t minus two

I’ve been meaning to post about our upcoming move for a while now, but seeing as it’s less “upcoming” and more “two fucking days”, I’ve sort of run out of time. For everything. AHHHHH!

After learning that completion of our new place was going to be delayed by a couple of months, we held off on the original plan of listing Sparta for sale in November. There was slight concern that selling in the new year would be more difficult, but we didn’t really have a choice: the show must go on, and we needed the money from the sale of the condo. Luckily, our realtor MJ is a superstar and with her heavy guidance, we made Sparta look as attractive to outsiders as possible. I had assumed that the giant yeti would make an excellent selling point, but MJ disagreed so the yeti had to go. He’s currently enjoying a life of leisure in Sardis, with Shan’s mom. We visit from time to time.

yeti days (featuring yeti for days)

The listing for Sparta went online without a hitch, and the open house was held the first weekend in January. It was a pain in the ass – not only because we had to keep the place SPOTLESS while we were still living in it, but also because we didn’t want to leave the three cats in the unit while it was being shown. Ed and I gathered up the cats and supplies and camped out in the garage in our cars during the two open houses. They were not happy. Lemon was so stressed out he actually bit me at one point, so I brought him back upstairs figuring he could just hide in the bedroom while people poked through our home. It was a great plan; one that lasted for 15 whole minutes before MJ texted me: Lemon was perched on the bed hissing at people when they tried to go into the bedroom. We had to take him back downstairs.

The plan was to hold a second weekend of open houses if no one showed any interest in Sparta, but we got an offer on Sunday evening and after a little back and forth, we had an offer we were happy with. Papers were hastily e-signed, and by 10pm that evening, Sparta was sold. Conditions lifted a week later, and things became a hell of a lot more real: it was time to start* moving.

*: technically I had been moving since the previous May so the sale just made me move faster

Now that we knew what we were looking at moneywise, it was time to spend it all. We ordered an entire house worth of new furniture, have made 5 trips to Ikea to date, and had a clearance sale of our remaining items that almost ended in a restraining order because the internet is a terrifying place. The plan was to take our entire bedroom and set it up in the guest room, but I used heavy logic to persuade Ed that a couch/bed solution would make way better use of the room. Wheels were dealed, and our truckload of furniture should be arriving in Vancouver sometime between today and Friday, to be delivered to us in our new home next week.

We’re two days away from moving. The house is 99.4% packed – all that remains are some bathroom items, the reduced contents of the fridge, and the cats. I have an enormous spreadsheet with all of our box contents, a timeline for the move, a list of rooms and measurements, a list of furniture and measurements, a site map, a legend for my box and room coding system, and several postal codes because we can’t determine which one is the correct one. We’ve enlisted Shan to help us out on Move Day, because we can’t be in three places at once and I had to cram a lot of things into a four hour window. Friday is going to be a finely choreographed ballet of super tight timelines and stress. I can’t wait! I get to see all my STUFF again! It’s been SO LONG!

The new home doesn’t have a name yet. I’ve been toying with “The Hive” on account of the bright yellow door, but we’ll see. Sparta was only named thusly because 300 was on TV the night before we moved in, so perhaps something equally catchy will land on my face on Thursday evening.

Stay tuned for house warmings!