23_Finally, Reunited With Our Stuff

The long-awaited moment finally arrived, the time to put our stuff in the new home. We had been separated with our stuff for more than 6 months. Along that time, we had lived in 1 friend’s house, 3 hotels, 1 airbnb, and 1 apartment. Soon, we could close another chapter of being nomads and started a new chapter as settled homeowners.

One day before our stuff arrived, we spent the whole day just to clean the house. We rearranged the garage because some stuff would go there or just being placed there temporarily. Finally, on August 25^th our stuff came in one huge container truck. Unlike in Germany, where only two men worked for 3 days, this time there were six men unloaded the whole things. So by lunchtime, they were finished. Still, it was not easy to supervise them. For example, they just opened a single bed in one room, while actually we didn’t want to unpack it at all. We wanted to give all our single beds to my husband’s family. In the end, most of the big stuff were unpacked and situated as we planned. But we still had unopened boxes to work on; and of course, the house became dusty again.

The moving truck.

Above: Our living room. Below: Our dining room and family room.

Opened boxes were laying around in the living room.

Laundry Room

We spend the next 2.5 days tidying and cleaning up our stuff. Apparently the movers in Germany rearranged the stuff that we had put together. For example, we put all the clothes in some bags; but now I found that some of my clothes, even underwear, were mixed with motorcycle parts in one box! Fortunately, I could find all my stuff; well, at least as far as I remembered them. However, my husband lost a few of his small stuff that were not listed in the manifest; so we couldn’t claim it L

To add things worse, the movers here said that they could pick up the used boxes. So on August 28^th I called them to get the boxes. The receptionist at the moving company said that somebody would call me before coming to the house. But later on, I got a call from the movers, saying that they were already in front of the house while I was out! I couldn’t get back home right away; while from their side, they wouldn’t get paid if they didn’t pick the boxes at that time. So we had to deal with the boxes by ourselves. OMG, what kind of attitude was that; I never received any appointment call, and now they blamed it on me L

The garage was filled with our stuff from Germany and Pennsylvania. 

Again, we had to rearrange our garage including the laundry room inside it. When we bought the house, we got a washer and a dryer. However, we never tried them because we had laundry service in our apartment. So when we looked at them now, they seemed to be old and dirty. The room itself also dirty and damp around the pipes; we didn’t think it was a good place for cleaning anything. So we decided to take the washer and dryer out and replaced with the new ones.

Left: The washer and dryer. Above: The laundr room was dirty and damp. Right: Two studs were cut in half.

When we took out the washer and dryer, we realized that the laundry had been adjusted in order to fit the two appliances side by side. Two of the studs in the room were cut in half! What a careless decision… Now we had to buy new studs and a washer. We decided not to buy a dryer because it consumed so much energy. In addition, North Carolina is a hot weather place; we could dry the laundry naturally.

Above: Previous laundry room with a washer and a dryer. Below: The new washer and studs.