The Move

The last week before the move was extremely busy, not only with preparing to move out, but I agreed do the construction clean up in the new home as well. The builder said he would pay $400 to someone else to clean it out but if I wanted to save that amount, he’d have me do it. I agreed but have now decided that someone else would have earned every cent for cleaning the mud-spattered windows; the sanding dust everywhere, on every surface, kicked up in the air, and clinging inside and out of every cabinet door; and the sawdust in all the corners of the rooms, inside the cabinets, and the drawers.  I still haven’t finished it. Lisa and I talked about climbing into the window wells to clean the exterior sides of the basement windows and how that would look, to someone in the basement, like we were caged at the zoo.

Dust, dust everywhere!

We didn’t know until Thursday afternoon, May 25^th, whether we would be moving into the house on Friday and Saturday or into a storage POD. The City Building inspector had to issue an occupancy permit before we could move even just boxes in. They would check on all the faucets and that would be a problem because the guy who was to install bathroom vanities forgot to order the counter top for the half bath. It hadn’t even been made on Thursday!

If he had installed it on Thursday morning, the plumber would have installed the faucet and everything would have been grand. Instead, the inspector shook his head saying he would have to come back on the following Tuesday to re-inspect. He also required some electrical corrections, a ladder in Lisa’s window well (it’s a deep one), and grates over a few other window wells. These corrections were swiftly accomplished. When our builder explained our situation, having to move out of our other home over the weekend, he said, “Well, we can’t have them homeless over the holiday weekend.” Nothing else. But Jeff said that meant we could move in and he wouldn’t make a fuss. What a relief!

We had a good group from our old ward come on Friday night, the 26^th of May, to help load the heavy things into the truck. (I wish I had taken pictures of them!) One of the more experienced guys looked at the size of the truck and offered to bring over his flatbed trailer and truck. We filled that once and the truck we rented twice and unloaded both vehicles once before they all went home.

People from our new ward arrived at the new house Saturday morning to unload the last fill of the big rental truck (I wish I had photos of them too!). During the day, we moved about 5 loads with our little pickup of all the final things in the garage.

Lisa and Jake put beds together so that we could sleep comfortably on Saturday night at the new house. No curtains on the windows but the trees in the back yard provide good privacy. I haven’t decided what to install just yet.

Sunday morning, May 28th, I’ll admit I was cleaning the fridge and oven for the family who bought our Grandview house, telling myself that there was biblical precedence for such action: “I go to prepare a place for you.” Lisa and I left perhaps 5 minutes before the new family arrived. They will move their things in on Monday, Memorial Day. Good bye, Grandview Hill!

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 [DT1]