Drowning in a Sea of Boxes and other Realities of Moving to a Townhouse
It’s been so long since I’ve posted, I feel as nervous as a new blogger again! The past few weeks have been such a flurry of activity that I hardly know where to begin. How about the beginning, shall we? Ā After all, they say it’s “a very good place to start”.
When I last talked with you, we were moving from a lovely in-between rental house to the very first house of our own ~ a 1250 square foot townhouse about 2 km away.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā (Real Estate Listing Photo)
I had packed up our things and neatly piled them into the garage, and was secretlyĀ patting myself on the back for doing suchĀ a smash up job in the downsizing department. (Ahem…)
Meanwhile, my husband was busy working out other important details ~ like searching the world over for a small moving truck that would fit into theĀ small townhouse driveway. After requesting the specific size we needed, we had to wait until 48 hours before our requestedĀ time before we knew if we one would be availableĀ or not. I didn’t feel I had time to worry over such a big part of the equation, so I prayed desperately that somehow one of the companies would pull through. It did. Our U-Haul was ready and waiting for us at 2:00 on Friday afternoon.
Our possession time was 1:00 in the afternoon, so we scheduled a carpet cleaner (for the upstairs carpets) as well as the local cable technicionĀ to hook up our tv/ phone/ internet to come at that time.Ā All went smashingly well in that department. Both men did a great job and were done in good time. Since someone needed to be at the house while the men worked, I had packed our cars (ours and our son’s) full of boxes for the kitchen.
As the men worked, I opened boxes and putĀ things into cupboards at break neck speed. Organized it wasn’t, but out of boxes, it was! Again, I was patting myself on the back that it all fit so nicely. (Ahem).
(The Kitchen before all the unpacking…)
Then back to the rental I went, and the packing of the truck began.
We had great help and long story short, 3 truck loads later, we were all moved from one house to the other, and slept in our own beds in our new house that day.
However, I was no longer patting myself on the back for a stellar downsizing job. Obviously, I hadĀ been overlyĀ optimistic about what would actually fit into a 1250 square foot townhouse…
Although we tried to keep the living room habitable, some of the spaces have resembled a terrible episode of the Hoarders show.
One of the first things I’ve learned about moving into a smaller place is that aĀ lack of space makes it difficult to find room to sort things to organize them. I found I was moving piles of things from one room to another…and then back again!
It’s been a challenging exercise and I’ve been putting to practice every organizational trick I know. And now I’m happy to report thatĀ there’s light at the end of the tunnel!
Yesterday, I felt like I had finally clawed my way up out of the sea of boxes and was able to take a breath of air again. Ahhh…
We’re down to just a few more boxes and I can even walk in every. room. of the house! Woo Hoo!!
I can’t wait to show you around the place. I’ll be back again to give you a tour and tell you ~
the rest of the story.
I love it. I’m so excited for you in this new venture. I can’t wait to see how you decorate and make it your very own. Plus, now I know where to come for my visit!!
Oh, I can relate SO well right now. We seem to have parallel journeys. We are currently trying to downsize from 2600 sq. ft to 1300. We thought we had gotten rid of lots of stuff before we left Kamloops BUT!!! NOT. In the past few days we have taken 10 boxes of things to the thrift store…. This is round 3. Dan and I have been having the war of boxes – He brings them from the garage to the house and I take them back. And then it happens all over… He wants an empty garage – for the car because we have snow already(!!) and I want an organized house on my terms – 1 box at a time. =)
Thinking of you guys!
You have stored household items in one room. Now how would you set it up in the room.