Packrat’s Progress

Last week got totally out of hand here, but at least we finally closed on the old house on Friday afternoon, and spent most of Saturday putting plants in the ground.

I unpacked four boxes of “good” dishes today, only to discover that I’m still missing one box of dishes somewhere - probably in storage. I think I’ve got all the other dishes, but that one set of coffee cups. It’s not one I use much - I prefer mugs - but if it isn’t unpacked, I’ll have to keep remembering not to fill up the spot in the china cabinet that the cups ought to go into, LOL. It’s amazing how much room a set for 12 places can take up! It was Dave’s grandmother’s “every day” china and is still great condition. Everything except the serving pieces (which have gold rims) will even go in the dishwasher.

Slowly but surely I guess we’re getting there!
Have fun!
Val P.

I think I’m down to no boxes in the living room or dining room, and only a few in the family room. My office has gained a few that I got out of storage last week but haven’t had time to unpack yet.

We had a server error last week, so Packrat’s Progress was down for a while as we got that straightened out.

For all the faithful readers, here’s a gem of a blog my mother’s first cousin (what does that make her to me?) sent me today. The blog isn’t hers. She just recommended it. RJ Evans has a great bit on Coffee Habits. There’s also a few other great blog articles on the Purple Slinky site as well. Here you go:
Coffee Habits article

Now, should I go get another cup of coffee or take a nap?
Have fun!
Val P.

We’ve been living in the house now for a little over a month. The majority of boxes are unpacked, but after all this time there are still shelves to be put up in a couple of closets, cabinets to be mounted in the sewing/craft room, furniture to be purchased and flowerbeds to be dug. The builder has been very good about fixing all the little problems that have cropped up - like a stripped screw that was supposed to hold the track for the guest room shower doors in place that will be fixed tomorrow. The roof leak has been fixed and repainted. The chip in the master shower has been repaired as has the chip in the sink in that same bathroom. Blinds are going up at long last next Wednesday. We do have one new flowerbed almost ready for some transplanted cannas. Now we just need to dig them up from the old house.

Looks like we’ll be getting neighbors next door after they close on that house next week.

There’s a small flock of humming birds that have discovered the feeder we hung from the little oak tree in the back yard. They’ve been keeping us entertained. It looks like there may be a good crop of walnuts in the trees in farthest part of the back yard unless the so far non-existent squirrels discover them first. I know the squirrels aren’t there because they haven’t bothered my bird feeders though the birds have certainly found them. Besides the hummingbirds, we’ve got cardinals, chickadees, titmice, brown thrashers, robins, and doves that come to the feeders. Crows, red tailed and red shouldered hawks, mocking birds, Canadian geese and killdeer are often spotted in the vicinity as well, though they don’t come to the feeder. I’m pretty sure I heard a screech owl the other night as well. Either that, or someone nearby had a very loud strange sounding cell phone ringtone.

It’s rather amazing how many critters don’t seem to mind living around a construction zone. The builders have kept building, including one house across the street. Still, the other night there were a pair of deer at the pond between the church and the subdivision. We haven’t seen the bobcat over there this year, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still in those woods somewhere. I doubt if he’d come this far through populated areas. Still, I keep a close eye on the dogs when they’re outside between the hawks and the coyotes that prowl these parts. I don’t think the coyotes could get inside the fence, but that wouldn’t stop the hawks or bobcat. Rascal isn’t much bigger than some of the rabbits they normally go after when they’re not getting goose or songbird.

Have fun!

Val P.

Things here are frantically plugging along. The inlaws are due in for a visit tomorrow.

Wednesday the guy from the warranty department for the builder was here to see what to do about the list I sent him back on Monday. We got the carpet cleaned at the old house yesterday morning. This morning the roofer was here to fix the leak (minor, but still a leak that made water stains on the ceiling.) This afternoon after my hair appointment across town, I was supposed to reset the staging at the old house now that the carpet was dry, but storms came in and the power was out in a pretty large area so couldn’t blow the airbed back up.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, the sprinkler guy was here to re-adjust the sprinklers so they were actually hitting the lawn and not the fence or house - at least as much. (The builder put in the sprinklers, then we put in a fence. Thus adjusting the sprinklers is on our bill.) He left a message on my phone to call him back to get paid. I did, and he eventually came back, ringing the doorbell just as it started thundering and Widget left a puddle in the middle of the floor. I made him run through the sprinkler phases for me and re-adjust about half of them again. We finished up, both of us soaked, and I handed him the check just as the real rain actually started. Then I had to come in and put on something dry so I could mop the floor.

Haven’t heard from the cabinet guy (bad finish), the bathtub/sink guy (chips) or painter for the ceiling yet. There’s NO TV reception here via antenna, since there’s a small mountain or two between us and any broadcast towers, and the installation guy isn’t due here until the Friday that the Olympics start.

We did get one positive repeat showing on the old house, but they’ve got a house in Atlanta they’ve got to sell before they can buy here. Good luck with that.

Supposedly, we put a down payment on blinds installation at Lowes Tuesday night, but haven’t heard from their installer at all. (He was supposed to call today sometime.) If we don’t hear anything by Monday, we’ll cancel the order, though it was a good deal between sales and coupons. Meanwhile, since the blinds are only going on the front windows of the house anyway, we hung some temporary shades on the back bedroom windows until we can figure out what we do want to do in there. The temp shades are much better than the sheet stuck up with painter’s tape. I’m half tempted to put them in all the windows, but they do tend to make a mess when you take them down since they’re held up with adhesive. Fortunately, if it happens here, the builder did leave us touch-up paint. 6 5-Gallon buckets of it! (Actually the buckets aren’t full. Gotta get out and dump them into something smaller.)

OK, gotta get back to project-land.

Have fun!

Val P.

Found this guy on the guest bedroom window this afternoon. He’s a good six inches long. My guess is that he’s been feeding on the multitude of dragon flies and spiders around here that feed on the other smaller critters. Such is life within 100 yards of a good sized creek, woods, and less than a half mile from a couple of large ponds. He’s a praying mantis, obviously of the larger sort, LOL.

Isn’t he a handsome fellow? They’re one of a gardener’s best friends, so I’m happy to have him around. Be sure to click on the thumbnail for a better look.

Have fun!

Val P.

Well, it’s been a while since my last post. We’re living at the new house, the kitchen is pretty much operational, we’re sleeping in our own bed, and my office is starting to look like an office. The main computers are functional and last night the network finally got more or less put together. I think we’ve installed all the hanging rods in all the closets that are going to have them. Still need one in the laundry room and a few more shelves in a couple of the closets. There is still some stuff at the old house, but most of the clothes and potted plants have moved. The kitchen is pretty much empty as are most of the other rooms except my craft/sewing room which still has a closet and cabinets full of stuff that didn’t get packed. We’ll get there eventually. There’s still quite a few boxes lying around waiting for the right set of shelves to be put together to unload the contents into. The bedroom has a sheet taped to the window in lieu of curtains.

Widget and Rascal seem to be settling in well. Widget doesn’t like all the hard surface floors, so we currently have a LOT of throw rugs scattered about to help her navigate the place. Rascal doesn’t seem to mind skidding across the floor. We had one night when one of them had some accidents, but nothing since. Not sure what was going on that night. They’ve figured out where the back doors are and love the fact that there are two of them. One day early on they both thought it was a great game to go out one door and come in the other. Fortunately they tired of that game before I did.

They did spot a bunny rabbit (cotton tail) just the other side of the fence the other day and have been looking for him since. At the old house, the rabbits would come into the yard through the fence. Here, there’s not much to attract them yet. Give us a year and I’m sure we’ll not only have some tasty bedding plants but a healthy crop of clover as well, LOL.

We put out the bird feeder, but again, there isn’t much cover for the birds yet, so they haven’t found it yet. Lots of wild berries are ripe at the moment anyway, so who’d want sunflower seeds?

Hopefully I can get a few more hints and tips up soon. I’ve got a few on moving with animals and what to hand carry with you in the car rather than packing with the movers. I’ll give you one now. You’ll want SCISSORS or a BOX CUTTER that isn’t in a box!

Have fun!

Val P.

I’m afraid this post is just an update. No great tips or tricks, really.

The truck comes Thursday to pick up the furniture and appliances. The new house is full of boxes anywhere that won’t have furniture plunked down later and hopefully leaving enough clear space for moving it around to where it needs to be. I’ve still got a couple boxes of kitchen stuff to pack, but except for making coffee and toast, the kitchen is pretty useless now. The pantry is just about bare and we’ve been slowly emptying the fridge and freezer. At the last minute, we’ll put anything that’s left into coolers and take it to the church fridge to keep cool until the refrigerator gets moved and is up and running again. (I do hope it’s going to fit. It’s going to be really tight. It’s a 35 1/2 inch freezer going into a 36 inch space. Hook-up for the icemaker may be interesting.)

We’ve sealed the grout on the tiled areas - laundry and bathrooms - and have the first coat of paint up in the master bedroom. Hopefully PP can just about finish that up tonight while I’m at a meeting at the church. My closet has been fully stocked with shelves and is ready to have clothes poured into it.

I still need to run the vacuum over any floor I can find (at both houses, but the new one particularly) one more time before moving day. You’d be amazed at how much dust is in the air at a new house! The air filters are already clogged and need changing out. (We bought some to do that over the weekend, but got the wrong size.)

I’ve just about given up on getting all the larger breakables (like my mother’s collection of ceramic pitchers) packed before moving day, so those need to be moved off the furniture and into cabinets or closets where they’ll be safe while the movers are here. I’ll come back and move them a few at a time at a more leisurely pace.

We emptied the wardrobe boxes I had packed in the POD with off-season clothing into the new house. The boxes fit into the back of my van lying down, so now I need to fill them up one more time so they can go back full on the truck on moving day. I’ll still have some clothes that I’ll need to move by hand since we don’t have enough wardrobes and I’m not going to buy any more, but most of them will get moved Thursday.

We’ll start disassembling the computer network Tuesday night, so I may be out of touch for a few days except for the laptop - if I have time to use it to even check email! We do have broadband service established at the new house, so it’ll be there and waiting for us when we can get to it.

Have fun!

I finally got a few minutes to get some pictures out of the camera. These don’t show the new fence or the second tree in the front yard, but at least they do show the house for those of you who were wondering.

Here’s the front:

Click the images to see the full thing. The thumbnails don’t do the images justice.

Here’s the back. Again, click to see the full image. We do have plumbing, the porta-potty on the left is for the construction workers next door. You can see that we’re living in a construction zone. Large machinery like the one on the right is a frequent sight.

Please note that while I’m linking to several sites in this blog post, I don’t actually endorse or recommend the products at any of these sites. They are simply helpful links I’ve come across in browsing the web. Use them at your own discretion!

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the Haverty’s room planning tool. It’s been a wonderful tool and I even figured out how to use it for rooms that don’t have rectangular perimeters. (Ctrl+click adds a point in the wall that can be dragged anywhere you want it.)

If you’re just getting started with your room planning, though, let me give you another bit of advice. Grab a pad of paper or your laptop and start a table. Start at the front door of your house and go clockwise through each room of your house. In each room, write down a list of ALL the furniture in the room. It’s up to you if you want to also write down any pictures or lamps at the same time, but I’d do that in another step. For each piece of furniture, you will want a space to put a VERY brief description, what room it is currently in, what room in your new house it will go to, and it’s width, depth, and height. On your first pass through the house, all you need is the description (old white bookcase) and what room of your old house it has been occupying. You wouldn’t think the old room would be needed, but once you get several bookcases, chairs, or beds, it can get confusing which one you’re talking about otherwise.

On the next pass through the house, take your list and a measuring tape and at least get the width and depth of just about everything. If you’re thinking about putting a piece under a window or stair well, you’ll want the height as well. Height could also be important if you are moving from a house with 12 foot ceilings to one with 8 foot ceilings. Is that giant china cabinet going to fit in your new house without chopping off the finials on top? (It’s happened. Not to me, but I know of several topless bits of furniture due to a ceiling height move.) Don’t get carried away with the measuring. At this point, the nearest half inch will probably be close enough for most things. If you get to a point in your placement where quarter inches start to matter, you can remeasure at that point. For right now, speed and a complete list is more important.

Once you have this list done, you can keep it with you and do your room planning without having to keep getting up and measuring things.

After your room planning is done, and the move is over, if you don’t already have such a thing, use this list as a start for a home inventory. Most folks get bogged down with inventories because they start trying to put value on each item as they list it and never get a complete list. Do the inventory the same way you did the furniture list. Get a list first, with everything marked as to its size (if needed) and location. Once you’ve actually got a complete list, make a copy and put it in a safe place, THEN go back and start putting values on things as you get time. Even if you do just one room, closet, or drawer a day, eventually you’ll have a pretty good home inventory. Just don’t forget to mark down any new purchases when you make them. It’ll be MUCH easier to remember those values when you’ve still got the receipt in front of you.

If you don’t know about home inventories and why they might be important, check out this article by the folks at Real Simple magazine. You’ll find several worksheets and helpful linked articles on creating one for your home. Mostly these are great for insurance purposes. They’ll help you accurately value your home so that if/when disaster strikes, you’ll know you have enough coverage. If your house is ever burglarized, you’ll be able to say exactly what’s missing and identify it as yours if the police should happen to find it. Before moving day, they’ll help you know everything that needs a place in your new house (or needs to be given away or thrown out.)

Do I have such an inventory? Not exactly. I do have several pretty good lists and over the years I’ve researched the values of most of the old family pieces. We do have extra insurance riders on those pieces and on my harps and the computers. (Yes, both of those are in multiples in the Packrat house.) A definition of insurance riders and some examples can be found here at the Insurance.FreeAdvice site.

And while I’m mentioning insurance, check with your home owner’s insurance and see if your stuff is covered during the move. If not, you may need to purchase some from them or the moving company just in case of an accident on the road. Hopefully we’ll never NEED this, but if you do, you’ll be covered.

OK, I’ve got to get back to doing laundry while I’ve got a more or less quiet day of packing. They’re picking up the now empty POD tonight. One more milestone checked off.

Have fun!

Val P.

We’re at that awkward stage now, where the POD and many bits, pieces, and boxes are at the new house, but most of the furniture and appliances are at the old house. Daily we take the drive between the houses with another load or two of “stuff”. The POD goes back Monday, so this weekend we’ll be finishing up the unloading of that monster. We’ll also start actually painting the master bedroom over the weekend.

The fence at the new house went up this week, and we were much more pleased with the company that built it than the company that repaired our existing fence. It was almost done yesterday and was looking pretty good. Today they called and said they were done, and oh, by the way, could they get their money please? We’ll meet them out there tonight. That’ll be Widget and Rascal’s first visit out there without having to be on a leash any time they’re outside. Widget can’t wait! Either that, or she’s finally picked up on us loading up the cars so often and is bound and determined not to get left behind. She keeps heading for the car any time I get up from the computer.

For a market in a slump, we’ve done pretty well so far. The old house has been on the market just over two weeks and we’ve had six showings and an open house. Between keeping up with the real estate agents and the fence people, I’m having a hard time finding time to do the last minute packing and gardening.

That’s the other thing I’ve got to get started this weekend is a new flower bed so I can start digging up some of the perennials from the old house and get them over to the new house. (There’s plenty that need dividing. Hopefully they won’t die for having it done in July.) Let’s see, there’s the lavender rose bush my sister gave me many years ago that gets dug up and moved every time we move. The poor thing has been fighting black spot, Japanese beetles, and who knows what else for over 15 years, but it still keeps putting out gorgeous lavender roses. Then there are the single and double orange day lilies (PP calls them “ditch lilies” because they’re the wild ones that grow in ditches in FL where he grew up.) A few red and lavender day lilies as well. Some hostas, rose campion, white daisies, Michaelmas daisies, pinks, cannas, and some “donkey tail” succulents that I haven’t a clue what the real name for them is, will round out the digging at the old house. Fortunately, just about everything but the hostas likes lots of sun, so I can make a single “nursery bed” for the time being and then transplant everything again once we’ve got proper places for them.

Sigh. Time to figure out what’s for supper that’s easy, quick, and doesn’t make a mess. At this point, nutrition is optional, LOL.

July 10 is the big furniture/appliance move. It’s coming quicker every day!

Have fun!

Val P.