The Never Ending Story

We finally got everything out of the house. 

Yesterday I went up with Doug (he's been doing the bulk of the final move, thank God) to work on the basement. 

Me: "Did you empty out that storage room? Where you have your precious antique Pittsburgh Steelers beer cans from 1984?"

DWG: "um. Maybe?" 

Insert narrator voice - "No he did not." 

Geoff has 2 drum sets, one that we got him for Christmas when he was like 8 and one that a friend gave me. Both are partially good, the cymbals on both sets are trashed, and he needs to replace them. A couple of the drum heads are borked, so they've been sitting in that storage room collecting spider eggs and dust. He hasn't played them since we lived in the brown house, since high school. 

That was fun to move. Drums are awkwardly shaped things.

And, of course, Doug sat in the living room on a folding chair beating 3 different drums and making noise for 15 minutes while I emptied out the laundry room. Of course. Hey, everyone needs a break right? 

So the only things still up there are some cleaning things, my mop and bucket, and some of the things in Geoff's bathroom, and a load of blankets in the dryer. 

Yesterday morning when Doug went up to the other house, I spent my time unpacking some boxes. He came down here around noon for lunch, and was a tad perturbed with me for spending time here instead of there. 

"We have to be out of there this weekend, you know," he says to me. "I really think you should come up there and help me. With both of us up there, we'll make short work of it." 

True, I agreed, and went up. And he was right. 

But I was also right. I had unpacked enough boxes to kind of make space and get some elbow room, and then we filled that right back up again. Had I not done what I did, it would have been a problem for us. 

All told, we're getting there. Slow and steady. 

We decided last night that it is best for us to hire a cleaning service to clean the bathrooms and kitchen. Both are beyond my skill level. Trying to leave a place "Broom Clean" when the shower in your son's bathroom is uncleanable (I left it to him to do, and man he has less skill than I do so he just didn't, so it is saaaaaaaad) is not possible. My property manager on that house is looking for a contact number for a cleaner for me, she has a couple. And then we'll get that taken care of.

And after that. We focus on here. 

Thinking about here, our kitchen is narrow and miniscule and just laid out badly. The cabinets are shallow, some of our dinner plates do not fit in the cabinet. The top cabinets are literally one inch too low for us to put the coffee maker on the counter. 

One inch. 

There is nowhere to put the microwave. Doug put the trash where I was going to put the microwave, and when I looked around I realized that was the only place to put the trash.

There is kind of a pantry, which looks like it used to be a broom closet. It is narrow and deep which means anything that gets put in there is going to get lost in the back. Forever. "Oh, do we have flour? No? Let me go buy flour." and then all 3 of us go buy flour. 

The fridge is smaller. It is about 6 inches shorter than the other one, and Doug moved all our food down yesterday, and it is just laughable how small it is because we had lots of space around things in the old fridge.

And I haven't put my roasting pan in the oven to see if it fits. If not, smaller turkey for thanksgiving for the next 2 years, I guess. 

We are going to have to use the dining room as an extension of the kitchen. There's no other way. Shelving will be bought. Something to put the microwave on top of for sure. Geoff is patiently waiting to make pizza rolls and ramen without using the stove (not because he lacks skill, but because it is so much faster). 

We stood in the kitchen and talked about what a remodel would look like, what would make sense. The dining room and living room are really good sizes - there is no reason why the kitchen couldn't be brought out, and made bigger. We then looked out back and pined for a back porch. Because a screened in back porch is just the best. 

But it isn't our house. It's a rental. And for the next two years, it's ours to deal with and make do with. And we shall.

The best part of the house right now is the finished basement - and the fact there is so much space down there. All of our shit that we are not going to be able to fit upstairs here will be happy down there. I just need to make sure I label everything correctly so we can find it later if we need it. When we need it. 

It'll all be by Doug's precious antique cans.