Moving Day

Hey neighbors, I'm Martin Acres Home!

And I’m filling my days with little tasks. Before the real movers arrived, I had kitchen supplies to put away, chandeliers to finish installing and cleaning that called to me. 

This chandelier had been a house guest in a giant box, in my Longmont house for 8 months. Would you believe the obsession of the chandelier began the day I saw it (or something similar) hanging in a home on the Mapleton House Tour last year? True to me, I didn’t stop looking for it until I found it online and shipped it. I called it a me-to-me Xmas gift in 2016 and allowed myself the benefit of denial – a necessary evil when telling oneself that it is not part of the budget I was supposed to be adhering to in the remodel plans.

Then came carpet pad and carpet. The installers from Carpet One were fabulous! They loved on my dog, lugged heavy and awkward rolls of carpet with smile and finished exactly when they predicted they would.

I love the new carpet. And was getting close to tears at seeing the house looking like a house finally.

This is the master bedroom.

The upstairs living room is looking cozy too.

We were gearing up for the City of Boulder’s somewhat final inspection. Outside, Ken was hard at work with the skid-loader and grading was getting finishing touches.

Then… It was moving day!  Much anticipated and simultaneously dreaded. 

We met the movers at the Longmont house, directing the removal of the remaining boxes and all the furniture, from the garage to the truck. It was slow going. The movers took their time and Mark remained in place to help, while I scooted back to Boulder. Then I got the call; The movers were enroute and it was 12:05 pm. They called to say they were stopping for lunch and that they had decided they would not want to move some of the heavier items upstairs. 

Ok, let’s recap. When I contracted the movers, they asked for a list of heavy and/or awkward items. I sent it. Also sent photos. Now they were reneging because one claimed to have a back injury and was scared of squashing his fingers while going up the stairs. Really?  Yup.

I informed him that expectations were that the items, heavy or not, were to be placed in the appropriate rooms of the house, whether or not stairs were involved. He hung up on me and a minute later his boss called – to tell me I was bullying his burly movers! I could not make this stuff up!

The move concluded in 8 hours. We struck a compromise with the chest freezer being lifted up two stairs to the mudroom, but the bookcase not going up any stairs. The best part was the price. Quoted at $650, we ended up being charged $1120 and that was discounted after I complained about being charged for their lunch hour!

Who do I NOT recommend for movers?  The Good Move LLC. Whiny little girls who bid reasonably to get your contract, then move slowly and up-charge at the end. More than enough said.

Then the real chaos began. What was a beautiful, mostly vacant house with a new carpet smell, became a holding pen for boxes of all different shapes and sizes, an explosion of bubble wrap and packing paper and a giant tripping hazard! But on the plus side, we had a real bed and by nightfall, it sported clean sheets and a down comforter. It had been 9 long days since I had slept on my awesome Tempurpedic mattress and I was exhausted.

No rest for the wicked, as they say.

The City’s mandatory “street tree” was arriving tomorrow and according to the master landscape plan it was to be planted in a newly created berm in my front yard.   Ken to the rescue! One hour before tree delivery, he moved mountains of red earth, pushed and flattened and heaped the existing soil into something that closely resembled the shape that Becky had outlined on my landscape docs. 

Coming Home to Martin Acres

 On September 1st, Mark and I moved into our new/old Martin Acres house. My neighbors... my trails... my happy place. 

The day started at 4:30 am. We were up, deflating the blow up bed that had been our rest spot for the last 4 nights at Terry St, putting the last of the “we’ll need this” boxes into the borrowed truck and headed for Boulder by 5:15 am. After unloading the truck into the garage at 285 Martin Drive, Mark drove  my car to Denver for work and I took the truck to Louisville for a Starbucks pickup and a final walk though. Then the clients and I headed for Land Title in Boulder for our 9 am closing.

Post closing, I was headed back to the Longmont house, lickity split. I still had some cleaning to do and the packing of those items; vacuum cleaner, supplies etc. I had a cat to stuff in a box for his trip “home” to Martin Acres that afternoon and tenants to hand off to at noon. There was definitely some last minute stuff going on, but we made it and just a few hours later, I had an extremely unhappy and most vocal cat beside me in the truck as I sped off to Boulder again.

I put Smokey Joe in an upstairs bedroom that was still awaiting new carpet. He had his litterbox, food, water and a bed. His crate stood open, nearby and I closed the door to the room before taping a giant “Don’t let the cat out, please” sign on it.  At my neighbor, Donnie’s house,  I had some lunch and one of those chats that I had missed while living in Longmont. An hour well spent! Then it was time to check on poor unhappy Smokey Joe.

Question: Why couldn’t I find him in the bedroom when I returned? The answer came when called his name and heard a faint and terrified meow coming from the duct work. My heart missed a beat. Two beats. Could he really have crawled into that tiny duct from the vent hole in the floor?  He is not a small cat. Think Maincoon size.

Yes. He apparently could. But it’s a one way journey because there is no room to turn around! 

So at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon, as the guys were packing up to escape this job site and enjoy a long weekend, I had to announce that my cat was in the ducts and I needed help to remove him. What help? Not sure. I guess that depended on where he was under the floor between the first and second stories. My stroke started about that time. 

After much debate it was agreed we kinda knew roughly where SJ was. Ken had the great idea to pull up a piece of the plywood floor and expose some of the ducting. We found that about 5′ along, the vent duct turned 90 degrees, then 90 degrees again and connected with a larger duct. One that might make it possible for the cat to turn around in. Ken got his sawsall out and cut a flap in the large duct with the idea that SJ would either find the hole and come out or be scared back the way he came. The noise and vibration was horrendous, but it worked. Smokey Joe did an about face and came climbing up the vent hole he entered. Crying and covered in dust and insulation debris, his noise gummy and his eyes filled with fear, he stared at me with a look that all but said “why did you stuff me in a duct and who was trying to cut me in half with a saw?”

Aaron sealed the holes in the room temporarily and they left for the weekend. My stroke subsided and within a few hours SJ was back to his normal self too. I had no doubt that should he be faced with a similar option – to crawl in and explore or not to crawl in and explore – he would choose the same way again!  <sigh>

And that, my friends, is how the saying “curiosity killed the cat” came about.

Over the next few days we acclimatized SJ to being an indoor-outdoor cat again. He got used to the neighborhood and using the brand new doggie door to let himself in and outside at will. For a critter who complains as loudly as this one does, he is remarkably adaptable. Some days I see him, others he is dozing under a juniper and scarcely around. Every night, he comes in and out and checks on us in bed 3-4x though. Most mornings he is sleeping on the pillow or foot of the bed when I awaken.

If you are a cat person or feel your pets are family, then you’ll understand that despite or because of his independent antics, I love this little furry guy and it would have been heart breaking to lose him or damage him while simultaneously celebrating the return to my Martin Acres family.

Complete! Kinda!

 With a week til move-in (sshhh, don’t tell the City of Boulder) it was game-on! In went the front door – primed and almost ready to be painted “red delicious”. The mailbox was up, the numbers and the pendant lighting are all functional. I was already getting mail as of the 25th!

The tiler was back and the floor was going in to the mud room and each of the bathrooms.

Windows and trim painted white. Walls getting their first taste of Pale Oak.

The carpet upstairs and the french doors to the living room… still waiting on those.

The rest of the doors are drying. The guys have them standing up in the living room upstairs. Genius way to store a bunch of wet doors, if I do say so.

And here come those French doors!  Still with the plastic film on the glass, but painted. 

I got my first glimpse of the marble floor tile and it’s a good match for the now “existing” wall tile. Oh, thank goodness!

The next steps include  hexagon tile in the shower base (quite the skill involved!) grout, counter tops, seat top in the shower, soaking tub installation, shower glass and then… fixtures. All those faucets I have been hoarding at Longmont and a car load of towel holders and such.  Yes, we have come a long way, but with so little time left, it’s hard to believe it will mostly be done in by early September.

The master bedroom is ground zero for the master bath tile station. Every party needs their own space to work, create and achieve.

The electricians were back and light fixtures began appearing. All those stored boxes finally opened and my online choices now apparent. In a way a breathtaking experience, but mostly lots of anxiety as I finally make peace with selections made online, in the middle of the night sometimes. It doesnt help they are attached to decent sized invoices and until now, never seen with the colors and finishes of the rest of the house. ‘Tis true what they say… You gotta have faith (or drink plenty of wine).

Those of you who remember my kitchen prior to this remodel will maybe also remember the hand blown blue and green wave glass pendants that hung over the island. They are still in storage. The downside of raising the ceiling is that those pendants were just too high for the room now. While I could have replaced with like-type new pendants, I instead stuck with my modern farmhouse black and glass theme. These are seeded glass to provide a little continuity to the pendant now hanging outside the front door and the bathroom vanity fixtures, yet to come. 

See all the boxes on the island under the pendants?  Door handles! For whatever reason, it took me 4-5 trips to home depot and 2 shipments from Amazon to get door handles that were just right! OMG, I have never been more frustrated with myself than after successive trips resulting in the wrong handles or not enough of them. How hard is it to count doors??!! In my defense, put some thought into the types of locks and handles you have in your own place and you’ll be surprised at the complexity. Front door and garage door to house lock with keys – they have deadbolts too. Office doors have keys but not deadbolts. Bathroom doors have push locks from the inside, but not keys. Closet doors have handles that latch, but not locks. French doors have dummy handles and just push, rather than latch. The lock sets ranged from $30 – $130 and the handles without locks from $20-30. Oh yeah and when you order 4 dummy handles, that is what you get. They are not like other handles that come with bits for both sides of the door, they only come with one side… so you have to order another 4 if you want handles both sides of two sets of French doors! Live and learn. And thank goodness I accidentally paid for Amazon Prime a month or two back because I have used two-day shipping to death this month!

The pendant over the stairwell was chosen for the glass ball detail. Once the dining room chandelier is hung, you’ll see why.   I also have something to hand in the master bath in this vein.

One week to go…. Its now August 30th and the Longmont house becomes home to tenants on the 1st of September, so Mark and I are hustling to get most of our stuff put into the two car garage there. We have the use of it for the first week of Sept, courtesy of the awesome tenants but the bits and bobs we will need between now and September 7th, when the real move happens, are being shoveled into our cars. Uh-huh, that does include a blow up mattress, linens, clothes, gadgets, office stuff (for me) and pet accouterments.

And because I had nothing better to do (NOT!) I decided the best thing to do for the yellow patio furniture before moving it to the new house, was to paint it the same color as the new house. After all, if we have no table and chairs inside the house for the next little while, we should have a nice looking outdoor table on which to drink coffee (and more wine).

The countertops arrived and the fixtures were installed in the bathrooms, including mirrors. I guess I stopped taking pictures at some point that week too…  It was a brutal one for sure and in between two closings and a double move, camping at a partially finished house and the physical challenge of always being either driving or moving heavy items, I hit a wall and from time to time, found myself sitting on the stairs unable to focus my eyes or make conversation or commit to one more decision! I needed to just be home, in a real bed, to cook my own food and yes, to be able to find things… the little things that make life easier, like car keys, dog’s brush, snacks.

August 30th was also the day they unveiled the soaking tub (post grout of the master bath) and set about installing it. Dear God, these things are a pain to install! There is a flex-pipe connecting the plug hole to the drain underneath that must not be squashed etc as the tub is set in place.  You only find out it has a leak once bath water is run as a test…. and you see it oozing through the ceiling in the kitchen, damaging the work done by the master plasterer last month.  

I know what you are thinking… Disaster, right?!  Read the next post to understand why in the end, everything is relative and watching a leak appear in the kitchen ceiling didn’t even raise my anxiety a single minute!

Picking up the Pace

 At this time, you’ll already be guessing (if you read the last post) that an end of August move in is but a pipe dream and that despite the onsite guys working like madmen to get so many things accomplished every single day, the universe has it’s own plan. Ken was super gentle about trying to reset my expectations and it probably stressed him out to hear me say, we’ll be there September 1st!

Picking up where I left off; the carpet saga continued. The next phone call I got from sweet Brian at the flooring department in The Home Depot was one of the most frustrating to date. Both he and I began to admit the level of control we have over these things is about close to ZERO. The carpet mill informed him on Monday morning that the carpet had come out of production on Saturday and would ship that same Monday afternoon, thereby putting it in Boulder Friday the 1st of Sept. When Brian called them back Monday afternoon to confirm the shipping, he was informed that the carpet was not out of production after all! Seriously?  Yes!!! While this was not Brian’s fault, he was on the other end of the phone when I lost it. I asked him when it would be out of production and he informed me that nobody knew.  I called bullshit! Either the mill is producing my carpet and someone who works there is aware of this, or it’s not, and that is also good info to have and I expected Brian to get a hold of the person who had some/any info that was helpful in this regard and get back to me. He agreed to call me the following day @ 10 am.

I sat at the dining room table in Longmont, surrounded by half packed boxes, no comfort food and an increasingly attractive bottle of wine and had a little meltdown. I’ll admit that after working every day since February, physically exhausting myself with packing, financially stretching myself with a new house, mentally draining myself with decision making and emotionally losing it with a guy who sells flooring, I was about ready to curl up in fetal position and retreat inside my head until further notice! 

Mark came home shortly afterward and somehow managed to get past my wall of negativity and convince me to investigate alternative carpets at our friendly Longmont Carpet One. Off we went… Me with no expectations of finding success, slumped over in the passenger seat of his Jeep, a scrap of the Home Depot carpet in my tired fingers, almost resenting his “solution oriented approach” to my bad mood. What did I do to deserve this guy?! He has the patience of a saint.

Carpet One was awesome. They took us out the back to the warehouse area, pulled out samples of the stuff they had in stock and when one appeared that was close enough to the HD order, we committed to it and booked their carpet installers too.  John-Paul climbed the ladder to the top shelf and put a large hot pink HOLD sign on my giant roll of carpet. Installation was scheduled for Sept 5th and 6th and I texted Ken the good news. (He then took on the task of cancelling our HD order for me.)

Back at the house, this was happening in the second week of August:

Paint!

The trim was painted white and the walls were primed. Aaron installed a beautiful hand rail and pickets on the stairs. The guys were now turning their time towards working on painting doors and some exterior clean up, while the house had to be closed up.

Exterior lights looked good. They used my old flagstone hearth as the new step for the storage unit. Great idea! I’m all about recycling, reusing and gifting as much as possible during this Martin Acres new construction project.

I know what you’re thinking. Things are back on track!  Kinda. Until I fell on the stairs at the Longmont house and did some damage. The ankle was as right as rain in a couple of days but it would be 3 weeks before the toe (fairly sure it was broken) would not need to be taped to relieve pain. Not that I really had time anyway, but this sealed the fate of the feet that already needed a pedi. Oh dear.  🙁 

Some days you just have to “suck it up, Buttercup” and carry on. So I did. 

Next on the list was selling the hot tub at Longmont. The new tenants were not hot tub people and I didn’t relish the thought of seeing some sort of soupy mess in it at the end of a year lease. It found a buyer within hours and I’m happy to say its new family are going to love it like it deserves to be loved.