Phase 5.5: Not packing or unpacking, but still moving

Who’d have thought that moving from Winchester to Dublin was going to be so complicated?

It's a 2 day pack, a 6-8 hour drive to Holyhead, a two hour ferry ride (weather permitting), and a 30 minute drive from Dublin Port to our house. 

What's simpler?

What's simpler is all 3 previous international moves, that's what. (OK, I might be exaggerating just a tiny bit, and being a bit melodramatic) but really.

We arrived at the house with excitement and anticipation – you’d think we’d be used to a ‘new home’ but putting the key into the front door for the first time is always exciting. If I was lighter, G would carry me over the threshold!

Mia loves choosing her bedroom, and then we all start deciding (well, me really) where our furniture goes, we read the manuals for our new appliances, we explore the garden, fidget with the gadgets, turn the showers on full to test water pressure, then make a cup of coffee. 

Every new house is filled with anticipation of memories yet made, dinners with friends we’ve not met yet, and for Adventure 1B (G's coined that phrase as I was unsure what to call it, adventure 4?), we are looking forward to entertaining friends we’ve not seen for 5  years … the expectation of family and friends visiting, creating yet another HOME.

The first room we wanted to see was the kitchen as it looked amazing on the photos.  We were not disappointed. (I’ll post pics once all our stuff in here) Hope we can keep it as shiny sparkly. My goal in every home is to NOT have a dumping place, and to keep bench tops clear. You know what I mean?

We’ve 3 ovens to learn how to use; a space age dryer and washing machine and lots of cupboards to fill. The owners have planned a very lovely space with a lovely green outlook. I feel very 'Sydney' as the space reminds me of MrsH originally designed kitchen/family room with glass ceiling and doors, or SIL's new folding balcony doors, allowing for indoor/outdoor space. Just hope the Irish weather improves A LOT so we can take advantage.

The yard is very big, tho it’s more like a patch of grass ready for sheep than a back yard to a newly renovated house. There’s a dead piece of fence that apparently should have been replaced so the agent will follow up on that; but there’s no landscaping or garden – I'm going to ask a few ladies at IWCD who have green fingers to help me create some flower beds. Don't want to spend a fortune, but don't want to look at the mess for the next few years either. Think the owners were a bit cheeky not landscaping before they left.

The AHA! Moment here for me was not to tell G my plans, but to surprise him. Why have the conversation about 'not our house', 'not investing money into a garden that isn't ours' (well, it is while we live here) etc etc. Think I've finally learnt to just get on with what needs to be done, at least the not-so-important-day-to-day crap anyways.

As we walked from room to room, we were surprised to see so much furniture and asked the agent ‘when will they be collecting the last bits of their furniture’ only to be told, this is yours – they thought you needed it. Whatever you don't need, we can remove.

REALLY?

WHY?

Who on earth told them we needed anything?

When G saw the house and made the offer there was a dining room table and 8 chairs, an L-shaped lounge in the sitting room, a mattress on the floor of what would be MissM’s room, and a bedsuite in the master bedroom.

At no time did he even mention furniture. The agent said that they were leaving this and if we wanted to use it, we could. Guy said that would be fine (better their leather dining chairs fade than ours) as we had our own stuff coming over from the UK in the fortnight.

There’s even an IKEA Starter box full of cutlery, crockery and glassware!

Who on earth leaves a Dyson behind? Or an ironing board and iron, a mop/bucket, kettle and toaster (which are sexier than ours, so that’s ok). The crappy little TV is attached to the wall in such a way we’ll never get it off. We have a state of the art TV which we love – I’ll call the electrician on Monday and ask if they can come and disconnect it and connect ours.

The delivery is now Monday and in all honesty I should have not been so quick to bring it forward as we’ve nowhere to put the extra stuff in order to make room for our things.

The agent hasn’t returned my calls which is rather annoying and definitely not a great way to start relations.

Yesterday we moved the black bedside tables from Mia's room into our room as they will go with our furniture (always wanted bedside tables, but they are a luxury our shipment allowance doens't afford us).

The chest of drawers from our room is now in the guest bedroom as the robe didn't have any. So that's a positive move.

The tall tower of drawers from our room is in the home office. Can never have too many drawers for organisation.

That leaves 3 double beds, one set of bedside tables upstairs to move to the garage.

The sideboard will go into the hallway and be used as a shoe cupboard. Clever, eh?

The display cabinet will go! Don't like it, Don't need it. 

The L-shaped lounge will move into the sitting room off the kitchen, and the brown single couch will GO. 

Their coffee tables are OK (we don't have, so that's worked out well) and the two rugs are fine.

This is as close to interior designing our home as I ever get so I'm going to make the most of it and make it work!

I want our things surrounding me, enveloping us in memories, representing the places we’ve lived, the things we’ve seen and done and reminding us of friends.

Our memories of 4 homes in 4 cities.

My suggestion is to beg the deliver guys on Monday to simply put everything into the garage, then when the agent can organise a truck to come collect it. The owners can sell ‘brand new, never used, freshly built Ikea’ on eBay for all I care at this point in time.

There's no way our bed'n'base will go into the bedroom with the Ikea bed there; or MissM's into her room for that matter.  Our lounge (which is in a zillion pieces and has to be rebuilt) is going to be squashed into the lounge as it is ... so they HAVE to move the lounge (unless we do it today)

So, with no tools, no extra pair of broad shoulders to lift’n’carry we’ve no idea what we’re going to do.

Why is it, when someone does something really selfless and thoughtful, you feel like such a bitch moaning about it? How much simplier would it have been for the owners to have left two mattresses on the floor like they said, with two free standing robes, as was here?

The joy of an empty space, waiting to be filled with our stuff which quickly becomes our home lasted about 10 minutes. We've been here 4 days and I'm still stressed!

Let’s hope that by mid week I’ll feel different about our new home, and the things in it.

With friendship

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