my computer packed that in the end I just threw stuff in places. I should have learned from my wedding: pack your going-away bag well in advance of the Big Day so you are completely organized and sure of what you have in your suitcase. Lesson learned #2.

All the while the men are working we keep hearing, “You all have a lot of boxes.” Yet, one of them assured me it would all fit in our 24’ truck. Michael kept an eye on their loading and was very pleased at how tightly they were fitting things. (Some things may have been fit too snugly by the look of the scuff marks on some of our furniture – lesson learned #3: wrap everything to protect it and keep it clean.) We had the hired men for 3 hours, and with 30 minutes to go, the lead guy came to me and said, “You need to start prioritizing what’s left.” Panic! I suddenly realized that we may have to leave items behind! Plus, we had told Michael’s sister that if there was room (and we were sure there would be) we’d pick up a king size bed on our drive to Ohio and carry it to Michael’s brother in Kentucky. We go down to the truck, and with about 6’ of depth left….

We had this left….

And this….

\

Plus a few bookcases, a tall wine cabinet, a computer desk, and more standing on the street.

Which left me in this state….

At which point my glass of orange juice was replaced with a beer.

I was frustrated to discover that The $%#&@! Armoire had already been loaded. This was always an If-we-have-room item and would be our first choice to leave behind. It was already deep within the truck. As was the carpet remnant we were bringing to protect the carpet on move-in day and should have been the last thing loaded – also in the truck’s bowels. Lesson learned #4: Communicate your priorities up front, perhaps with post-it notes on furniture!

So here we were with potentially a small U-haul worth of belongings remaining to be loaded and our time up on our hired help. Fortunately they agreed to stay until we couldn’t fit anything more, but frankly, the wind was out of their sails by this point. (To their defense it was 90+ degrees and practically 100% humidity and we had a lot of boxes… but is all should fit, ma’am!)

For two more hours the guys worked to load as much as they could. In the end we still had a tall and a short bookcase, an office chair, a nightstand, a standing mirror, a Christmas tree base, a ladder, a vacuum, Adam’s rocking chair, various mops and brooms and a few final boxes. Ugh. Now we prioritized and decided the bookcases and office chair could go and put them by the dumpster. We loaded up some of the remaining items that wouldn’t fit in our car and brought them to my parents’ storage unit again. I was defeated and in disbelief… how did it not all fit? We were so close to getting everything inside. We took a break, picked up Adam (who had spent the day with his buddy Wylie – Thank you, thank you, thank you, Amy!!!) and a pizza. I told Michael there’s no way we could pick up the king size bed – if there was any room at all on that truck we were going to take our stuff first. (Sorry, Daniel!) I was determined to look inside the truck and see what was left, so Angie and I left Adam with Michael and headed back to the condo to see the truck for ourselves. We opened the back and holy-moley there was plenty of room!!

I was irritated that our loaders just (excuse my French) half-assed the last of the loading but also ecstatic that we just might be able to take everything we wanted! We had renewed energy! Angie, bless her heart, spent much of the next couple hours on about 12” of foot room reaching and loading and optimizing every crevice. There was a large cooler that had nothing inside it – score! We filled it with towels. There was a picnic basket with nothing inside – yay! We filled it with foil and zip loc bags. (It would take me a few days to find those in Ohio, haha!) There was our wine cabinet with nothing on its shelves – yahoo! We opened boxes and filled all the spaces with individual items. In the end, it all fit, including the items we’d moved to the storage unit!!

Sure, we had lots left to do – lots to clean and repair on our condo to get it ready to rent, but I could at least find comfort in the fact that were leaving nothing behind. Oh, sweet relief. And surely, with all that went wrong on the loading, what could possibly go wrong tomorrow??