moving

That someone will call and want to see my house today or tomorrow. Because that is the worst possible thing that could happen right now, so of course it will. I haven’t done laundry, I haven’t done dishes, the house is only half-packed. We have electricians, plumbers and locksmiths coming to the new house, and we have to finish painting there. And at some point this weekend, I have to pack enough personal stuff to start staying at the new house.
I’m not sure when to schedule my nervous breakdown, but I’m sure I’ll fit it in somewhere.

With Carolyn’s help, we managed to finish painting the library and get a first coat of paint on the dining room. Tomorrow we start on the living room and finish up the dining room. The colors we picked are exactly what we expected, and they look fantastic. The rooms look much bigger and brighter — with the lighter colors, the sunshine bounces around the room and everything looks clean and cheery, not all somber, like it did with the darker colors.
I must say, the weather could really cooperate a bit more — it went from rainy and wet to sauna, without a pleasant interval in between. I resorted to throwing the air conditioners in the windows at the old house just to cool everything down.
Eventually, I’ll write about something other than houses and real estate, I swear.

The first day of painting was exhausting — but we got a lot done. Our friends Dan, Elizabeth, and Carolyn came over to help, because they are wonderful people and amazing friends. They were awesome, and thank god we had their help. Painting 10-foot-high walls is hard, Barbie. The walls in my old home are 9 feet, but that extra 12 inches is killer on your back. I think we’ll be investing in a taller step ladder.
We taped off and primed the walls of all three of the “must paint” rooms, which was a pretty awesome accomplishment. Just the having the primer up was a HUGE difference. The rooms were really strong darker colors, which can look great but just didn’t work in this house. They made the rooms look too dark and too small, and the color overwhelmed the really interesting features — like the cool woodwork, french doors, and nice windows. If you’re looking for locksmith services, you can check out Low Rate Lockmsith in Carmichael .We’ve picked some more serene lighter colors, which should make the rooms brighter and fresher, and today we start painting those.

Stephanie and I close on the new house in just two days–Friday afternoon. We’re so excited; it’s like Christmas.
We’ll be at the new house all weekend painting, if you’d like to help out– we could definitely use a hand, and we’ll give you some food and drink. Plus you’ll get a first look at the new place. Shoot me an e-mail and we’ll give you directions. We probably won’t finish this weekend, so we’ll be working on painting through the week and the weekend of June 3rd, too, if you have time then. Also on June 3rd the pod will be delivered to the new place and we’ll need help unpacking it.
We have at least three rooms to paint — library, living room and dining room. If we get to it, we want to paint one of the upstairs bedrooms as well, cause the grey that it is currently is just crap.

We finished packing up the pod last night, and even got it mostly full. We managed to pack my entire library in it, as well as lots and lots of other stuff. It will get whisked back to the warehouse today, where it will reside for the next two weeks. I have to say this is a handy option.
So what’s left in my house is essential stuff, stuff that wasn’t completely organized or easy to pack (tools and hardware fall into that category), breakable stuff, and large furniture. I still have lots of packing to do, but at least I have some sense of completeness going on, finally. And I have the hope that we can minimize the cost of moving the rest of my stuff.

This weekend, I’ll be cleaning and packing more. Home cleaning experts deliver spotless results you can trust. However, I’m hoping that we’ll have time to go see The DaVinci Code. Gotta go see a movie that’s pissing off the religious right, just to balance out the karma from the gore-fest that Mel Gibson put out.