The Big Move

Yesterday was day 1 of the big move. Here is a rundown: picked up keys at lunch, dropped off Mark's keys at house, went back to work, finished work and went to old house, loaded up our Streetcar for the evening and went to new house, unloaded car, repeated with two more car loads, slept at new house.

Now let us slow things down to go over a few things in greater detail. Arriving at the new house to unload the first car load was the first time I'd seen it aside from our rather quick initial viewing. And I must say, aside from both being in converted terraced Victorian houses within a 5 minute walk of each other, the two places are pretty much as different as can be. The new place is definitely small, but you can tell a lot of thought has been into making it work in those proportions, it really is very pretty and very nice, and it's wonderfully light and bright. Speaking of proportions and all that, it has a variety of nice little touches that imply that it was actually done up with some intention of niceness. For example, it not only has dimming overhead lights in every room, but there are also two wall-mounted lamps in the living room at either end of the couch that also dim. The garbage can is on a track underneath the sink so that it comes to you when you open the door and don't have to stick your hands all up under the sink. Oh, and the stove actually has 5 hobs, including a massive one in the middle, and is gas. The fridge, on the other hand, is a bit regrettable, being all tiny with the built in freezer. However, it does appear to be of about as good a quality as you can get in those things.

Aside from kitchen cabinets, a decent amount of space in the kitchen, and the closets in the bedroom, there really aren't any storage options. The ceilings throughout are very tall, and in both the kitchen and the bedroom storage areas extend well beyond my reach, which seems it will be key for keeping things tucked away that I don't really ever use. For example, Mark's tomato juice can go up there. It's not like I ever need to be able to get a hold of it. But we've still got quite a bit of stuff at the old place that's going to get moved tonight, and it's going to be interesting to see if we can find room for it all while still maintaining the cuteness of the current place.

And finally, we used Streetcar last night. It was a diesel 4-door Volkswagon Polo. It did it's job admirably, if not a little noisily, and came in very handy. I suppose it's sort of a testament to the fact that sometimes things are just easier in a car. I can also foresee using it for a possible Ikea run in the near future, or perhaps if we feel inclined to go on a major grocery store run. I think it's sort of interesting, as a transportation professional mind you, that even when you think you really don't need to car, the sudden ability to use one sort of unleashes a repressed demand!