With the closing done, it was time to get ready to move. I decided to rent a portable storage container since we were moving out of state, and they offer door-to-door service. They have specialized equipment that moves the container so that it stays level and can maneuver into small places. I figured this would be the most economical and easiest (a mistaken assumption) way to move all of our stuff.
The container was scheduled for delivery the following week after closing on Thursday morning. We were given a promised 48-hour window to pack before returning on Saturday afternoon. We made good progress getting almost everything into the container.
I had planned to use the time Saturday morning to finish packing. Unfortunately, I got an early morning call from the driver letting me know they were on their way. I tried to see if they could come later that day during the scheduled window I had been given but was told that picking it up in the morning was the only option available; otherwise, my pickup would be pushed out by another week or two. That’s when my panic mode kicked in, and things started to fall apart.
We then found ourselves in a frantic rush to load as much as we could into the container before the driver arrived. Unfortunately, there were quite a few boxes that we didn’t get packed, along with some trash cans, a vacuum cleaner, and other miscellaneous items that seemed to be appearing from nowhere. I thought, “No problem,” it would be just fine since I had a large SUV and I could just get everything to fit in there.
My assuredness that it would fit was way off, and I had to find another way to get the boxes that wouldn’t fit in my car sent to the new house. With it being a Saturday, there weren’t many options available. We ended up taking the boxes to FedEx. We had been warned by the customer service rep that the items in the boxes could get broken with the machines used to sort them, but I was too overwhelmed and ready to leave at this point to worry about that.
Once the boxes were squared away at FedEx and we got everything that we could fit into the car (we had to leave the vacuum, trash can, and a large mirror behind, along with throwing some stuff away in the dumpster), we headed off. The plan was to stay at the house until we received the FedEx boxes on Monday. We then had to leave since someone was coming to the house to refinish the wood floors in every room except the kitchen.
We wouldn’t be able to come back in the house until the following Sunday due to all of the sanding and finishing that needed to get done, along with all of the fumes. I didn’t plan this part of the move very well. Getting the floors refinished was more of a last-minute decision, and we needed a place to stay for about a week. Thankfully, we were able to stay somewhere out of town and decompress a little before we had to come back.