Homeward Boned

I have just bought my own home. That means I have the great pleasure of packing up all the stuff and nonsense I've collected over the 24.961643835 years I lived at my old house and hauling it 5 miles up the road to my new house (which is actually about the same age as the old house). This is my first moving experience. And it's been, I suppose, rather a moving experience.

It's strange to have to quickly become accustomed to new and fascinating doorknobs, lightswitches, musty odors. The soapscum in the shower is not my soapscum. Except legally. And though we've been at the new house for nearly three weeks, I still feel, to an extent, like a guest -- one who's making herself very comfortable, painting the rooms and weeding and whatnot, but still a guest. At least I no longer really feel like I'm living in someone else's filth, as I did the first few days, because Matt and I were good about moving our own filth over, early on. The dogs can snuggle in dirty laundry or old pizza boxes or paint-splattered drop cloths, and it feels just like home to them. The first day we brought the dogs, Walter was dry-heavingly stressed out, so they've made a lot of progress.

I'm sure I'll feel more at home once we've moved every everything over. We're still in that limbo where we've brought over the absolute essentials -- bed, undies, dogs, dental floss, chargers for various electronics, lamp in the shape of an airplane, frozen waffles (we haven't brought the toaster over yet), box of liquor, etc -- but the rest of our stuff (and most of my life) is still at the old house. It's hard to decide what you can't live without when you've never had to live without anything you've ever received or bought since the day you were born. Some of the moving-day decisions were tough -- like I chose to bring this low-cut-but-still-work-appropriate blouse first because I've worn the other six more recently or something -- but I had to be practical. Neil Gaiman looks more attractive in his book-jacket photo than Bill Bryson does (despite Bill's beard), so he got to come hang out on my new nightstand first. And I'd already read all the Bryson books.


Mostly, though, I just find the whole thing exhausting. Not only do we have to pack up and move, but there's all this broken crap we have to shell out precious time, money, and effort to fix we've been presented with all these wonderful opportunities to rejuvenate the home!

For instance, the home inspector noted that the railing around the stairs was too low and a safety hazard, so the seller fixed it for us.

The inspector also mentioned that the oven that was to come with the house did not have an anti-tip bracket. So the seller bought a new (used) oven that also doesn't have an anti-tip bracket. And he only had to saw off a little bit of the kitchen counter to make it fit!

If that's not a dare to renovate, I don't know what is.

And then there's the delightful leak in the quirky room under the front porch, which has inspired us to completely demo and rebuild the room. And we wouldn't even have thought to do it if it weren't for the few pints of water coming in last Sunday. There are just home improvement ideas everywhere!

But I'm happy to start really making this place our home. I'd go on and on about it, but I have to go paint the dining room and bring over a few more books and lowish-cut blouses.