We Finally Moved into the New House

Finally!

Yes, we did it, we moved into the new house.  The move from the apartment was on Saturday, April 16, and all of the rest of our possessions arrived the following Wednesday. That's my car in the driveway.

Boxes, boxes, everywhere

This is the kitchen island, with just a few of the boxes to unpack. I think that by now we have just over half unpacked, but not all put away. While we were packing last year, we were pretty ruthless about throwing things out we no longer needed or wanted. Actually, we gave away much of it, with a lot going to nieces/nephews or Goodwill. But now, I keep unpacking items thinking, why on earth did I pack this? We have already made one trip to Goodwill, and have given quite a few things to my daughter.  I'm sure there will be more. I almost gave away my slow cooker, but my son pointed out that it still is pretty useful, especially when cooking beans. 

Three cars in the garage

I can't believe it, we actually can put three cars in the garage. But only for the first night, as that is where all of the packing materials are going until we can get rid of everything.

View from the patio door

Then, on our second night, we had a bit of a snow storm. Notice the house on the left, with a three car garage and three cars out in the snow. We are determined not to use the garage to store things other than a few tools and all of the cars.

View from the front door

Luckily, the we had only about three inches, even though the forecast was for 5-8 inches. This late in spring the snow doesn't last for more than a day, and sure enough, it was pretty much all melted by the next day. 

We see you!

Last year, we had golden eagles nesting in the natural area about half a mile from the house. This year, we have great horned owls. There always seems to be someone trying to photograph these little cuties. Mr. California Stitching must have taken about 15 photos before he got this one.

Now, for the really scary photos:

Yikes!

This is the view from the door of my sewing room. Don't be scared by that floor, it's actually vinyl. There was no way I was going to put wood on a concrete slab below grade. You have to get down on your knees and touch it to realize it's not wood. Everyone who sees it is fooled.

Double Yikes!

I have a preliminary sketch of how I'll organize the room, but I think I really need to revisit it. I was envisioning old furniture, all painted to match, holding everything. But when I look at all the boxes and realize just how much fabric I have, that idea is so not going to work.

I know this may seem that my priorities are off to many of you, by my main focus is on upstairs in the living areas. Once that is in decent shape, I'll be able to devote time to figuring out the sewing area. I'm already planning on bleeding out to the big rec room as it is. More to come...

Almost There...

Almost finished!

We had our walk through today with the building supervisor and the owner of the building company. There was still quite a bit of work going on in the house but it was paint touch up and final wood trim staining. The darling port-a-potty will be removed tomorrow morning.

I did have a panic attack when the painter removed the French doors leading to the patio and painted them. I thought they were supposed to be stained. The painter was so apologetic but the supervisor, building company owner and I kept telling him that it wasn't his fault. As it turned out, the door is fiberglass, so it needs to be painted and not stained. Needless to say, we were all very relieved.

We also had a problem with the closets in two of the bedrooms, but I'll explain that once they are installed and I can show you a picture. Final inspection is tomorrow with the hand over on Thursday. We can start moving boxes in right away, which will be a help, as we need to be out of the apartment in a week.

I've mentioned before that we had some real problems with the cabinets, and I'll explain in more detail once everything is finished. This is supposed to happen tomorrow. I'll be on site for a good part of the day, to see that it all gets done. Oh, and I didn't even mention the shower doors. The two extra bathrooms are supposed to have oil rubbed bronze frames, but the downstairs bathroom door came with a stainless steel frame. So that has to be replaced. The frameless shower door for the master showed up damaged, so that has to be replaced as well. This is all supposed to happen tomorrow. An awful lot is supposed to happen tomorrow.

The cleaning crew has been working for three days and there is still a film of dust everywhere. I've already brought over cleaning sprays and microfiber cloths so I can wipe everything down myself.

One of the ladies in my tatting group said she has built two houses and that it was two too many. I believe her.

Grandmother's Flower Garden Top Finished!

Entire twin sized quilt top, on a queen sized bed

I finally finished something, well, sort of. The Grandmother's Flower Garden top is completely finished. Which is better than nothing, right?

Close up of the spaces between flowers

It's an unusual layout. In most of the quilts I've seen the flowers are staggered so there aren't so many hexies between the flowers. But I've tried to make sure there are not any large areas of the background fabric by placing a few darker pieces here and there.

Rulers showing how I'll trim the hexies 

I added a dark hexie to the corners as well. One of the ladies at my EGA lunch last weekend suggested that I not cut the hexies straight as shown in the photo above but to sew around the edges. I think that might just drive me nuts, so I'll go ahead and cut them to give me a straight edge.

Looks good, Grandma!

The QA inspector likes it. Now for quilting it. I might just quilt it myself. It needs a good pressing, then I'll decide. My embroidery machine has quilting patterns built in, but I might try the fancy hand quilting look stitch that it also has. Decisions, decisions. 

Things are getting pretty hectic around here now. My daughter is working lots of hours, she being a tax accountant and it's almost that time. This year taxes are due on April 18, as Washington DC has a holiday on the 15th. Also, the house is just about finished. Our walk through is Tuesday with closing on Thursday. Then it's a mad dash to get moved before we need to vacate the apartment on the 19th. As there is no school on the 18th we will have both grandchildren that day, further complicating matters. Luckily I sent in our taxes last weekend.

This afternoon we are off to U Haul to buy boxes, then to shop for bathroom mirrors. I didn't order them with the cabinets as I thought to buy some in antique stores, but that didn't happen. Speaking of cabinets, we have had quit an adventure with them, and not in a good way. More to come.