The reset part 3: Moving out, moving on 

Are you getting tired of our reset yet? Considering we sold one house, packed it up, and bought another house so quickly, it’s taking a long time to tell the story. But one look at this photo of one of the two pods we needed to hold all our “worldly goods” and you know there’s a tale worth telling. 

When we moved in the past there was a fairly straightforward process — load a truck at house A, drive it to house B, and unload. This move was complicated since we knew we’d have an interim stay at our son’s rental. The plan was to pack and store most of our stuff and move just the basics into the rental. 

It seemed so simple. 

The familiar cross-country moving companies were happy to accommodate this plan, and their cost for the move was what we expected. But storage would cost about $1,000 a month! At the time we didn’t know if storage would last two months or ten. Our realtors urged us to consider pods. They had used pods as had some clients. After more research, we decided to go ahead with this. The plan was to have one pod delivered at a time (that was all we could fit in our driveway), followed by a crew to load. The first pod would get picked up and we’d repeat the process. 

Putting the plan into action

By the time we actually moved, we had settled on a new build in the Columbus area that would be ready later this spring. We’d be in the rental for more than a month but hopefully less than two. We also had purged, packed and purged some more to stage the house. You may remember from part 2 that our son made two trips to take boxes and a few pieces of furniture to Columbus to use at the rental. 

We still had a few hiccups:

• At my daughter’s urging, we created a spread sheet of all the boxes — their contents and the room the contents came from. Each box was numbered. (She’s an excellent planner.) However, as my family loaded the boxes onto the trailers that my son drove to Columbus they did not note the numbers of the boxes. It will be a surprise when we open them! 
  
• The crews that loaded the pods were so efficient, they loaded some boxes we wanted to take ourselves. This is how I lost my can opener, and whatever else was packed with it. They also loaded two cartons of furniture pads which — luckily —we were able to retrieve. 
  
• My husband’s heavy tools and my oversized patio pots took a lot of pod space. My basket collection and other oversized accessories took more room to pack than I had planned on. Full disclosure: we seriously underestimated just how much of this there was.

The crew that loaded the pods wrapped and taped the wrapping on every piece of furniture, even finding ways to wrap and pack those inevitable pieces you don’t know what to do with. They were working “by the hour” but they hustled the whole time. Although, as these pictures will attest, the back end of the pods looked stuffed, they were careful to pack boxes and furniture tightly so nothing could shift or move. 

The moment of truth

As the packing crew shoehorned the last items on the second pod — and I do mean they shoehorned some things into place — and locked it, we turned around to discover that our porch furniture, my husband’s bike, and a brand new snow blower were still in the garage. My  heart sank to my knees. We had already packed our cars with clothes, leftover groceries, and kitchen essentials. 

My husband had seen this coming and called a local self-storage location and rented a small locker. We stayed with friends that night and the next morning Steve rented a small truck and, with our friend’s help, moved the garage leftovers into that locker. It was a bummer to realize we’d have to deal with those things, but at least were we done.

So, now we had a storage locker in Wheaton, one in Columbus, and two pods in limbo. (Should I worry that all our worldly goods are spread out like this?) But the house was almost clean. It’s amazing. You purge and pack and there’s still a bottle of Tylenol in the bathroom, miscellaneous groceries in the kitchen, a towel in the bathroom (I threw it away!) etc. My advice will forever and always be to pack early and purge more. 

Are you getting tired? Because by now I was exhausted. I hired a cleaning team to come thru the house, and they did a great job (except for the part where they blocked the driveway for the last pod to be picked up!). They even gathered the miscellaneous bar of soap, roll of tape and pens left behind in drawers. Too bad they did not get the KitchenAid mixer left in a kitchen cabinet! 

We were done and done in. We swept out the garage, hauled the garbage to the street and left. And honestly? I did not feel a bit sentimental leaving the house. We had lived with boxes instead of our books, packing instead of our pictures, etc., for so long this house no longer seemed like ours anyway. 

But, of course, the story doesn’t end with driving away. I still have not found my can opener and we never even realized the mixer was gone until three days later when our realtor texted to say the new owners had found it on their walk thru. Steve and I looked at each other and said, “Wow, I wondered where it was…” 

Thank you for taking the time to follow our story. I promise to change the topic to something more interesting the next time. See you then!