Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Not Always Sunshine and Rainbows


The course of true first time home ownership never did run smooth. I wanted to make a blog full of pretty, lovely updates on our home together, but I also want to be honest about our experiences!

Monday night, Tom and I rented a UHaul and his coworker came to help him move. When they first started the first truck load at 6:45pm or so, things were fine. Our sofa came in the front door with no problem. But then it came time to take our queen size bed upstairs. The box spring would not fit up the hallway/stairway. Not even close. So after an hour or so of trying to finagle it, Tom's coworker had to go home, and we drove back to the apartment to get a second load into the truck. The coworker had to leave, so it was just Tom and me and it was freezing and it was about 9:30 at night. Renting a U-Haul on a Monday night to get our move done sooner no longer seemed like such a great idea.

So we finally got the second load in the house, after I was already in stressed out tears, and then went back to get King Corvin at the apartment after we dropped off the truck back at U-Haul. By this point it was quarter till midnight, and Tom had been up since 5am. We took Corvin in the house and he was understandably distressed, so he and I sat in the bathroom with the door closed while Tom went and got the last of the stuff out of my car and put both cars in the garage.

He came back in, and shouted "please tell me you have your garage opener in here??" Poor Tom was so exhausted, he locked our cars in the garage with both of our openers inside.

Monday night, we were sleeping in the dining room on our bed that can't fit upstairs, and our cars were trapped, and it was cold and icy and it was our first night in a new house and we were stressed out of our minds. And every noise we heard made us jump and worry. We didn't sleep well. :( Not my hoped for first night in our new home!

We don't have the previous owner's key code for the outside key pad, and hadn't changed it to one of our own yet. So the next morning, Tom called off work (the library was closed due to the miserable ice storm that was starting right as we finished our move) and we called our realtor to call the seller's realtor to call the seller and try to get the code.

By 1:00 on Tuesday, the only answer we had gotten from the seller was "we blanked out the code when we moved away..."

So, bottom line is, yesterday at about 1:00pm, we had to take a fireplace tool, and break a window in our garage to get our cars out.

We got into the garage Tuesday at 1:00ish, and (nope, not done with our chaotic 48 hours yet!) I kept checking the phone because it was supposed to be switched on yesterday. By 4:10 it still wasn't on, but when I called Windstream they said it HAD been turned on. They put out a service call for me.

The repair man would arrive within the next 24 hours (i.e. sometime before 3:00pm today). I had to call in to work and use a vacation day today to be there. The phone guy came this morning, and he said the problem was internal, and would have to be fixed by someone else since he was an exterior repair man only. The technicians would likely not arrive that day. But when I pretty much almost started crying in front of him, he took a look at the problem, and got it working for us within five minutes. I'm so thankful that he went out of his area of service to help us with our problem. Hooray for repairman Jeff!!

Sooooo now to the current time...I'm still stressed out of my mind, and the bed is still an issue, but we have phone, we have internet, and we have our cars back in commission (and a broken window to repair in the spring!)

My dad thinks he might be able to dismantle the box and reassemble it upstairs this weekend. I've found a few links online about how to fold a box spring in half. And if that doesn't work, we're going to get split queen box springs instead. Somehow, we will get our bed upstairs, and out of our dining room. And this house will be a home!! (foot stomp)

Better news next time!

2 comments:

  1. We had to take the landing-window apart at our old place, to put a corner of the box-spring through to get it up the staircase! XD Fortunately (?) there is also a door in that place, upstairs, leading to the back porch roof. When we moved out, we took the bed out that way! That might (or might not) work for you; it's not as expensive as getting a new split-box-spring. It has to be done carefully, but with that care and the right tools, it can be done, and put back good as new. HTH.

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  2. Sadly, the staircase is solid plaster wall and ceiling, with a 180 degree turn at the top of it to get to the upstairs hallway. I honestly think that either folding the box spring, or buying the split ones is the only way we're going to be able to do it :( BUT! At least there are options!!

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