Moving ain’t easy

Okay so I chose to uproot my life in Texas and move to northeast Georgia. My sister lives there and we have so much in common. We order the same things at restaurants. We’re both artists. We even buy the same things at the grocery store and I’m not talking the same things we grew up with. Along with having her close, I have inherited all of her friends. I love the horse barn culture where we both keep the horses. Everyone has been friendly. The thing is, I can’t live with my sister. She and her hubby need their own space. My cats and dogs cramped their lifestyle and their own pets’ freedoms were temporarily limited.

I bought my house intending to move in right away. I planned with the movers so we could unload after I had a day to clean the house when the previous owners left. I did a walk though before we closed but they still had all their stuff in the house. It is tough to see what you really need to see (the problems) that way. My first tip is not to close until you can see the house empty or mostly empty.

Once their belongings were out of the house, I walked through. My heart sank. What had I done? The bathrooms were awful with builder grade fixtures from 2001. The doors on the vanities that looked so cute in the pictures were terrible. Doors didn’t even match up. The kitchen cabinets were made of composite wood. The ones below the sink had water damage. The kitchen space was not planned well, the cabinets too shallow and the counters made of formica. To top it off, the whole house was painted a depressing grey that seemed to add to the shabbiness of the structure. Oh and the floors! Carpet in the bedrooms and bonus room, all terribly stained. Linoleum in the kitchen, breakfast room, laundry and master bathroom. Tile by the front door and back door to the patio and in the small bathroom. The living area and dining room had wood laminate that was trying to pass itself off as 1970’s blond hardwoods. A veritable buffet of bad flooring.

I rented a storage unit, well three of them, and had the movers put my things there until I could make some upgrades. My sister generously offered to let me stay with her until I could make my home habitable. Painting was the first thing on the list. I love color but I also think you need to live somewhere awhile to see what color you want rooms to be. We’d start with white walls. I have plenty of artwork to hang that will add color and interest. Next I had the flooring pulled up. There were some surprises there, like the wet floor pad under the wood laminate. I will admit that I had a minor freak-out that I had leaky walls. I cleaned the gutters pronto in case that was the culprit. I wondered what the inspection company (who has yet to resolve some other things they missed). actually did catch. After a couple days of rain we determined that there were no leaks. I am hypothesizing that the floors were mopped with a wet mop and that is where the dampness came from. These folks waited until the last minute to leave and didn’t have much time to clean. This might have been the job of preteen children who didn’t understand that you can’t wet mop wood laminate.

I chose to put down luxury vinyl because with all of my pets, it is the only thing that makes sense. We kept most of the tile except at the back door. Carpets can add warmth to bedroom floors. I need easy and durable.

There was also the matter of the garage door. Every day that I went to the house it bothered me. It was dinged up and looked like it had been crashed into a couple times. According to my contract, they were supposed to have it professionally repaired. I am not sure who their professional was but I am sure they said “fix it cheap”. It looked like it would pull apart at the joints with each raise. My sister who had seen the house before I put a contract on it, thought the problems had not been repaired. Because this was something I would have to live with, I had a new, insulated one installed. No nonsense, no froo-froo hardware or windows. Now it is quieter, runs well on the tracks and it is much more difficult to break into without an outside handle. Expensive but worth my peace of mind every time I hit that opener.

So now the furniture is in the house. I have been showering at my sister’s because I had to do some repair work in both bathrooms but that is a story for another day. Stay tuned to the saga of surprise and dismay. Honestly when I moved into my Texas home after my divorce, I am sure that I did a ton of work too but I was mourning the loss of my marriage and dream house so maybe I didn’t notice it as much. It is a journey.