Good-bye Silver St

Dear Silver St. House

For the past 6 years you have been our home in Historic Springfield. And what a great home you have been!

[Lovely original windows and hardwood floors in the livingroom]

[Hallway with tall tall ceilings]

I still remember the first day we met you. Our lease at an Arlington Apartment complex was nearing its end and we'd started looking for another place to move to. Some place nice, close to work, that wouldn't feel as crowded and anonymous.

[The Butler's Pantry came with a portal to another dimension -

or how else would all of our stuff have fit into it?]

Browsing the paper for ads I discovered that there were affordable rentals available in one of my favorite historic neighborhoods - we'd been cruising the blocks of Springfield on the weekends to marvel at the architecture and tree-lined alleys and liked the eclectic mix of urban vibe and suburban quaintness. Toss in the view of tall office buildings over the verdant tree tops - kind of like New York's Central Park area - and we were sold.

[Original Victorian Coal Fireplace in the Master Bedroom]

[Gonna miss my jungle view from the kitchen]

We fell in love with you the moment we walked up the stairs: hardwood floors, a sun-flooded den toward the front of the house, a humongous front porch and great bedrooms.

[Our front porch aka the livingroom]

You wooed us with your historic charms: the hex tile and clawfoot tub in the bathroom, the tall ceilings and the Victorian fireplaces with their cameo-style covers. And you came with the sweetest landlady we could hope to find.

[Our bathroom - tiny but sweet]

Just like our Darling Duckling now, you felt like a comfy well-worn slipper, the kind you return to after a long day's work and slip into with a sigh of contentment and relief. You taught us about life in a historic home and played a big part in us wanting to stay in Springfield and to own our own historic home.

You were home to us for 6 years, and we will treasure those years always.

Moving - The Saga

If anybody had told me that it'd take us close to three weeks to move all of our belongings from point A to final destination B, I probably would have shaken my head and laughed. Or run screaming. I mean, come on. How many things could you possibly fit into 3 teeny closets (old houses have really small ones), a narrow butler's pantry and a small back porch?

Turns out, waaay more than expected. Way, way more! And if you thought, you'd been good about sorting and decluttering before the first moving day (of three, total), think again.

We started off strong three weekends ago with a truck from U-Haul and armed with a big load of liquor store boxes. We loaded the entire truck, unloaded it at the Darling Duckling and congratulated ourselves on getting so much moved so easily. Ha! Ha, I say!

The following week, I made quick runs with smaller single car loads from rental to house but didn't feel too alarmed that the pantry shelves weren't packed into boxes entirely yet. We had planned for another truck and some beefy armed, gutsy movers to help us with the big stuff aka the sleeper sofa, the art desk, dressers, beds and the laundry set-up so we could easily toss another box or two on the truck and be done.

WRONG!

Moving all of our hardware - which isn't much, mind you; When it comes to actual furniture, our abode was and is sparsely equipped, really - took us two trips instead of one. At the end of the day, we were pooped. And there was still stuff left at the rental that needed to be moved. Argh!

Dear husband estimated that we had a good 8 hours of packing and moving left to do and while I took the 2 hours I used to set aside for painting and other DIY projects every day at the Duckling house and packed and moved for the next 4 days, guess what? Yep, there was still MORE.

What on earth $&**(??? It felt like every time we drove one load over, somebody stopped by and dumped a new load into the rental. It was utterly surreal. That couldn't all be our stuff, could it? I mean, where did we keep all of these things?! Truth is, our Butler's Pantry held almost incredible amounts of bits and bops: from tablecloths and vases to tools and discarded electronics and everything in between.

[Packed to the gills]

This past Saturday we made our final push: from 10am until 7pm we packed, loaded, drove, unloaded and headed back again. We sorted mercilessly, until nothing but our bikes and a big for sale/donation pile were left. Sunday we tried our luck at a very short notice "Stuff be gone Sale", made a handful of dollars and then every.single.thing.left went to the curb with a curb alert notice to the local craigslist.

Monday we had a cleaning lady come in to give the apartment a final scrub, we rode the bikes over to the Duckling and it was D-O-N-E.

[It's craaa-aaa-aaazy]

And that would be a great thing if it weren't for the fact that our Darling Duckling is now stuffed with boxes most of which don't have labels ...

-THUD!-

This post was brought to you in the spirit of "Keeping it real" ... heh

I like to move it, move it

I like to move it, move it
I like to move it, move it
I like to move it, move it
We like to move it!

Last Saturday we kicked off the Big Move with "U-Haul Day". We'd rented a truck and had planned to move as much of the software aka anything smaller than a book shelf and lighter than a washing machine we wouldn't need for the remainder of our time over at our rental apartment.

We started early in the morning. No, really! No joke - we were up, dressed and fed by 8am and ready to load with the truck in front of the house just 30 minutes later thanks to living so conveniently to the nearest pick-up station downtown.

Box after box went down the stairs, onto the dolly and into the truck. Husband commented at some point that the truck started to look like a liquor store on the move (or on the run). Vodka, Rum, Whiskey - you name it, we got it!

It also turned out that our worry that Little Man would be in the way more often than not, was completely unfounded. He enjoyed the adventure so much he kept pulling his weight all day long and collapsed in the evening just like his parents.
After a while our respectable pre-packed pile started to shrink and we got to see the French Doors leading to our front porch again! Light! There is a light at the end of the ... behind the stacked boxes!

After 4 hours of steady loading and only one (!) brief set back when one of the boxes gave up and barfed up books all over our stoop, we were on our way over to the Duckling to repeat the process, just in reverse

And here is part of our load after arriving safely at its new destination. Over the next couple of days we'll be dropping off smaller loads using our own car as we downsize our household over at the rental bit by bit and on Saturday we have a truck and 3 movers to help us move the big ticket items.

And then we're officially arrived at our new old home! And I will collapse as soon as the door closes behind the last box. Promised!

Packing up

About time, eh?

With the (major) work slowly but surely coming to an end at the Ugly Duckling, we're ramping up the preparations for our impending doom ....err, move.

Good thing we're newspaper people; our newspaper subscription saved us from having to find a source for wrapping and cushioning material simply by saving the daily paper after we were done reading it. We don't need no stinkin' bubble wrap! We got paper like there's no tomorrow!

Having moved our extensive personal library once (we're just a leeettle bit over 1500 books ... all scanned, cataloged and Dewey-Decimal-ed into our book shelves) we know the value of sturdy, not too large cardboard boxes. Your best source for those is the liquor store around the corner. Shakespeare and cohorts will be traveling the 6 city blocks to our new home safely packed into Vodka and Whiskey boxes. Oh, and we tag our boxes, of course, to make sure where they belong.

There's no real method to the madness when it comes to moving for us. We've been sorting and de-cluttering for the past couple of weeks to make sure we don't move too much unwanted crap that's accumulated over the past 6 years of living in our historic rental but we're nothing but laid back and so there's still plenty left to pack.

This coming weekend we'll be U-hauling a lot of the software aka 'stuff' over to our new digs followed by a brief stint of an actual moving company dealing with the heavy hardware aka heavy furniture and appliances a few days later.

And then we will finally get to deal with those funny "First Night Jitters", just like Brandt and Ashley over at "New House on the Blog"