Stuff, stuff, and more stuff
We all have stuff, right? Some of us have lots of stuff, some, not as much. I know when I was a young mother of two, we didn't have much stuff. We didn't have much money to buy stuff either. When John and I got married we had four kids, by virtue of having so many people in our household, we had a lot of stuff. When we moved to Colorado we still had four kids at home. When the military moved us it didn't seem to matter how much stuff we had when it came time to move, because someone else would be moving all of that stuff. I usually thought twice about that once we arrived at our new destination and had to unpack all of that stuff. I even allowed the moving company to unpack everything for me a couple of times, but their way of unpacking and mine are a little different. They just opened up the boxes and dumped everything in the middle the room. Well, maybe they didn't dump everything, but it sure looked like it when they left. I didn't mind though, I didn't have to bend over into the boxes to dig everything out of them.
When we moved to Colorado, we only had a few weeks notice so we sold a lot of stuff to move there. We purchased new furniture when we moved into our home a year after arriving in Colorado. "They" always say, be careful about filling your home with stuff, you may have to move it one day. That day has obviously come for us.
Our home in Colorado was about 2800 sq. ft. finished living space and our basement 1500 sq. ft., unfinished space. Glorious, unfinished, storage space. We used that space well. We basically set it up as an apartment and had plenty of space left for storing all of the Christmas decorations, canning supplies, unused furniture, and scrap book supplies. Lots and lots of scrap book supplies! Our new home is about 1600 sq. ft. No basement. The home was still furnished with a lot of my grandparents furniture until earlier this year when my parents removed some of it. They left some beds and furniture for us to use until we got our stuff and we were thankful to have furniture upon our arrival to Louisiana.
We had to find a way to move all of our stuff from Colorado to Louisiana and settled on PODS. They drop off small storage units to your home and you fill them up. They come back and pick them up and move them to your new home or their storage facility. We needed to have the PODS stored for a few weeks and then had them delivered to the farm. We had one delivered right after we got here. It was the last POD packed. A lot of our essential items, especially kitchen items, were in that POD. When I called to have the PODS delivered I had to give directions to the house. When I told the guy on the phone that the driver would have to drive down the pasture to the house he sort of laughed and said, "no one has ever said that to me." I had to laugh, I don't think twice about driving down the pasture, but I guess it isn't necessarily normal for everyone. As we began to unpack, we decided very quickly that we weren't going to be able to store all of our stuff in our house while we are doing the renovation so we purchased a portable building.
The new building is 16x30. It has a loft in which is great for the Christmas decorations and suitcases. It also has some work space and a few built in shelves. It was wired with some lights and an electric breaker box at the time of purchase, but we would need to finish the wiring and get the building connected to an electric pole. We had the building delivered and set up in what we thought to be the perfect location. There was some concern as to whether or not the building could be located under the electric wires running to the house so John and my dad voiced those concerns. The fellas setting up the building said, "we do this all the time, it will be fine." It wasn't.
Apparently, to get electricity run to a building like ours there are several permits necessary. We needed a 911 permit, sewer permit and flood permit. None of the permits cost anything but time, but they did take a good bit of time, especially since the guy doing the sewer permit wouldn't return my phone calls, I left three messages before I finally learned that a visit to his office was required in order to get the permit. We also had a representative from the electric company come to inspect the building and he got out of his truck shaking his head. John and I knew that couldn't be good. Worst part, we had already unloaded a lot of our stuff into that building. I wonder how many times we will move all of this stuff by the time we finally get the house finished?
A call went into the company we purchased the building from and the conversation didn't go as well as we had hoped. John explained that upon set up he discussed that if the electric lines were an issue they would have to come back out and move the building. During the phone call there was discussion of a charge for moving the building. It just keeps getting better and better! Finally, the owner agreed to send "the boys" out again to move the building. What a great day that was. They hooked up the building and since I wasn't there, I don't know all the details, but I do know that the shed landed on the skids and almost ended up down the hill in the woods. Now our brand new building doesn't look so brand new...it is only minor damage thankfully, but at least they were able to save it and get it all set up at it's new location.
We needed electricity in it so that we could run air conditioning and heating to keep our furniture climate controlled. Last week the temperatures were in the high 90's. AC is a must! We purchased a window unit that has a heat pump and installed it but the electricity wasn't running in the building yet. Extension cords are essential to life as we know it these days, but lets just say that the plug part should be under shelter or inside if at all possible. The rain storm we had the other day proved that to us. Thankfully, the air conditioner wasn't burned up, only the plug. After several hours of work today, we have working outlets, lights and the meter is running on the building. So that there is no confusion as to my role in all of this, I enjoyed a nice long leisurely lunch today with two dear friends while the problems with the air conditioner and electric wiring were run. (Thanks girls, I had a blast with you, as always!)
All of our stuff is safely situated at this point and hopefully, we won't have to move much of it for a while. Now we can move onto bigger projects, like removing walls, building a laundry room, replacing floors and installing the kitchen.
Until we meet again.
When we moved to Colorado, we only had a few weeks notice so we sold a lot of stuff to move there. We purchased new furniture when we moved into our home a year after arriving in Colorado. "They" always say, be careful about filling your home with stuff, you may have to move it one day. That day has obviously come for us.
Our home in Colorado was about 2800 sq. ft. finished living space and our basement 1500 sq. ft., unfinished space. Glorious, unfinished, storage space. We used that space well. We basically set it up as an apartment and had plenty of space left for storing all of the Christmas decorations, canning supplies, unused furniture, and scrap book supplies. Lots and lots of scrap book supplies! Our new home is about 1600 sq. ft. No basement. The home was still furnished with a lot of my grandparents furniture until earlier this year when my parents removed some of it. They left some beds and furniture for us to use until we got our stuff and we were thankful to have furniture upon our arrival to Louisiana.
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| Our home in Colorado |
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| POD 1 was packed very neatly with boxes, by the time we got to POD 3 it looked like hillbillies had arrived and packed the remaining stuff for us. Chairs don't pack as nicely as boxes. |
The new building is 16x30. It has a loft in which is great for the Christmas decorations and suitcases. It also has some work space and a few built in shelves. It was wired with some lights and an electric breaker box at the time of purchase, but we would need to finish the wiring and get the building connected to an electric pole. We had the building delivered and set up in what we thought to be the perfect location. There was some concern as to whether or not the building could be located under the electric wires running to the house so John and my dad voiced those concerns. The fellas setting up the building said, "we do this all the time, it will be fine." It wasn't.
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| I had thoughts of moving into this...it won't be as messy as the house during renovations. |
Apparently, to get electricity run to a building like ours there are several permits necessary. We needed a 911 permit, sewer permit and flood permit. None of the permits cost anything but time, but they did take a good bit of time, especially since the guy doing the sewer permit wouldn't return my phone calls, I left three messages before I finally learned that a visit to his office was required in order to get the permit. We also had a representative from the electric company come to inspect the building and he got out of his truck shaking his head. John and I knew that couldn't be good. Worst part, we had already unloaded a lot of our stuff into that building. I wonder how many times we will move all of this stuff by the time we finally get the house finished?
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| Our daughter-in-law's brother, Ray, saved the day when he came and helped us unload the rest of our stuff into the building. We couldn't have done it without him. |
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| No, he wasn't playing in water, it was really hot and we were really thankful when the rain cloud appeared. |
A call went into the company we purchased the building from and the conversation didn't go as well as we had hoped. John explained that upon set up he discussed that if the electric lines were an issue they would have to come back out and move the building. During the phone call there was discussion of a charge for moving the building. It just keeps getting better and better! Finally, the owner agreed to send "the boys" out again to move the building. What a great day that was. They hooked up the building and since I wasn't there, I don't know all the details, but I do know that the shed landed on the skids and almost ended up down the hill in the woods. Now our brand new building doesn't look so brand new...it is only minor damage thankfully, but at least they were able to save it and get it all set up at it's new location.
We needed electricity in it so that we could run air conditioning and heating to keep our furniture climate controlled. Last week the temperatures were in the high 90's. AC is a must! We purchased a window unit that has a heat pump and installed it but the electricity wasn't running in the building yet. Extension cords are essential to life as we know it these days, but lets just say that the plug part should be under shelter or inside if at all possible. The rain storm we had the other day proved that to us. Thankfully, the air conditioner wasn't burned up, only the plug. After several hours of work today, we have working outlets, lights and the meter is running on the building. So that there is no confusion as to my role in all of this, I enjoyed a nice long leisurely lunch today with two dear friends while the problems with the air conditioner and electric wiring were run. (Thanks girls, I had a blast with you, as always!)
All of our stuff is safely situated at this point and hopefully, we won't have to move much of it for a while. Now we can move onto bigger projects, like removing walls, building a laundry room, replacing floors and installing the kitchen.
Until we meet again.
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| On our last day of packing I began having a melt down. I was done packing, tired and ready to leave everything left in the house for our tenants. I was very concerned however, about my curio cabinet, making it through one last move. I got it when I was 12 years old and it has made it though every move I have made with the military and otherwise, which is about 11 moves. It is the thing to the left wrapped with bubble wrap. I think I would have had a nervous breakdown if our friend John Wells hadn't showed up and saved the day. He and John got that last POD packed in no time. The curio cabinet made it just fine by the way, but thank you John Wells, you were definitely my hero that night. |
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