Our New House Reveal

Well, this is the last post of the move 'em out series! AND we are ready to show of our new house! I'm not going to write a ton about what our place is like; I'll just let the video speak for itself.

Click here to watch the video.


Our Top 3 Favorite Things about the New House:

1. The backyard. As I alluded in the first post of this series, it all started with a hammock, meaning that the final straw that pushed us to look for a new place was a bigger backyard for our hammock, patio table, grill, etc. Not only did we get an awesome back yard, we also got a cute front yard and a quaint side yard also! I could not be happier about the yard situation.

Note: This is Yuki hiding from cars outside, not Nathan using Yuki as a pillow.

2. Enough space for setting up the drums. Many of you know that Nathan has played the drums for several years now. For the past few years, his drum set has been sadly collecting dust in various garages. Our new place gives him plenty of room to set up the drums! Its been fun listening to him have private jam sessions.

3. Fireplaces galore. We now have 1 regular fireplace and 1 double-sided fireplaces. That means we have 3 rooms with fireplaces. Is that crazy or what?.....

To see what the fireplaces look like finished, watch this.

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The Unpacking Game

I love organization. And normally, I somewhat like unpacking. This round of unpacking however was not the most fun experience of my life...

We had been working on getting everything together for packing and moving for a couple of weeks. THEN, as soon as we had everything in our new house, we HAD to start unpacking. We didn't get a break or any down time. Going into the whole moving experience, I figured this would happen so I planned for it ahead of time. Here are some techniques that helped the process be less painful:

1. Because we had access to our new house, we were able to move stuff from our old place BEFORE moving day. In a normal situation where we weren't on time crunch, my first inclination that this would be more trouble than its worth. I mean, why not wait to move everything while you have more people to help on moving day. BUT, since we were working against the clock, we pre-moved several car loads of small boxes on the days leading up to the moving day. Any box that would fit in our cars (that was already packed) was moved ahead of time. Once these boxes arrived at our new house, we simply looked at the label and placed them in a pre-determined pile in each room. This created pathways for the "big stuff" to come in on moving day without creating more work.
2. Because the kitchen doesn't have much furniture in it, we completely unpacked our kitchen stuff before moving day. All of our dishes, cleaning supplies, appliances, and dry food was in the cabinets and out of the way!
3. When you empty a box, put the box in a pile of empty boxes in one spot of your house. This will clear some floor space and not only give you more room to walk and work, but also create momentum. When the pile starts to get unruly, break them down all at once. This is the most efficient method to save time with boxes.
4. During moving day, there may be some who cannot carry the large furniture. Examples would be myself and my mom. These people can start unpacking! If you have packed efficiently (read this post), it should be fairly easy to unpack and know what needs to go where! My mom and I unpacked several items while the men were still busy loading in the rest of the furniture.
5. The key to unpacking, is packing! You should pack things up together how you want them to be unpacked. Click here to learn how to pack like a champ!
6. If you are on a timeline, of course, unpack as much as you can. As the time starts dwindling, grab a large box from you empty box pile and just start filling it up with anything left over. If people know you have just moved, they are going to be amazed with all that you have done, NOT what you didn't do. Give yourself some grace; its ok if every single thing is not put away!

Like I said, this is what we did, and I truly do believe that these techniques made the process less stressful. However, they say that moving is one of the most stressful times in your life, and I'm not going to pretend that there was not any bossiness from me or frustration from Nathan. We are both glad that time has passed. ;)

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BPP #14

Hey hey party people! Its been really relaxing the past few weeks, which has been great since May and June were so crazy!!

For our anniversary we got some photos taken (reminiscent of engagement photos). We got them back last week and WE LOVE THEM! You may have seen our post from Monday, but if not, click here to see more of our anniversary pictures! Photo cred: Josh Salley

My cuz, Kaitlynn, was in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." On one hand, it was pretty funny. On the other hand, it was very entertaining. On the other hand, the music was great. Thumbs up if you get the reference. She played the role of Tzeitel, and it was weird seeing her get married, but she did great (and the other people did great also)!

2 Rolls of Tape + Man-Power

Moving can be expensive, regardless of the distance of the move. No one paid us to move. We had to "buy out" of our old lease. We had to pay new deposits to get our utilities and electric turned on. So, we had to be a bit creative on how to save money on moving.

Luckily, since we last moved (Late December 2013), I have been hoarding boxes. We had leftover U-HAUL boxes, boxes from new kitchen appliances, and boxes from Christmas gifts. All we had to do was put them back together and secure it with packing tape. We didn't buy any labels, but simply used sharpies that we already had to label the boxes. Additionally, I had saved up random packing materials so that we wouldn't have to pay for bubble wrap. We used the saved-up packing materials and extra towels when extra cushion was needed.

Boxes: $0
Labels: $0
Packing Tape: $7 for 30 yards
Bubble Wrap: $0

We chose not to hire movers, due to the cost of these services. We asked several family members to help out with getting the job done. Additionally, we planned to use my dad's truck and my uncle's trailer to move the big furniture and heavy items.

Movers: $0
Truck & Trailer: $0

SO, our move was supposed to only cost $7.

HOWEVER, then we looked at the forecast. 2 days prior to moving, our moving day was projected to have an 80% chance of thunderstorms. After analyzing the financial risk of having all our furniture ruined by rain, we decided to rent a U-HAUL for the move. It was not our ideal situation, but no human can control the weather, so you just have to deal with it.

U-HAUL: $130

Our total moving cost ended up being $137 plus food for our helpful family! Still not too bad, if you ask me!

Speaking of helpful family, we could not have been so effective in moving had it not been for our family members who not only helped us get our stuff onto and off of the moving van, but also, drove the moving van, went to pick up lunch for us all, let us load some of our stuff into their cars, and helped finish packing the small leftover items that we hadn't gotten to yet. To top it off, some of the work was completed in the pouring rain! Everyone sure was a trooper. We appreciate everyone who was able to help  on moving day!

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Anniversary Photos: Year 1

As part of our one year anniversary festivities, we had some photos taken. These were taken by Josh Salley. He also took our engagement photos and our wedding photos.

Photo Credit for all photos: Josh Salley