Preparing to Move | Hicks House

So we’ve been officially sleeping in our new house for a little over a week now. I unfortunately didn’t get any pictures of the big move, because it was just to hectic a day. Thankfully we have some great friends who came to help, moves go so much faster with 4 men doing the heavy lifting. Seriously we couldn’t have done it without them, I am a weakling – I have trouble carrying my purse sometimes…(which is mostly my fault since I insist on having a gigantic purse that I then fill to the brim).

We’re slowly getting settled in, thanks to my mom’s help and great advice we set up and made our bed pretty much first thing so that we had somewhere to crash. The house is still covered in tons and tons of boxes as we try and figure out the absolute best way to organize everything. In the meantime it’s kind of like camping, with a real roof and bed. As with everything, the move wasn’t completely without incident my dresser suffered a big scratch right across the top of it 😦 hopefully it will be able to be fixed, we bought furniture crayons and markers to touch up the scratch and help blend it in. That project will probably warrant its own post, once I get around to it.

Perhaps the biggest mishap came after everyone left. Since its a brand new house, it didn’t come with some of things we normally take for granted like shower curtain rods. As the big move was a Sunday and we both had to work the next day, installing a rod Sunday night was a non-question it HAD to be done. We went off to the big Orange store and bought one of those nice curved rods that gives you a bit more room in the shower and Ken got to work installing it. Three of the four screws went in and then disaster struck…a screw broke in half with half buried completely inside the wall with no possibility of removal. A lot of 4-letter words were said but being the problem solver he is, he got the job done.

Meanwhile, I was downstairs trying to get our breakfast and lunches for the work day squared away. Pretty interesting task when your kitchen is a mess of boxes and you have no idea what is in them. It wasn’t until after I dug out a pot and put eggs onto the stove to boil that I realized

1. I had no cooking utensils to use in order to take the eggs out of the pan

2. I had no idea where the paper towels I use to dry the eggs off were.

Begin frantic search. I wasn’t able to find either of those two things, but what i did find was a slotted serving spoon (possibly silver – it didn’t matter at this point) and a beach towel. I almost wish this debacle was video taped because it was most likely quite humorous from an outsiders perspective.

We still have some things at the condo and are taking trips in the cars. Luckily Ken is like the Master Tetris Packer – expert level. This is one load in his Jeep:

Looking in the size door of the back seat

Looking in from the trunk

This amount of stuff would have probably taken me three trips. I’m looking forward to sharing pics of our new place, but it needs to be slightly less box infested first, so please be patient.

Since the condo is officially on the rental market and after all the talk the last few weeks of all the work that we’ve been doing to the condo I thought it was about time to show you some before and afters. Since I’m new to this blog thing and didn’t get before shots (in my defense most of the work started pre-blog) I tracked down the original MLS photos from when Ken bought the condo back in late 2009.

Some rooms are more drastically changed than others, personally I think it looks much more updated in person than the pictures convey… but maybe I’m biased.

I actually like the original exterior shot better…

So maybe not the best photo to start with since the previous agent took a better exterior shot… but it’s a condo there is only so much we can do to the outside… Moving the agents car before taking the photo so it’s not in the lower corner should have been one of the things done.

I’m not sure you can tell in this picture but there used to be nasty wallpaper

In addition to removing the wallpaper and painting the walls, the weird wood window valance was also removed (Ken literally just grabbed on and pulled it off), as was that old corner TV. We stopped short of de-almondizing the kitchen. We completely realize this badly needs to be done. But we’re renting and that’s a huge expense… so almond EVERYTHING is.

Another room from the kitchen facing the living room

It’s easier to see the nasty 80’s fabulous wallpaper that used to be in there from this angle. Also, is that a corded phone?! We don’t even own one of those.

Right off the kitchen is the dining room which got a fresh coat of paint, more modern curtains, white trim and a brushed nickel chandelier in place of that old brass one. (extra points if you can spot Chloe’s photo bomb)

living room

This room’s biggest problem was the furniture layout, it didn’t make any sense, we also removed those wall mirrors, replaced the carpet painted the walls, and the trim (that wood piece didn’t get done before the photo shoot… the TV was too heavy)

In addition to saying adios to the toothpaste green color in favor of a dark cool grey, we also painted the trim white and replaced the carpeting.

second bedroom

One of the bigger projects, in addition to patching all the walls (we mainly used this as a gym and some weights may have collided with the wall), painting the walls a more neutral color, and painting all the trim; Ken also made this awesome built in desk in one of the two closets.

upstairs bathroom

Another de-wallpapering project. The previous owner LOVED their wallpaper! This room got a coat of a cool light gray, white trim new doors and just to the left of this shot used to be a brass shower sliding door. (Eww it even had frosted glass) That was removed in favor of a bowed out shower curtain rod and modern white, and gray curtain. I unfortunately didn’t get a picture of the new shower but I have an old one just to give you nightmares…

AHHHHHH!!!!

Here’s some bonus photos I don’t have before’s of:

upstairs hall. Hello pretty white trim!

downstairs hall, the white trim and new doors look fabulous if you ask me

another de-wallpapering project

I have mixed feelings about the half bath. Granted this is a terrible photo. We picked this paint color out two years ago and just got around to putting it up. Now neither of us like it… it may be safe to say we hate it (which is odd because as you know orange is my favorite color). I’m pretty sure if it went up when we first bought it I may have liked it. Hopefully whoever rents it likes it better than we do.

So what do you think? Two months of hard work, better before or after?