Moving soon

We're doing the move in two steps, this Thursday for the piano, my grandmother's secretary, and to clear out the storage unit. The rest will follow on the 22nd. So this is by of saying that I need to spend every free moment packing and otherwise helping Dave, who is doing the major work of this move on his own. So I won't be posting much, if at all, until we get a little settled. So here's a final update until I get time to post again:

Dave is at the new house every day, dealing contractors and painters and guttermen and all the rest. We all go over on the weekend days. Dave hosted his regular poker game (don't ask) in the family room on Saturday night and said they'd painted quite a lot, so we all went by yesterday to take a look. The living room is really blue! The kitchen, which flows out of the living room, is really yellow! The three-season porch, my meditation spot, is a nice muted green, but also very colorful. The guest room / Dave's office is a pale but strong teal. Lily's room is the most intense, with a robin's egg blue ceiling (the sky) and violet walls. It's going to be a trip, especially once the green carpet is installed. Her choices.

The only possible color problem is the family room, which was to be a rich brown color called cork but which looks a little too yellow, depending on how the light falls on it. This is also the color of our bedroom. We've only seen one coat, though, and keep repeating our mantra: "it's only paint, it's only paint." We can always repaint.

The deck guy is repairing and cleaning the decks and found some significant rot on the deck near the kitchen sliding door that it is starting to creep into the house floor boards, unfortunately. So we will be replacing all that and also the sliding door, along with the sliding door off the family room. Oh, well. If we can find a carpenter to install them the doors'll be lovely. And yes, the gutters are being installed tomorrow. Then Dave has to run pvc to drain the rainfall away from the house.

The paint should be done Wednesday, the first move Thursday, the carpets next Wednesday the 20th, and the rest of our stuff a week from Friday, the 22nd. My sister Cate is coming to help Dave oversee the second move, since I'll be at work (yea, Cate!) and then Mum is coming for the weekend to help unpack (yea, Mum!). Setting up the kitchen is top priority, of course, as well as finding sufficient work clothes. Not sure when the various carpentry projects will be done. Oh, and the stairs will be carpeted on the 27th.

Such is homeownership, right? To whit: In addition to all that there's going to be a lot of smaller projects, including painting the paneling in the second basement room and maybe replacing the drop ceiling; finishing the basement room that we hope will be storage and laundry and maybe art space, since we'll be installing slop sinks; organizing everything; fixing up the closet spaces, for instance, building shelves in the landing closet so it can act as a linen closet and bathroom storage overflow, building shelves in the basement storage room, and paneling the family room closet with cedar; and of course, taking a bath in our soaking tub. I've already invited a couple of friends over for dinner on July 1. We are looking forward to all those promises of coming to visit from our friends. These kinds of future events help keep us motivated.

Today is Lily's string concert at school, which of course I am going to, and Friday is her last day at school. Wow! Time flies! Next Monday is her first day of riding camp, which is really exciting, except that we'll have to drive over the bridge where all the awful construction is for four weeks. Oh, dear! This summer she's going to take flute lessons with the wife of someone I work with. We had my flute completely overhauled and it looks brand new and gorgeous. Lily is very excited and I am seriously thinking about taking lessons again, as well. Then she and I can play duets.

Friday night I was really hot and sweaty and when I got home after picking up Lily from her last pottery class I raced inside and said, let's go swimming! We threw on our suits and went over the swimming hole at the Fort River, where we'd gone last August on that magical Sunday that made me think I'd like living here. The water was really cold, icy, but we all dove in once, even Lily. She was so proud of herself! Being able to do that is one of the reasons we moved here. Now we just have to find a suitable swimming place on the west side of the river. No worries.