The move-out ends

Yesterday, the packers came and packed. Today, the movers came and moved. All was relatively uneventful; both days, they were there by 8:30 and done by about 2. The house just has the items the buyer wanted to keep, and many rooms are almost totally empty, particularly the downstairs. Here's the view from the bay window looking back into the sun room:

Here's the sun room, with only a couple of items left:

And the master bedroom, totally empty:

And finally, the truck carrying everything (we hope) to Los Angeles (we hope!):

I'll have one more update after the closing, just the put a final (?) capstone on this blog.

The move-out progresses

 For a while, the house was getting emptier. First the piano went:

Then, one of the most frustrating things about moving out: finally cleaning up things the way they always should have been. For example, this is the garage after removing some things, but mostly just cleaning up and organizing stuff. Why didn't I do this when I lived here?

Then, this past Monday was the first real mini-move. I disassembled the main bed and the wardrobe in the primary bedroom, and hauled them (and the mattress downstairs). Some strapping (and quite bilingual) fellows from Habitat came and hauled that away, along with a love sofa (see the previous post), a giant wooden desk with chair that came with us from Berkeley), and a small end table. The back room feels quite different. (For the record, Habitat will not take mattresses -- or love sofas with huge tears in them.)

Since them it's been pretty much all day going through every drawer, every cabinet, and clearing everything out and packing it into boxes; the goal is empty, clean drawers and shelves everywhere. (And of course you have to pull the drawers out, because there is some gross stuff back there behind them -- it's unclear how it gets there, but somehow it does!)

As that's been happening there have been almost daily trips to Goodwill; so far, between 10 and 20 cubic feet of stuff, plus about the same amount in trash and garbage. Today's final bit of work was moving the last dozen wine crates that we've been using as bookshelves since Berkeley (and I think Lilya brought a few from New York before that). Here they go!

As all that stuff is being pulled out of drawers, however, it has to go into boxes, which are slowly filling up the spaces depopulated by furniture moving out. 

As of today, we are at one week until the movers show up for the day of packing; then Friday is for loading (which I'm assuming is not going to take a whole day, but who knows). Tomorrow, I feel like the rest of what needs to be done in the basement can get done, and then I think everything else gets left to the professionals.

The move-out begins

It's been a while, but that's how the big home events go. So far, everything that's been happening has been the sort of thing that pictures don't help much with, but here's where we are right now:

1. We have a hard deadline for the move-out: July 13, they pack, July 14, they load, and then they drive away. So, everything else has to happen before the 13th. 
2. The items currently in the house have six different destinations, including (1) coming back to LA with me; (2) staying in the house; (3) getting moved to Sasha's place in Urbana; (4) getting donated to Habitat/Goodwill; (5) one item -- it is a piano, however -- is going to Larissa's house in Savoy; (6) going to LA in the moving truck
3. I have been focusing on small, achievable victories -- getting all of category #3 done. It took three days: Sasha's dresser and desk had to be disassembled before they could be shoved into the Jetta -- only good for Starbucks lattes and your Obama lawn signs, as my brother once noted -- and then a third trip today for the desk chair. Basically one day per item of furniture.
4. Huge progress on #4 today: Habitat will do free pickups of large items, but there are some exceptions: they won't take mattresses, and they won't take items like couches with huge tears in them (I'm looking at you, loveseat!) So you can donate the bed and they'll get it for free, but you can't donate the mattress. As is turns out, it was a moot point, because Habitat can't do pickup until after the move out. But... they did recommend someone who could, for a reasonable fee, pick it up sooner, and who -- when I called to check -- can also get anything they won't take and dispose of it. This means that Monday a lot of the house will change in character: no giant desk that's been with us since grad school, no big bed in the primary bedroom, no Ikea wardrobe, no love seat. The back room will start to become perilously close to empty, and Sasha's room is already getting there.
5. The first four hefty bags of material going to Goodwill (after the last I dunno 50 hefty bags -- we did a lot before leaving for UCLA last fall!) went out today. I also started bubble wrapping the art, and getting things ready for the next Goodwill trip. Regarding bubble wrapping, I'm a little unsure: on the last move, of our offices, the only items that got broken were the ones we packed ourselves. So shouldn't I leave the packing to the pros (ha ha, who am I kidding, to the 19 year old dudes who just graduated from Paxton-Loda-Buckley High, a local, and quite rural, high school)? The problem is that I can't not do it. It has to be organized!
6. We should have clear news by this weekend about the piano (that was #5 for those who are keeping count), but in theory, someone will come and get it soon.

I will start posting pictures of strangely empty rooms shortly. Stay tuned, ancient blogosphere.