Moving tips: Get Organized!

Well, it is officially official! The money is in our account and we are no longer homeowners. I’m just a little sad but we’re trying to look forward to the great things ahead!  So far this has been the least stressful move we’ve had, despite being the biggest by far. I’ve done my fair share of packing and moving in the past few years and like to think I’ve learned at least a thing or two. To me, the most important part of moving is the organization. There’s nothing worse than arriving at your new house only to be tearing apart box after box looking for a can opener or the remote control. Or missing a payment on your credit card because you forgot to advise them of your new address. Or staying up all night the week of your move just to get it all done. Or… well, let’s face it, when you are moving, there are so many things that could go wrong. And most likely something will. But as long as you are in control of the situation, you can take each setback in stride. We got through the first half of the move with minimal stress – and I’m sure it is all due to the fact that I am organized!

 

 

It all started when Jen started talking about her Household Binder. I was super excited about the idea but initially put it off, thinking it would be best to create a binder once we were settled into our new home. Then it dawned on me that the move was one of the main reasons I needed a binder. How else was I going to keep track of all the things I had to do to prepare for and during our move? So I started putting together a binder and just added a “Moving” section. It is mostly just blank lined paper for making lists and plans and I added a pocket divider to hold any moving receipts or important papers.

Then came the fun part. I had to decide what it is that needed to be organized. And for me, there were three main areas of focus.

1. Budget: Moving can be expensive! Especially if you are moving long distance and/or buying or selling a house. But even if you are just moving across the street, it is still important to write down exactly what you expect to spend. I just made a quick little list of all of our anticipated expenses. I made sure to include things like packing materials, rental equipment, moving companies, storage, travel expenses (gas, meals, hotels), and closing costs.

2. Change of address (and discontinuation of services): About 2 months before we moved, I started taking note of every single piece of mail that we received. I just created a simple list of every one of those companies. Then, since I do receive many bills online, I went through every bill that I pay in a month and listed those companies too. This is when you start freaking out because you have a list a mile long. But the process was relatively painless. I just started making a phone call or two each day until I had every company on my list crossed off. I found that this worked well since some companies require more notice than others. For instance, some magazines are printed and labeled a month or two in advance so it could take up to two months for an address change to come into effect. Also, many utility and cable companies require 30 days notice for discontinuation of services. Banks, credit cards, schools, work, government, insurance etc. don’t usually require as much notice so they were left to the bottom of my list.

3. Getting us (and our stuff) from point A to point B: For us this was kind of huge since we are moving across the country. And cross country moves can be really, really expensive! I called around to a bunch of different moving companies for quotes but all of them were ridiculously out of our price range. In the end we decided to rent a U-Haul and make the 4 day drive ourselves. **Now I just have to insert a disclaimer here. We are in no way fans of U-Haul. Yeah, you read that right. We have booked two one-way rentals with them before and both have been disasters. So why are we doing it again??? Because the stress and problems that could occur in that one week are nothing compared to saving three, four, or five thousand dollars. So we’ve just mentally prepared ourselves for things to not go as planned and not set any strict timelines, just in case.

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Packing

Anyone know if there is a way to just skip over the next few months?? We begun packing this week and I’m already sick of it! We have only 27 days until we have to hand over the keys to our house. And how on earth do we have this much stuff?? I am in no way a hoarder and we don’t shop a ton so I have no idea how we have all of these things. Luckily, I have no problem getting rid of things I haven’t used in years. (Wedding gifts that are still unused? Goodbye!).

Unfortunately, in addition to all the useless things we’ve been storing, there is so much other stuff that we use frequently or will need in the future. Why do babies need so many gadgets? I’m so tempted to just get rid of our baby stuff and buy new when we have another kid just so I don’t have to store all those awkwardly shaped things. But we all know how expensive baby stuff is so I’ll probably continue to hang on to it.

One other thing I’m realizing is that much of the things that I’m now saying goodbye to are things we received from other people that I didn’t necessarily need or love but thought we should take just because it was free. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful here because there are many generous gifts we’ve received from friends and family members over the years that we absolutely love and use all the time. But I’m beginning to realize that if I don’t love it, I won’t use it. And then I’ll just end up storing it for a few years until I realize that I didn’t need it in the first place and finally get rid of it. I think my new rule should be that I can’t bring it home unless it is something I’d be willing to spend money on. In some ways it is a blessing that we are moving into a small 2 bedroom apartment because I simply cannot afford to keep stuff.

But as much as there is left to do, I’ve already taped up a few boxes and every time I do, we get closer and closer to getting it all done. Here’s to a month of hopefully minimal chaos! I’ll breath again in July when have arrived in Alberta with all of our things!

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Rewind: Outside Update

 

One of the last things we did for our house was to update the exterior. It all started when we replaced the Master bedroom window (the upstairs window in the picture below.)

It is difficult to tell in the pictures but all of the green trim around our house was really peeling and flaking. Our original plan was to sand it down a bit and then just repaint it. But things aren’t quite so easy. As my husband and a friend were ripping out the window, they took a closer look at those boards and found that they were in fact rotting away. So a mere paint job progressed into replacing all of the boards and then painting. That’s a lot of work!

That’s when we started to consider installing vinyl siding. We also realized at this time that our soffits and fascia could use some help too. So we got a couple quotes and approached our neighbors, who were totally on board.

Then came the hard part – picking the colors. As you can see, we were stuck with a really awful color of brick. Seriously, who uses pink brick on a house?? It’s only saving grace was that there was a fair amount of gray in the brick too, which is a color I love for exteriors. The other part of our dilemma was the roof that we had just replaced about a year before. We chose a medium brown color because that was what was there before and we really weren’t even considering changing the other colors of the house. So that is what we had to work with – pink/gray brick and a brown roof.

After much debate and a major oh-no-what-have-we-done freak out when the installation started, I’m happy to say that we are more than pleased with the finished results.

We decided to go with a grey siding, white soffits, and dark brown fascia and eaves. We also had the color matched some dark brown paint and just painted our garage doors. We are so pleased with the modern updates and now instead our house being one of the most run down looking on the street, we are definitely the most modern looking. It’s amazing the transformation that can happen in a week. The other advantage was that we gained ventilation in the attic, which was sorely needed.

So while we didn’t touch a single thing during this outside transformation process (except our checkbook), we are proud of the finished product and think it was definitely money well spent!

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SOLD!

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We sold our house!!! I cannot begin to explain what a relief it is! I suppose if any of you have sold a house with kids then you might have an idea. It is so ridiculous to keep a house clean when there are two people running around after you making a mess. But luckily after only 3 days of showings, we had an offer. And now a week later, all the conditions have been removed and we have officially SOLD!
I consider us so blessed to have sold our home so quickly and to get near our asking price. It is such a weight lifted. Now I can focus on all the other things that need attention in my life. Like my boys. Sadly they have been a little neglected the past few weeks!

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The ups and downs of selling

So we finally listed our home this week. I was kind of relieved when I finished all of the cleaning and touch ups but I didn’t really think about the fact that it would be just as stressful to have constant showings. Here’s a little recap of what’s been happening in the last week.

Our neighbors had a bunch of showings last Thursday and Friday and got an offer that was finalized by Sunday. And now they have a “SOLD” sticker on their sign so I’m guessing everything went well with the inspection and financing.

This is great because: their house is now off the market and therefore no longer competition; we know that there is demand for our type of home in our area at our price.

This is not so great because: they were really motivated to sell (they had an offer on another house) and we think they have accepted an offer that is a little lower than we want to go (which will probably make it harder to get the price we think we deserve); after viewing their house, I think ours shows better and probably would have had an advantage over theirs if ours were on the market at the same time.

In the end though, we can’t change anything that has happened with their house so we just have to hope we will have similar luck!

We’ve now had 3 showings and have 5 more booked for the next three days. I’m excited that there is some interest but it sure is tiring having to clean our house non-stop and having to be out of the house at nap/bed time. And just because my kids don’t think I have enough to worry about, they are doing their best to make sure I have lots of toys to pick up, food to clean up, beds to make and diaper cream to clean out of the carpet (yeah, don’t ask!).

Let’s just hope this whole thing is over with soon!

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Isn't it ironic?

I’ve been really busy the last couple weeks touching up all of the main areas of our house. It is really slow going with the little guys but I’m nearly done! Can’t wait to be finished all the actual house stuff so I can get going on cleaning and organizing.

Our original plan was to list on March 1. A few weeks ago our real estate agent mentioned that the market was pretty slow and we might want to consider listing at the end of February. We were fine with that and that has been our plan for the last couple weeks. Then today we had a little wrench thrown in our plans.

My husband got home from school today and immediately asked me if I saw what was in our front yard – a for sale sign. Not ours, but the owners of the other half of our duplex. And technically it was on their side of the front yard, but still!

So naturally we called our real estate agent in a panic perfectly calm manner to see what effect this will have on us. He’s getting back to us today on what our plan of action should be but I’m definitely a little nervous about this. One of the things we felt was on our side was that there are not many homes like ours in our area, which is actually quite desirable. And now, there isn’t just a similar house, there is one exactly like ours. Plus it may give people a bad impression if both sides of our duplex are for sale at the same time, like something is wrong with the house.

Anyways, we are just trying to make the best of it. On the good side, we are happy with their price point so hopefully we can both get what we are looking for.

Thank you, life, for the curveball!

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Rewind: Fireplace

I thought I'd just take a step back and share a little of the changes we have already made to the house. We haven't done too much but I think the projects we've tackled have really made a huge difference.

We bought our house in September 2008. It was our first time as home owners so needless to say we were a little excited! The night we got possession, we started ripping out baseboards! The other project we tackled immediately was our fireplace. It was not a pretty site! Our old fireplace was ‘nice’ pink brick with concrete slabs for a mantel and hearth. It was also huge and off center in the room. We really had no idea what we were doing but all we did know is that we wanted it gone!

So within days of moving in, we (I use that term pretty loosely!) started sledgehammering. We actually built a sort of a tent to try and contain the dust because it was awful. After a few days of demolition, we were left with a blank slate. We knew we wanted a gas fireplace but knew nothing else. Everything else was basically ‘learn as you go.’

 

We decided to go with a gas insert since it was the easiest and most cost-effective. We figured we could deal with the off-centeredness of the fireplace (more on that another time). So we found an inexpensive, but nice looking insert and had it ordered.

The next step was finishing around it. We used cement board to cover up the interior brick and make it level with the existing drywall. Then I got to teach myself about mudding and taping. I’d seen it done before but never done it myself. It took a little practice but I did it and I was happy enough with the results.

We decided to use the fireplace wall as an accent wall and painted it green so the fireplace would really pop. That’s me trying to figure out how to tile!

We were on a very tight budget for finishing this thing, so we went with a stock ceramic tile from Home Depot. It was also my first time tiling and I it was actually pretty fun. I’m quite happy with how that came out. We bought our mantle from Home Depot as well. To make it a little higher, we built bases for each of the legs and we also added a decorative scroll to the front. We painted and mounted the whole thing and we were done!

We are really thrilled with how our new fireplace turned out. It really becomes the statement piece in the room, and not in a bad way! We also gained a lot more space by knocking our the hearth and making it level with the rest of the flooring. It was definitely a very involved first project but we are so happy we did it. Even 2 years later, it looks great!

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