Utter exhaustion. That's what we're feeling, and we didn't even do the hard lifting. One thing I can say, well there's a bunch, is if you ever need to be moved, across the city, across town, or across the country, I strongly recommend Piece of Cake Moving & Storage. Not only was the company solid in every way, but the three guys they sent to handle our move were top notch. So a big shout and thanks to Nikola, Bato, and Dimitrige. They all have a great story coming to the United States from Montenegro, which I now know is country in Southeast Europe.
I started the day at 0130 am and headed to the attic. Some advice I might give if you downsize and move, start from the top of the house and work down. Like they say, "Out of sight, out of mind", and we underestimated how much we had up there, so it was a four hour grind picking through, packing, and lugging it down to the outside of the house.
Another tidbit I might add when it comes to moving and moving companies. While it's easy to come up with an estimated number of items you'll move, and with that comes an estimated cost, it's not until the boys are standing in your house where the actual numbers, in boxes and cash, becomes reality.
The above was my guesstimate that I kept updating with the sales office from Piece of Mind. But when the guys showed up it dint take long for the count, and the cost, to go up. And this wasn't a bait and switch move on their part, they are a well oiled machine.
Each piece is stickered and skewed for tracking purposes. So while my estimate was 100 items, the final count was just shy of 200. That's was an extra lot of bins, boxes, and stuff. They took it in stride as they are used to people going though what we went through. Our initial estimate was about $2,300, then it rose to $3,700, and the final add on today was an additional $1,300, so in the end it ran about $5,000, plus a well deserved tip for each of the boys.
With each box we filled we were asked, "Do you need any more boxes?", and of course the answer was yes. And of course the last boxes were filled, or stuff just poured in, from drawers, closets, and of course the attic. Was it stressful? Even though we weren't loading, well Theresa
needed to hit the bottle at 1130 am. She was helping with the move, dealing with me and the movers, on the phone with the well water people, and sweating to death. So I get it.
The boys did an amazing job triple wrapping everything and taking care that nothing got damaged. When the truck was loaded up at the house it was time to hit the U-Haul storage unit. "How many things do you have over there?", "Oh, not much".
Since we so underestimated the amount of stuff we had the question wasn't the additional price but the room in the truck. It was trip after trip down the halls with more bins than I remembered.
And five hours later we were, well they, were trying out how to get our stuff last stuff in the truck and close the rear doors, but somehow they did it. Every single last bit.
Just after the doors were closed and we finished up the paperwork I grabbed a picture of the guys. If you're lucky enough to get this crew count your blessings.
Now the truck and our stuff will go to a temporary storage area before it heads down to South Carolina next week where we'll unload, well three new guys will, all that into the two car garage while we get some work done before we move stuff inside. So it'll be a dump and run back to Cape May for the closing up there.
After it was all over I gently lowered myself to the ground in the living room because we have no furniture to sit on anymore. I guess the day caught up with me because I woke up to Theresa saying, "Annie, Annie are you okay", like she was checking for a pulse during a CPR recert.
It's Monday night and the final walkthrough is 0800 AM on Thursday morning. The final dumpster arrives tomorrow morning and it'll be a long day doing last trips around the house where it'll be brought somewhere to donate or tossed into the dumpster. Oh yeah, I still have to install the butcher block countertops in the kitchen...nothing like the last minute.