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.

10_Selecting A Transportation Vehicle

Selecting A Transportation Vehicle

The day after we signed the purchasing agreement for the house, we went to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, my husband’s hometown, to take his construction tools. As mentioned earlier, we would also need a transportation vehicle. For this, we were thinking to buy a used truck. First, because our budget was limited; we only had $2K left in our budget. Second, we would only need the vehicle during the renovation, more or less for 3 months. Third, pickup trucks seemed the ultimate transportation vehicle for construction jobs. So, pickup truck it was.

Pickup Trucks Hunting

We looked for pickup trucks on Craigslist and contacted the ones that we were interested with.

We also drive around the town to local car dealers. We didn’t look on eBay because we didn’t want to buy a car that we couldn’t test drive it. 

Apparently, it wasn’t easy to find a pickup truck with $2K budget. People that we contacted through Craigslist didn’t reply back. Maybe they had sold their trucks and didn’t bother to put the ads down. With the car dealers, most of them sold second hand pickup trucks started from $4K; beside, we couldn’t find any beat-up pickup truck.

We drove around for the whole day until we found a car dealer slightly out of town. There, we found a van on our budget. Well, it was a passenger vehicle with complete seats; but it opened our eyes to broaden our perspective. We shouldn’t just be fixated to trucks; we should also consider vans. The passenger seats could be taken off to create more space for construction materials.

We test-drove the van, only to find another van being offered on a street side. We went back to the dealer and told the salesman that we would think about it; we might come back tomorrow. We then went to the van on the street to try it. However, the van wouldn’t start at all, so we backed out.

We went home without anything. We tried to re-strategize our trucks/vans hunting and decided to broaden our search. We kept looking on Craigslist with broader search area, and this strategy worked. We found 2 vans within our price range in 2 car dealers outside Waynesboro. We decided to visit them on the next day.

Finding The Right Vehicle

On June 17^th, the search continued. This time, we had my mother in law with us. If we bought a car, then we could drive our old and new cars back. I still hadn’t gotten my drivers license, so I shouldn’t drive.

Anyway, we drove to our first car dealer. It was out of town and we were a bit lost to find it; the address mentioned on the Internet didn’t come out right on a GPS. So we had to drive back and forth before we finally found it; and only to find out that it was closed on Sunday. Argh!

We went to the second car dealer in a town called Carlisle, or about 50 miles from Waynesboro. We went to a car dealer called Clever Choice. There, we saw a lot of second hand cars within our price range! We were so happy; finally we could find our transportation vehicle. We looked around on the pickup trucks and vans until we saw a van with no seats for $1.3K! That was so perfect. The price was within our budget and the seats had already being taken off; so no more works to do for us. The appearance still looked good: no dents, no rusts, and no holes. The AC and the radio worked very well. So it was a good price.  There was one thing that we couldn’t test it, though. The van had a cassette player! I wish we still kept some cassettes… Anyway, furthermore, by buying it in a dealer, we didn’t have to take care of the taxes and license plate by ourselves. In the end, we spent $1,667.95; which was still under our budget. Finally, we had our luck!

*I took picture of the van right after we bought it. However, my phone was broken and I had to restart it. I thought I had transferred the pictures to my laptop, but apparently I was wrong L

Our awesome van.

Our van was equipped with a cassette player. Too bad, we didn't have any cassette anymore :(

First Trouble With The Van

On June 19^th, we drove back to North Carolina with out new van, carrying some of construction tools that my husband had. We were unsure on how heavy the van could take, so we still left some tools like a saw table and painting tools.

*Again, I took picture of it and lost it L

We had a smooth ride with the new van. It was raining hard along the way but nothing was leaking, so it was good. However, about a little bit more than halfway, the van broke down!

We were on the highway 95 in Virginia during the heavy raining and traffic jam. The van just didn’t want to get started. My husband had to embrace the rain and open the car’s hood. Cars behind us honked and just passed by while watching us. Luckily, my husband realized what was wrong quickly. It was the battery; the lights were all off. He tightened the battery cables and tried to start the car again. It worked!

We then drove to a nearby rest area to ensure that there were no more loose cables in the van. After that, no more troubles until we reached our apartment.