The Big Move

Buying a new house and moving sucks up all your available time, which is why I haven’t been writing here lately. Plus, we don’t yet have Internet at the new place. But! On Saturday we made the big move to our nice new home.

We closed on our new house last Tuesday, and we took Thursday off to be at the house for some appointments, including Comcast coming by to set up cable TV, and our washer/dryer being delivered by Home Depot. All the appointments went off without a hitch, and we were able to move some stuff over during the day as well. Susan and Ajay also came by to see the place, and Ajay enjoyed playing in the yard as well as running in circles in all the empty rooms.

We were packing right up until the movers arrived on Saturday, though we did go to bed and got about 6-1/2 hours of sleep the night before. Debbi called around to several moving companies and we went with Trusted Van Lines, based in San Jose. The phone contact was apparently very helpful and was the only place she called to give us a written quote. They also had the best price. Originally they were supposed to show up between 1-3 pm, but they called on Thursday and asked if they could come between 8-10 am, which was fine with us! They actually arrived around 8:40 am with a 3-man crew and a plenty-big truck.

I think we packed around 90 boxes all together, and the movers filled a couple of larger boxes with bedding and pillows. Plus our furniture, which actually was not as tough to move as the fact that about 50 boxes were filled with books, comics and CDs! Heavy!

But these guys were awesome. They were friendly, courteous and careful, and impressively efficient, only taking a few breaks. We had water available for them, and I went out to buy us all lunch from Quiznos. They trucked lots of boxes up the stairs at the new place (where they didn’t use dollies to spare the new carpeting; the old place didn’t need such care as its carpet needs to be replaced before I sell it), and got almost everything routed to the right place (3 boxes ended up in an adjoining room – hardly a tragedy!). Given the heavy stuff they moved for us, we gave them a pretty hefty tip (at least, I think it was hefty, from standards I’ve read about elsewhere), and the final total was actually close to what I paid for my 2001 move. It took about 7 hours end-to-end, which was slightly above estimate, but given all the books I wasn’t too surprised.

We would definitely use them again. In fact, we might use them again to empty our storage locker next month!

As the movers were finishing, Chad and Camille and the twins came by to give us a care package of mai tais, and we invited them in to see the place.

I locked the cats in one of the bathrooms in the old place for the day. Newton spent much of the day meowing, but I hope they were able to get some sleep after we left for the other house. Debbi and I made a run back to the old house to pick up some key items we’d been unable to pack, and then we picked up the cats, put them in their carriers and brought them over.

Newton is a well-travelled kitty, having done 2 previous moves (1 cross-country), and he was out of his carrier within 5 minutes, and trotting around with his tail held high within half an hour. Blackjack and Roulette, however, refused to leave their carrier after a peek outside, so we eventually pulled them out and closed it up. Blackjack started to come around, finding a good hiding spot but venturing out periodically to explore before retreating. Roulette, however, was miserable, looking for somewhere to hide and not finding one she liked. Debbi eventually took her upstairs where she hid under the bed for the rest of the day.

As I’d predicted, she came out overnight and had pretty much conquered the upstairs by the next morning, but she’s still very wary of downstairs and mostly stays upstairs. (I hope she comes down to eat at night.) Blackjack has gotten used to most of the house, has been scratching at various posts, and took off up the stairs at high speed this morning, so I think he’s used to the place. Roulette may take a week or so to fully acclimatize.

For Debbi and myself the house feels like home already (albeit home with a bunch of boxes piled in every room). She’s unpacked much of the kitchen, I’ve set up the computer, TV and stereo, and we’ve made another run to get more stuff from the old house. (We still have another 2-4 car loads in the garage to bring over, but we’re almost there!) But we’ve been there a couple of nights now, cats snoozing on the bed with us, and we watched an episode of Doctor Who while drinking mai tais last night.

We have several projects to get the place just right over the next month or two, but so far so good. I think it’ll be a great place for us.