In with the New in Trichotomy

The Move

We moved to our new house on Tuesday. We had packed over the last several weekends, which was hard on the body, but made the move much easier. The movers came and went in 3 hours. We piled our boxes up in the garage, and they easily took up two car spaces. I don’t know how so much stuff can physically be in the house.

We are moving in 2 stages. The first stage moves most of the stuff, but leaves enough stuff at the old place to stage it for the showing. So now the old house still has two beds, a couch and a dining table set. But it also means we don’t have a bed now and have been sleeping on a futon till the new bed La Professeure ordered arrives (we’re only keeping one bed). And we’ve been using a cardboard table to eat from. La Professuere says she wants to throw away the old dining table but hasn’t made a move to get a new one, so I’m guessing we’ll bring the old one over?

Anyway, we spent the whole day unpacking. La Prof was in charge of layout but we deliberated on which furniture to bring over, which to get rid of, and which new ones to get. La Prof decided we should use the master bedroom as a dressing room; the guest bedroom becomes our master bedroom, and the office becomes our sitting room, and the den becomes our office. The basement is divided into bunny habitat and den. I don’t envision spending a lot of time in the living room except to play the piano.

I think the house has more space than we need… but that’s what I thought of our first house as well.

I am in charge of getting the technology working; Verizon came to install the internet on Thursday, and since then I’ve been getting the home electronics setup. The previous owner left us a lot of gadgets (a lot of hue lights, with a bridge, a google mesh wifi, a smart thermostat, a lot of Sonos speakers, and security cameras), so it was some work getting them all set up.

At this point I think 75% of the stuff we brought over have been unboxed, but there are still things scattered about; without all the furniture here (some cabinets and shelves), it’s hard to unpack everything. I’ve been advocating that we keep an inventory of the stuff we have so we have a centralised place to look up our possessions, and I figure unpacking is a good time to put it together.

However, unpacking is going so slow, La Professeure has not been keeping track. I think it’ll be up to me to do a full sweep after she’s done.

• D
  
  

The Neighbourhood

The sellers were very nice; they came by on our moving day to pick up some things they’d left but also brought over some goodies. They moved four blocks away (La Professeure did some expert stalking to figure out where they moved to using the fact that they closed on their new house the same day we bought this house from them), so we know they’re still in the neighbourhood. It’s nice to deal with a seller that is easy-going and considerate.

They’re going to be coming back to this block periodically, since they are good friends with one of the next door neighbours, a retired police officer and a nurse practitioner nearing retirement. We were introduced to him and he is very nice and friendly, and offered help should we need any.

Part of this town is rather ritzy; there are two country clubs in it and my grand manager, who is an avid golfer, said one of those country club’s membership is by invitation only, which sounds like a stuffy place. Our new neighbour, the retired police officer, said one time he got strange looks from some ladies he met at a town swim center that his wife was working, because these women, from the ritzy part of town, couldn’t conceive that a wife could have a job.

We live on the edge of town. The closest train station is a 14 minutes walk, in a neighbouring town. It’s a bit of a hub station, so it is very convenient. I already used it to get to work on Wednesday. The neighbouring town is more my type of neighbourhood, with an apartment complex, bars, and cafes. I took off Thursday, when Verizon came, and Friday, when Petra came and we drove to UPS to pick up Hallie VI. The UPS store is in the “downtown” area of the ritzy town, and it has got a very different atmosphere. There are boutique stores, high-end grocery, and a 4 star hotel.

I don’t think we’d see a neighbour with a toilet on their driveway now.

• N
  
  

The Return

We went back to our old place yesterday to set it up for showing. Mostly cleaning for me, but La Professeure bought some new vases decor accents for the purpose of showing it. I hope that will translate to higher offers.

After that we went to a hotpot with La Professeure’s co-workers who live in the North Shore town that we *thought* we were going to move to. I’d originally thought they would give us a hard time for our “betrayal”, but they’ve been nice about it. I think they were envious of how close La Professeure is to work now - her commute time is a third of theirs, on a good day.

I have to work in person tomorrow (aside: coincidentally my desk got moved there last week; and I’m enjoying the space, even though I had to walk back to the Port Authority building for a wireless mouse and keyboard to set up my new desk because they don’t have them in the new building!?!?), so La Professeure will go back to our old place to get our real estate agent to list the place.

Since our new place is near the train station, she doesn’t have to drive me back from the station anymore, and that is freeing.

- S