Movin' Out

About this time last year, my son, Jordan, and my daughter-in-law, Ashley, shared their plans to remodel their home. Although “remodel” doesn’t really capture the scope of this project. No, this will be a complete demolition of the interior with the removal and relocation of nearly every wall and the addition of a new bedroom and extensive exterior decking. Construction is expected to last about ten months. When it’s done, it will beautiful.

On our ride home, I suggested to Liz that we should offer our home to Jordan and Ashley and their three kids as a place to live while their home is under construction and we will take this time to “go to Europe”. Without hesitating, Liz said “yes” and we called Jordan with the exciting news.

Consequently, in addition to planning an eight-month trip, we also had to plan and execute a move out of our home to make way for Jordan, Ashley and their family. At first, we thought this would be an easy move – simply take out everything that wasn’t “kid-friendly” or that we would be super disappointed if it was damaged while we were gone.

That seemed easy enough. Remove delicate items, glass table tops and special things of sentimental value. We would also need to clear out our office so that it could be made into a bedroom for the two boys. We then walked through our house with Jordan & Ashley and asked them to identify items that they would like us to remove as well as those that they preferred remain in the house.

Having made the decisions as to what was staying and what items would be packed, we started our search for appropriate storage facilities. It turns out these are at a premium in this part of the world, perhaps due to all of the dislocation to residents caused by multiple wild fires over the past three years. Our original plan was to store our household belongings as well as our car, but finding a storage unit for the car proved to be impossible so we will store it at my daughter, Kristin’s house. As luck would have it, we found a storage facility only a few miles from our home for our household belongings.

Over the last several weeks we have been boxing and wrapping things up and staging items in the garage. It has all gone remarkably well, almost painless. We also made the decision to use a local moving company, Jay’s Small Moves, to execute the actual move. Jay’s was recommended to us by a friend, Carrie Neiderer, who had used them in the past.  They did a terrific job – a great recommendation, Carrie!

And today was moving day! Jays’ crew showed up around 9:30 this morning and had everything out and the truck packed in about an hour. We made the short trip to the storage unit and they began to unload. I headed off on a few errands and came back just in time to learn that we had a problem. The couch was too big to fit in the unit due to its awkward location, corners, hall width, door opening, etc. Try as we might, the couch just wasn’t going into that unit. Only solution, rent a second unit with better access. And they just happened to have exactly what we needed – a small unit with direct access and better ceiling height. I rented the second unit, we moved the couch in and Jay’s was on their way. Two and a half hours, and the job was done. Perfect.

So, this logistical part of our trip – moving out of our house – is now complete and that box is checked. In two days, we head to the airport for a flight to our first destination – Paris. Ça ne va pas mieux que ça (it doesn’t get any better than this)!