They say that buying a house and moving is one of the top stressful events in our lives. Fresh off the back of our move last week I thought I would share some of the stories. Firstly, the move took place during the hottest week of the year. The actual move went relatively well the team were really good and got us in all in one day. I say “relatively” well because once we started moving the furniture in we had to deploy an agile methodology because our sofas (couches for you Americans) did not fit through the 1970’s doors. Furniture must have gotten bigger (kind of like the rest of us I guess). So, the room that was going to be our sitting room (living room) more subtitles for my North American friends, had to morph into a dining room. That then knocked on to moving my office to make that room the sitting room. You get the picture. Oh, I can’t forget that the lovely people left us a huge fridge/freezer that we immediately found did not work. The movers had to literally dismantle it to get it out of the house. I think they must have added the kitchen on and built it around the fridge!
Since then we have had tradesmen in every day. Tuesday the satellite television was installed, Wednesday Tom and Dickie were here to plaster the ceiling in the hall upstairs. Thursday they were steaming the old wallpaper from the dining room whose style was 1970’s … well that says enough I think! Thursday was the hottest day ever recorded in England at nearly 100 degrees! (Please remember we are not used to temps like this so residential air conditioning does not exist.) Those poor guys were using an industrial steamer in that heat. They survived the day to come back and finish on Friday.
Over our first weekend Pam and I got to grips with moving boxes in preparation for the carpets to be laid on the coming Tuesday. The previous owners were also kind enough to leave a great big garden shed (a perfect place to store boxes you are thinking…so did we until we actually tried to enter said shed). Now neither of us are what you would class as slim but having said that you would have to be a size zero to fit through the space that the door opened. After 6 inches it was wedged against the patio and was not budging another inch. So far all we have managed to get in there is Cassie our cat. She thinks she has her own clubhouse.
Next it was figuring out how to use our top of the line integrated appliances. We had been surviving on frozen food or takeaway meals since the week before the move. Keen to cook a proper meal in our new house. The stove is an induction stove very high tech. We had to buy all new pots and pans because they must be stainless steel or iron to conduct the heat also the oven controls were developed by NASA! To date we have burnt one meal in the oven and two on the stove. At least we could rely on our integrated…yes, top of the line dishwasher. Mind you besides the burnt on stuff we had days of tea and coffee mugs to wash. Here in the UK you offer tea, coffee and biscuits (cookies) to tradesmen and visitors. We load up the dishwasher and whirred into life however it lacked one vital ingredient…water. Not a drop was coming into the dishwasher. Our favourite guy Tom was back to work on the utility room so he mucked in to check the plumbing. No problems there, water was getting to the dishwasher. Lots of instruction manual reading, customer service calls and swearing later we gave up and went out and bought a new one. We were now 3 for 3 in the items left by the previous owners but did not work category. There is still one more thing they left for us a BBQ…I am taking bets on the outcome of that one.
The carpets went in with no major drama and now we are getting quotes for painting and blinds. Oh and shopping for a new shed!!
I will keep you updated as the big move aftermath continues.
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