Honey, We're Home!

I can hardly believe it. After a whirlwind of a week where our date, plan, and format for moving got entirely flipped around not once but multiple times-- we are 100 percent out of our apartment and our home is nowhere near complete, but it's [mostly] functional! I was so filled with adrenaline after the first day of furniture delivery that I ended up almost entirely on my feet for an 18 hour marathon of unpacking. That amount of strain on my 31 week pregnant body also meant that I was almost entirely incapacitated for the next day or two-- but it provided the right momentum for sure!

One of the perks of the move that I did not expect has been the complete honeymoon ambiance of our first week in-- not necessarily between me and my husband, but between us and our house. We are so in awe of its brand-new appliances and shiny surfaces that for the moment, we are equally thrilled to do a load of laundry or load/ unload our (working!!!) dishwasher or do a twice-daily sweep of our hardwoods. Someday we'll need to re-implement our weekly cleaning schedule, but for the moment, our beds are made and our floors are spotless. Even if our garage IS filled with boxes and half of our closets have yet to be built out. The honeymoon phase is real.

In equally wonderful news, though some of our punch-list items are yet to be completed-- sigh-- the weather has finally started to cooperate with us now that we've hit the second half of April and we were able to have the property graded on Friday. Game-changer. Now we can actually visualize living outdoors as well as inside our home, and we've been able to determine that A) our driveway is functional as is, and should be good at least through the early part of next year and B) we can start planning out things like top soil and grass, and a tiny little deck off the back door that will eventually step down onto a sweet patio. I've never been more grateful for farmer relatives who have every single tool we could ever need to aid us in our rudimentary landscaping endeavors.

Our pendant lighting in the kitchen was finished just in time for us to move in. Our floating walnut shelves on the sink side have yet to be completed, but the wood is in our garage and ready to go at the next free moment.

Two pieces of furniture were delivered the day before move-in day, and we wasted no time getting them up and running. First order of business: a "princess bed" for Norah!

Both kids thought that they were pretty helpful. I think they just like the scenery.

And voila! A mattress-less but sturdy bed for my girl!

Our couch ended up getting delivered a full two weeks early, which worked out perfectly with our schedule. It also ended up providing an unfortunately comfortable place for people to rest mid-move. We were happy that the deliverymen left us with several moving blankets to keep it mostly covered until after the dust had settled. Bonus: Everett found that the moving blankets made for a super cozy place to him to hide. Thankfully this monster of a couch is even better in person than we imagined. The velvety texture of the fabric in contrast to the cleaner modern lines of the couch is lovely, and it's more comfortable every time we use it. Win-win!

More to come soon, perhaps a little slower than I would like. As it turns out,  there is one more drawback of new construction in the country that we did not fully anticipate. 60 days without internet is going to be an adventure, but between permits and running new lines down our over-600 foot driveway, that's apparently the timeline that we're looking at for service!

At least we've got more than enough projects to keep us busy in the meantime. Now back to work!

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I want to move in

to my house today.

Yup. Feeling impatient with this spring weather, which though beautiful has been obnoxiously rainy these last few weeks. All I need is a short dry period so that we can get our final concrete laid and then we should be good to go! Our certificate of occupancy is pending and our temporary apartment is filling up with boxes, so we're ready when the house is... hopefully soon! This moving delay, as it happens, also means that the time between occupancy and the end of our lease will be short. So we're back to the idea of hiring movers to make it happen without us losing our sanity. 

Did I mention that I am also supposed to be traveling abroad in just over a week? And that I'm almost 30 weeks pregnant? There's not that much sanity to spare.

That being said, the silver lining to our delayed move has meant more time working on some of the smaller details that we would have had to otherwise tackle after our move such as shelving in some of our closets, cabinet hardware, and hanging mirrors in our bathrooms. It's kind of nice to know that at least a few elements in our home will be ready-ready and all we will have to do in the kitchen, for example, is decide how to organize our stuff. 

In the meantime, we've been able to start working on a few of the details that will take our house from lovely to, you know, functional.

Perks of carpet = no bedrooms or beds required for these guys! One of their new "we're visiting the house!" routines involves taking lots of pretend naps on the stairs. Also it's another reason why I'm grateful for the landing halfway up/ down.

 A semi-functional laundry room! We will be adding some shelving and pizzazz to this space shortly, but in the meantime we've got a working washer and dryer! Side note: these are the first new appliances we have ever owned. Our previous home came with a set circa late 1980s/ early 1990s and we replaced the washer at one point with my grandmother's mid-90s model when she no longer needed it. So needless to say, I'm thrilled!

Pro/ con of being budget conscious means that we took charge of our own closet and pantry, which also meant a multi-hour long trip to Ikea to grab a whole lot of materials. And a whole lot of man hours to come getting it all assembled and installed!

I love our cabinet hardware a little too much, especially in the way that it mimics the handles on our hardware. Hardware is one of those details that you don't consider when you don't get to choose it, but seems to transform the look of a space when it changes.

Our little bunnies loved hopping around the house on Easter weekend.

A more pulled-back shot of our kitchen (sans peninsula and additional pendants). I'm caring a lot less about our non-ceiling height cabinets at this point. We've since finished the hardware on the island since this shot was taken, but the wall ovens that will be installed next to the fridge are still on their way. The originals were delivered with broken glass, so we are eagerly anticipating the working version!

Though not all details have been completed at E-Haus, our certificate of occupancy was issued and so we get to start moving stuff in a few days! In the meantime, we're surrounded by moving boxes once again for the third time in less than a year. Can't wait to be done with these for decades to come, and the kids concur.

Now, on to the logistics of a three-part move.