Officially Moved In!

Tuesday was my first night in the house! It was so quiet...I'm so used to all these noises, like the neighbors above me dropping something or walking around in high heels, passersby yelling or laughing, or even the streetcar going by my old building. It was definitely an adjustment...I used the white noise app on my phone so I could listen to something as I was falling asleep! Kahlua is slowly adjusting but still spends most of her time in my room under the bed :)

My friend noticed a couple of weeks ago that the water heater was off, and I thought that was weird but I didn't really need hot water yet so I put it off. I asked the guys who were working on the floor leveling if they turned the gas off for any reason but they denied it. Well, I took Friday off so the gas company could come by and do a (free!) inspection and sure enough, they said someone turned off the gas from the meter, but it wasn't them. Anywho, they turned it back on for me, re-lit the pilot light on the water heater, showed me how the furnace worked, and just gave me a lot of information so it was a good thing to do. With the gas turned on, I was able to do laundry for the first time this weekend! I have only ever lived with laundry in-unit once in my life, for about 9 months, so this is a huge deal for me :) I'm never going to have to buy rolls of quarters at the bank again!! And where have I been showering without hot water you ask? Mainly at the gym after I've worked out, or sometimes at Stan's place. But even with the hot water now turned on I still haven't showered at the house for reasons that will soon become clear...

Saturday was a super busy day, so no work on the house was done, but yesterday my friend Matty came over to help rehaul the bathroom. "Oy" is all I can say. Before we even started anything, I opened the box to the vanity that I had ordered online and it was broken. A piece of wood where the door hinge connects was splintered off and therefore the door was working on one hinge. So I ended up returning that obviously! Well, I could do without a sink in the bathroom for a while because the kitchen sink still functions, so we proceeded to rip everything out anyways. First, the vanity was not attached to the wall, and the sink wasn't even attached to the vanity cabinet! Oy. Then the toilet, which was just disgusting and looked like it had never been cleaned. Oy. THEN the vinyl floor...we started ripping it up and unfortunately ran into rotting floor boards underneath :( See, the floor had been rotting it looked like for some time, but the seller just put more plywood on top of the rotting floor and ugly vinyl on top of that, then didn't even caulk between the vinyl and bathtub, which resulted in even more rot. Oy! Thankfully, Matty and my other friend Travis have offered to replace the floor so I won't fall through, although it might take another day or two. So I am bathroomless for the time being!

Matty removing the vanity

The scary looking rotting floor :-/

After returning the vanity, I ended up deciding on a pedestal sink. I know that will translate to less storage, but at least there's a medicine cabinet and I can put pretty baskets on the floor next to the sink or even shelves above the toilet for things. I didn't have any in-bathroom storage at the apartment either so it won't be a huge adjustment! Going with a pedestal sink also allowed me to go with the only vinyl tile flooring I liked that wasn't special order from Lowe's! It's kind of a dark rust color, and I was afraid it would be too close to the color of the vanity cabinet so I was kind of at a loss for what flooring to choose, but having the vanity arrive broken was kind of a blessing in disguise I guess! I get to go with the flooring that I originally wanted (that doesn't cost an arm and a leg) plus I'm saving a TON on the sink now, it's like 60% less!

I don't know how much energy I'll have to tackle anything else until the bathroom is useable again, but I do have quite a few boxes I could go through in the meantime!

-Megan

Moving Weekend!

Kahlua's all packed up and ready to go!

This past weekend I had a lot of help moving all my crap to the new place! :) On Saturday I borrowed my boss' truck and my friend Todd met me at the new place and helped me take a load of stuff to the dump. It was mainly the carpet and underlayment that Stan and I ripped up when I first got the keys to the house, but also the sheetrock and studs and other assorted trash items from knocking down that wall. We also took all of the paint cans and garden poisons that the seller left in the garage (because he's such a nice guy) to the hazardous waste place. It was a lot of fun pitching the trash into that big pile of garbage, but man did it stink!

The truck piled high for the dump

When the trip to the dump was finished, Todd, Stan, Leslie and Nick all helped with a couple of trips moving all the big stuff in the truck to the house from the apartment, then Stan helped with a couple more trips in my car for some smaller boxes. I also took yesterday off and did a few trips by myself. I have come to the conclusion that I have too much stuff! :P

Yesterday I also got my appliances delivered! The refrigerator is already up and running, but the range and dishwasher will just be boxed up in the living room until they're ready to install. I also got a quote to install a gas line for my range...man, the expenses keep piling up! Oh yes, and the flooring guys were finally re-pouring the concrete footings too...it was a busy day yesterday at the house!

All shiny and new!

It's like an appliance wharehouse in here

Yesterday I also set up the bedroom so it's nice and ready for me to pass out later tonight :) I took advantage of my last day of TV by watching a lot of Olympics coverage (yay volleyball!) and slowly cleaning the apartment...I hate cleaning, have I ever mentioned that? It kind of came to a point where I was like "screw this" and just did a half-ass job. If they take money out of my deposit to clean it more thoroughly, it will be worth it to me!

Last night was my final night sleeping in the apartment...boy am I going to miss it! I had a lot of good memories there, and I will miss being able to walk pretty much everywhere and having everything I could need within a close distance, but I know homeownership will be worth it...eventually at least! :)

Bye bye cute apartment!

Tonight I have class after work, so I won't be back to the apartment to get the last few things until pretty late. And then I'll have to wake up early tomorrow because I really don't know how the morning commute will go! This should be an interesting rest of the week... :)

-Megan