Six Men and a Truck

On Friday we cleaned up and cleaned out. On Saturday we moved in. Three wonderful friends from church came to help Jay along with Two Men and a Truck. We couldn't have done it without them! Since my mom has a bum knee, my dad recently had hernia surgery from moving sofa sleepers by himself, I'm pregnant, and my grandma is...well, a grandma, the four of us weren't a whole lot of help! We did carry small items and boxes down from upstairs and carried loads of random items over in our cars though. So we weren't completely useless! Pat (Jay's mom) helped out by taking care of Lula on Friday and Saturday.

It was a long day, but it made me happy to hear the guys joking around and laughing at each other while moving heavy objects from upstairs. I thoroughly appreciate the relationship we have with the people at our church and how everyone there is always so willing to help out with cheerful hearts. Even through sweat and hours of physical labor, they stayed til the end and never grumbled or complained. Thanks, guys! (I can't imagine they'll ever be reading my blog, but wanted to send some thanks out anyway!)

All the "extra" stuff that didn't make it into boxes. Why do we have so much stuff???
Jay was planning to just rent a truck and move everything himself, but I encouraged him to hire Two Men and a Truck. I think he realized what a good idea it was when they handled that wretchedly heavy piano all by themselves! It was worth every penny just for that!
Poor Mollie was going crazy at our other house with all the activity. So Jay brought her to the new house...where she didn't do much better. I finally put her in the basement to keep her out of the way. She doesn't know how to go up stairs. So this was a good spot for her.
Grandma kept saying, "I wish people would work around here. I'm getting sick of doing all the work." But this was the typical picture as she was saying this! (She was joking of course. She's rather spunky!)


Ummm...we were supervising.

The Day of Reckoning

All packed up and ready to move, we closed on our new house on Friday, July 30. Returning home with our keys, Jay immediately changed, hopped in his car, and headed to the new house to start working. Our intentions were to pull all of the carpet up in the old part of the house, thoroughly clean (as Grandmother would not let Lula in the house until it was spotless!), and start on the wallpaper. Well, the carpet and cleaning were bigger tasks than we'd imagined. So the wallpaper was left untouched for the time being. However, by the time the rest of us arrived at the house to get work about an hour later, Jay had already pulled up all of the carpet and rolled it into neat piles in the back. The bigger tasks was pulling the millions of staples out of our beautiful wood floors. I started to help with this until my dad also joined the efforts and literally worked at about three times the pace I was working! So I decided to do something more useful. The house was cleaned and scrubbed, all the window hangings removed, and the carpet completely removed. It was a very tiring and productive day. We were ready to move in! I guess now would be a good time for a tour before all the furniture gets moved in. So here's our new house:
Who wouldn't love a bass on their mailbox?!
Really cool brick garage. It's brick inside too and was covered with rickety cabinets and all kinds of random things. Jay and Dad spent most of one day taking everything out and filling up and huge dumpster.

Backyard: aka Jungle! Apparently the former owners were very extravagant gardeners, but both passed away after living here for 45 years and the garden literally went to pot!
Screened porch which was covered with blinds from top to bottom and well-insulated with cardboard and styrofoam scraps!
Master bedroom with a lovely outdoor entrance into the back area of the house. More randomness!
Our one and only bathroom which no longer has wallpaper or hideous 80s shade. (seen in future blog).
Lula's room pre-drape removal!
Living Room also pre-drape removal! There were so many drapes and curtains to remove. It was wonderful to let the light in!
Coat closet in living room with...yep, you guessed it! Drapes! I guess they were going for the appearance of a window?

Front door and living room pre-carpet and drape removal. Notice how well all the decor matches! Now blue is my favorite color, but this is going a bit too far!
Dining Room
Into back area (new addition) and kitchen.
Yes, I know, it's hard to tell what's going on. They basically opened up the old kitchen and added a new addition. But basically just added more cabinets in the new area. It's very confusing until you actually see it!


Basement door
Upstairs room. It's quite large, but there's no HVAC so it's not livable. Currently it's storage space.
Closet off of the upstairs room...more blinds hung instead of sheetrock.
And behind blind number 32...the old roof!!!
Another closet upstairs that opens into the attic space over the old part of the house. We're hoping to convert the whole upstairs into 2 beds and a bath someday....with heating and air!
Creepy basement! There's a creepy side and a decent finished side. Of course my laundry room is on the creepy side, but not for too long! It will be moved upstairs eventually. We did retain some really cool old metal cabinets though. I want to integrate them into the new kitchen and laundry room.
Finished side with random fireplace. Jay put his office down here.
And that's our new house! I'll try to keep posting regularly as we make improvements, but like I said before, I'm having trouble keeping up with Jay!

The Visitation

The last several weeks have been such a blur that I'm not sure what's happened during them! I know my parents and grandmother were here, Lula officially and finally started walking, we bought a house, moved, sold our old house, and have started renovations on the new one...and I'm 10 weeks pregnant to top it all off! Whew!

I fully intend to chronicle the progress of our renovations, but Jay has jumped in with both feet so quickly that I'm already very behind! I've barely been able to keep up with before and after pictures he's moving so fast. So I figured I better start with my parents visit and then we'll move on to the move and new house.

Below is Lula in her spiffy Steak n Shake hat...Grandmother likes to eat out and so Lula often found herself in locations I would not usually take her. They were such a blessing to have around while I finished teaching for the summer and packed up our house and battled nausea and exhaustion.

Lula was quite a little trooper as we packed up the house and put way too many possessions into boxes. She didn't seem to notice and was happy to help when she could. One day she sat on my bed while my mom and grandma neatly placed hangers in a box. Lula immediately caught on and started handing hangers to Grandmother until they were all gone! She also enjoyed climbing into boxes and being pulled around in them. This was not very helpful! But definitely fun!
Lula spent a great majority of these past weeks on the porch with Nana and Grandmother who love to be outdoors...especially if there's a porch and rocker involved. Lula loved it too.

She also fell in love with Brown Cow yogurt thanks to Nana and now steals it out of the fridge whenever she can.
My grandmother played with Lula endlessly while the rest of us did daily tasks and packed. She was such a huge help and Lula instantly fell in love with her. One of Lu's new accomplishments, along with walking, is placing the rings around the pole. She had such an attentive audience while my folks were here that any time she did something new, she demanded applause! She's turned into quite a little ham and loves attention...which she received plenty of!


We were also able to celebrate my gorgeous mom's birthday while they were here. Overall it was a busy visit, but we couldn't have done all that we did without them.