Ramble tagged 'Moving'

I believe that tonight I can say that we are officially moved in.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll get to posting the detail of what took 2 weeks of work.

Should it come up in conversation; 11 sips to finish a coffee.


Just finishing up the studio and living room. A few more days and we should be done. Until we buy some more stuff to set up that is.

To save the space for the U-Pack truck, I whipped up some no parking signs from our old balcony bar table on Friday morning. I kept my eye on them for half of the day. I have no doubt that there are drivers in this crowded city that would push a sign aside to get themselves a parking spot. The U-Pack truck showed up on time, with the space still clear, parked the trailer and efficiently completed the handover. The trailer, and the process so far, is as advertised. I do like it when people deliver exactly what they say they will.

Today is our last full day of packing. It’s raining, which makes things a little more difficult, but I think we’re going to be OK. It’s down to studio furniture, a TV, a kitchen table, shelving, the two iMacs, curtains, blinds and miscellaneous wall attachments. Sounds doable right?

From the options of U-Haul, PODS and U-Pack, we’re going ahead with U-Pack. They drop a full sized truck trailer off in front of your house, give you a few days to pack it, you use as much of the trailer as you need and then seal your load off with a bulkhead, they pick it up and use the rest of the space for their general freight business (so you only pay for the space you use), they drive it to your new house, drop it off, you unpack it, they pick up the empty trailer – job’s done.

With the exception of PODS easier ground level loading (U-Pack is a standard height trailer, so you load it via a ramp), U-Pack was the winner on all fronts, including price per cubic meter. The greatest benefit, for us, is having as much space as we need without having to dick around with getting an extra POD or swapping out a U-Haul truck at the last minute.

I also get to drive my wundervoll car to Portland, instead of towing it behind a big ole truck.

Waiting on what will hopefully be our last lot of clothes washing. We’re trying to cook up everything in our fridge and freezer for the next few nights, so we don’t have to waste too much. There could be some interesting meals ahead.

Tonight I’ll be measuring the footprint of all our furniture and estimating how big our moving thing needs to be. We’re leaning towards using Pods rather than the cheaper option of U-Haul, because I don’t care to drive a truck from San Francisco to Portland.

Of course it all depends on the value of “cheaper”. I’ll know by tomorrow.

New Shoes!

New pants too.

I love how the dog shows nil sign of giving a shit. He’s more than used to our antics around the house.

We’re back home, safe in San Francisco. Obviously. There was some sadness to the end of our travels last night. The last time we would drive into the city with the feeling of coming home. As much as I have been blowing Portland’s horn of late, I am no less fond of San Francisco. I would hope that it’s obvious how much I love this place from the random bits and pieces I’ve posted over the last year.

It was also sad thinking of all this shit we have to pack into boxes. Moving is not cute for anyone.

I made my favourite breakfast this morning, and it turned out pretty damn tasty (check those freestyle poached eggs Tim B!). I actually don’t like traditional Eggs Florentine with the soggy spinach, but when you replace that with fresh baby spinach, it’s something else.

Trader Joe’s Hollandaise sauce (or Holidays sauce, as we were calling it back in Oz) is OK. I’m on the look out for the superior French brand my sister serves up though.

Met with the landlord today and signed some documents, finalising the rental of the Baker St apartment. It’s in writing now; we’ve got the rest of the month to ditch this town. To further cement things, Darren has booked tickets to visit us in Portland in May, which I’m very excited about. Hopefully we’ll know a bit about the town by the time he lands.

We started looking at rentals last night. For the money we’re spending here, we could live in a two-story six-bedroom sprawling Portland ranch. Of course the main reason behind the move is to not spend the money we’ve been spending here, so we’ll have to settle for less. Four bedrooms maybe?

I’m just excited about getting a house with a yard. Baker St has been my first taste of apartment living and, I gotta say, it’s not my favourite.

I’m off to make some quiche and use up that bucket of spinach there before it turns to compost.

Jon and I caught the Teabag Party!! at The Knockout this week. Good fun. The Knockout is one of our favourite venues.

We hung back longer than usual. The thought that it was one of our last nights out in San Francisco was on both our minds, so we were savouring the experience. Plus Hunx and his fans kept it interesting after the show.

In one week we’ll be on planes heading in opposite directions, and the chaos of Christmas, family and friends will ensue. I’m not getting back to San Francisco until late January, at which time we need to immediately haul ass to Portland to find a new home. It’s a crazy few months starting next week and eventually ending in a strange new home and city, with an unknown bank balance. I am a confusion of excitement, hesitation, annoyance and sadness.

We will work it out.

We’re heading out to the Alameda Market tomorrow, after somehow managing to miss it the last two months. I hope to get some cool postcards for the website background and maybe some trinkets for gifts or shelf filler.