Moving 101!

Several weeks prior to putting our house on the market, I had called the moving company that originally moved us from Atlanta to Nashville three plus years ago. I had remembered that their rates were very reasonable for an out of state move and most importantly they did a good job and did not break anything! As it turned out, they gave us another great rate; however, wanting to cut costs and save several thousand additional dollars, the hubby and I decided to undertake this little task ourselves—hmmm! Our plan was simple, I was the packer, the hubby the driver and we would hire a couple of strong guys to help us move it out and load it up.

On Halloween, the hubby was off and had been assigned the task of fetching Halloween candy. Basically, he ended up popping into the U-haul store, and he called me at work to see if I wanted him to pick up a bundle of boxes for seventy dollars. “Seventy dollars on boxes? No way!” I said, “That’s outrageous!” I happened to be cruising around Martha’s website at the time and read all about her move from Turkey Hill to her new home (which I don’t think is that far away). However, unlike Martha, I did not have the option to make several small trips-- everything had to go at once! Hubby was very busy complaining about work after the U-haul incident, so I told him to relax and that I’d take care of the move. The only thing he had to do was drive the truck and not kill himself! After all, I had crammed tea sets, china, paper mache, etc. into suitcases from the London to Atlanta with no problems, not one crack– I can do this little move from Nashville.

I had waited until after the inspection to really start packing, for fear I would jinx the sale of the house. The Friday before we were to close, I ran out to get more boxes and some guy slammed into my Honda. Not good timing for my CRV to be totaled! I had plans for it to carry my breakables and my dogs. Anyway, like Martha, I bought several plastic tubs for my Mulberryware, transferware, and everything else that I did not want the hubby to smash into a million pieces. I had slowly started to remembered why I had fired the hubby from my antiquing business years ago, and I quickly decided that I would have Wednesday, the day we were to load up the truck, to be my last day at work. After all, we were going to hire nice strong guys to carry everything out, and they should all be very happy that I’m no longer mass producing cast iron! Then I remembered our latest intrastate. The guys from Two Men and a Truck miraculously moved a box of pillows, but ran out of room for the giant box of books.

During our closing, I mentioned to our real-estate agent, who is a big garden guru, that we had left a few things behind that she may want – a huge terracotta pot, a lot of dirt (which I had warned the hubby I wanted)! Earlier, I had given her several mums that I had bought for the house (I had no intention of planting them, but I knew she would). Talking to my agent later, she said she went over to the house immediately after our closing and the new cute couple helped her load up the huge terracotta pot and all the dirt—she was most happy!


The end result—we ended up spending way, way, way more than seventy dollars on boxes, an old piecrust table I bought last year and got at a great price is in three different pieces, a gate leg walnut table was dropped a few times the patina is ruined, an English mahogany table is also in a couple of pieces, my 1940’s crystal chandelier not a pretty site , we dumped several huge boxwoods that I’ve had for a awhile (should of given then to my agent too), and we ran out of space and left a few other things behind. I’ve not had a chance to open up the tubs yet! False economy? Probably!