packing and moving

Work on the actual house was put on hold over the weekend and into this week as we packed our lives up in a Uhaul and drove everything upstate for our official move!

In an effort to save a little money we opted to move ourselves. We knew we had to stop at my mother's in Connecticut on the way (over the years anything we couldn't fit in our apartment went straight to her basement) and with the drive up to Saratoga we thought it would be more cost affective to rent a Uhaul and drive up ourselves. But with the fourth floor walk up we figured moving out ourselves would be somewhat impossible (I'm strong but not THAT strong). So in addition to the Uhaul we hired two guys to pack it in New York City- thinking actually unloading it into the house wouldn't be a problem at all.

So over the weekend as we continued to pack but it started to feel like we weren't getting anywhere. I must admit we did take some time to say our goodbyes- Martha stopped by to give us very thoughtful and useful going away gifts..
We were scheduled to pick up the truck on Monday morning and by Sunday night it still looked like we had a ways to go...
On Monday morning we ran into a few obstacles but ended up getting the truck to the apartment in just enough time to meet the movers..
It was decided very early on that I was not to drive the truck..
Ben didn't really appreciate the crazy photographer in the passenger seat.

Due to the street sweeper we were able to park right in front of the building which made it all a little easier!

When we hired the movers we scheduled two guys for three hours. Each additional hour was to be paid in cash and while they did a decent job- as of now I haven't found anything that was damaged too badly (though the boxes with dishes and breakables have yet to be unpacked), they definitely took their time.
In the end it took them six hours to move us out of a small one bedroom apartment. I tried to practice patience but by the fifth hour I was ready to get on the road!

We had expected to get to Connecticut around four but by then we were walking through the empty apartment for the very last time..
Unfortunately after that I didn't take anymore pictures. The process was getting a little painful at that point and I just wanted to get it over with! We ended up getting to Connecticut too late and decided not to drive up to Saratoga that night. We opted to stay at my mother's instead (picked a good meal and real bed over drive thru and an air mattress) and drove up to the house to unpack the following day.

On Tuesday morning we got a bit of a late start (a little accident along the way) and finally made it to the house just before noon. Luckily my father had offered to help us unload and we spent the entire day emptying the truck- we really wouldn't have been able to do it without his help! While we started putting the house together we still have quite a lot of work ahead of us (I'll update on the unpacking process later this week). But I don't mind- I'm happy everyone (and everything) is finally all in one place!

prepping the kitchen

I'm in the process of designing the kitchen (more to come later), but in the meantime some adjustments had to be made in the space in order for my design to work. The biggest issue? The extra door into the bedroom (and right smack in the middle of my "U" shaped design).

Below is a rough floor plan of the house so you can see what I'm talking about..

(not to scale)

The bedroom to the top right has two door openings, one coming through the hall and one through the kitchen. In an effort to make both rooms more useable (at the moment the bedroom has very few furniture walls because of the doors and windows), we knew we needed to close off the extra doorway.

You can kind of see the actual door orientation through the picture below..
On Saturday Ben started hacking away at the existing door frame. He didn't get very far in terms of filling in the wall and installing studs- by the time the frame was out we took a dinner break. But he says the few more steps he needs to take aren't too involved- he keeps saying he knows what he's doing..
Apparently there was also a panel on the kitchen wall I had never really noticed before. You can see all of the left over adhesive on the wall.

I hope Ben will take pictures as he continues to work on it.

On Saturday Ben will officially become a Saratoga resident. He's starting a new job next week and I, unfortunately, am going to be living the life of a single New Yorker until all of my business is wrapped up. I'll join him here and there, as I can, and he'll be back in the Manhattan area most weekends. But until our boxes are packed and the truck arrives, I'll be sleeping on a bed in a very well furnished apartment, eating dinner made out of our All Clad pots and pans and he will be resting on an air mattress, watching tv on the floor and eating cheap take out most nights. And did I mention doing hard labor after work to finish up the house before I arrive?