The Move

So yesterday was the big day. The night before I was at the house cleaning and painting the closets. Unfortunately, in my room the closet is actually wallpapered. Since I am a perfectionist and want to do it the right way, I need to scrape off all of the old paint and wallpaper. I painted the 2 closets that were not wallpapered. FYI- 1 coat of white paint is not enough to cover antique rose pink or old olive green. I got home at about 11:30 PM and went to bed.

I guess I was anxious about moving the next morning because I was up at 6 AM ready to go. I packed up more stuff and moved things around. My Uncle Alan came over with a truck at 8 AM and we were ready to go. He was in a great mood and we had fun (as much as any sane person can have) moving everything. All of my furniture is bulky. The legs on my couches had to be removed to get them out of my apartment. My dresser was so long that it look some mad geometry and physics skills to get it through the hallway and into the bedroom. I think whenever I get new furniture I am going to go minimalist. That or I am just going to hire a moving company. The funniest part of the move was trying to get my desk into the back room we are going to use as an office. We got it around the hallway only to discover we needed to angle it in so we reversed out, flipped it, and tried again. Same problem. Next, Uncle Alan removed the door hoping that would give us the room we needed. Not quite there. I was about ready to say 'OK! I give up! The dining room and office are going to switch places!' when Uncle Alan ripped off the felt feet on the bottom of the desk. It worked. With that tiny change the desk fit perfectly. We made about 4 trips and got all of the big stuff and some of the boxes moved. It was thundering as we were loading the truck for the final drop off. Just as we finished the unloading the last load, the sky opened up and it poured. I took Uncle Alan out for lunch and went back to the house to clean.

Unfortunately, the 'professional painters' had another surprise for me. When we were talking with them they made the comment that every room had been wallpapered and they had done the hard part by peeling it down. Unfortunately, they only meant SOME of the rooms. I pulled off the radiator in my bedroom to clean out the trash and scrub the wall only to discover remnants of wallpaper. Upon closer inspection, there were several areas on the other walls that were peeling off. Not only was there wallpaper in the closet- it was still in the bedroom. They had just painted over it. I checked the whole house. It is still in both bedrooms, part of the dining room, part of the kitchen, and part of the bathroom. I think I went into shut down mode when I realized this and just sat on the couch looking into space the rest of the evening. Next on the list- steaming and scrapping the old wallpaper down. Then repainting. I think it is safe to say I might never hang wallpaper in any house I own ever.

I spent my first night in the new place. It was a little strange without the cats, but I still slept well. I got up this morning, took a nice long bath to relax, and started cleaning/ moving the small stuff. Not much is left at the house. Next is to let Katie move her stuff in and then move the cats. My mom is going to come over this afternoon with a steamer and help me get down the wallpaper. Lets hope it comes down easily- I have too much else to do.