The Official Home Tour: Layout & Move-In

In just 2 weeks, Josh and I will have been living in our wonderful apartment for almost 6 months! However, somehow, in this time, I have still not given you, my amazing readers, a tour! Over the next few weeks, I'm going to show you the very in-progress inside of our home - the official tour! Not all of the rooms are finished now, nor will they be during the next few weeks, but I want to share this space with you, along with our hopes for it, what we're using for inspiration and, of course, our never-ending to do list!


Josh and I picked our location (in the greater Boston area) because of its proximity to the city (without actually living downtown), the lower prices on apartments and the type of apartment communities available in our town. We knew we wanted a more modern feel and wanted to live in an apartment community, instead of in an apartment in a 2- or 3-family house (which is what we were both moving out of). Our search started in June and by the end of the month, we had signed a lease for a beautiful apartment and I had already started working on some projects and gathering inspiration in preparation for the big move. 

Here is a copy of our floor plan, the X'd out part on the far right is not really there (we're on the top floor and the top floor apartments do not get the benefit of that extra space):


We are so, so lucky to have so much space! And because we're up high, we have a spectacular view (as seen here and here). I only embarked on a handful of projects before moving into the apartment and at the time was, unfortunately, not focusing on capturing pictures for the blog and so below is a small collection of photos from the pre-move in project phase. 

Changing up the table and chairs...
I stained the seats and the table top, and painted the rest white.
The night before the move!
Still a mess, but almost all packed up! (And yes, that big blue bird came with us!)
And then, all of the sudden, August 11, Move-In Day, was finally here! We moved in 3 phases, as quickly and easily as we could ever imagine, but I think it's pretty unlikely that a move this simple (read: inexpensive and easy) will ever happen again. For starters, we didn't have a dog yet, so we didn't have to worry about him getting underfoot. Secondly, our move was pretty short - not even 13 miles from the old apartments to the new. And third, our apartment building has elevators and luggage carts for move-in usage - making the physical move-in process incredibly fast. However, we're really happy that it turned out as well as it did and we hope that the next time we move, it's at least partially this easy.

Phase 1 occurred on Thursday, August 11. Josh and I both left work early, our cars having been fully packed the evening before, and arrived at our new apartment at about 4 pm. After finalizing some paperwork and doing a quick walk-through with our rental agent, it was time to move in! We spent an hour or so moving things in and unpacking before heading back to our former apartments. We packed up my car again that night and then headed to bed to get extra sleep.

Phase 2 began early Friday, August 12 (Josh and I both took off from work) and we loaded our 3 TVs into the back of his car and headed back to the new apartment. After unloading the TVs and everything in my car (Okay, I'm going to level with you here - I have a lot of stuff. I'm not a hoarder or anything, I swear, but since moving out of my mom's 4 years ago, I've amassed a lot of stuff!), we took a break to get some lunch. After lunch, Josh's Dad came over to help Josh put our newly arrive bed together and I went to Target and Costco to fill up on all of those necessary move-in-day-must-buy items - you know the ones I'm talking about. That night we had dinner with Josh's parents and they came over to see our new (slightly put away - we unpacked as we moved in during the first 2 phases) apartment. Then, before it got too late, we headed back to our old apartments for one last time to get some sleep before the big day.

Phase 3 started at about 7:00 am when Josh and I woke up to go get the U-Haul truck. After renting it, we made our way back to Josh's apartment where our friends Kara and Mike met us to help Josh and I pack up the trucks. And by "Kara and Mike" I meant Mike, and by "Josh and I" I meant Josh - Kara and I acted as moral support/placeholders/last minute helpers -- the system worked out wonderfully! We got Josh's stuff packed into the truck within about 30 minutes and then headed to my apartment. It took us a bit longer there (almost an hour) due to some unforeseen circumstances details I forgot to tell Josh about beforehand. Like the fact that my huge couch was actually a pull-out sofa (apparently this makes it extra heavy?). Oops. And, for the record, the couch never even made it into our new apartment. By the time we tried to get it in, we realized that it was too big to fit through the doorway at any angle and so instead, we gave it new life with a local thrift/goodwill shop. Here's a picture of the couch (to the left behind the table):


Yea, not exactly any love lost there. But you know what? It was incredibly comfortable and FREE from my friend Jackie when I first moved to Boston 3 years prior. Anyway, back to Phase 3. After packing up the truck, Josh's car, and Kara and Mike's car with the remaining things in my apartment (I'm going to level with you again - it took 3 other small trips before I officially moved out on August 31st to fully empty the apartment of my things), we headed down to our new apartment. Josh's Dad met us there to help the boys out and in under an hour, it was officially - Josh and I were moved in! Later in the day we returned the U-Haul and then we spent the rest of the day/night starting to unpack and set everything up. Here is a small collection of move-in / empty apartment photos for you to begin to get a feel for what our apartment looks like:

View from the Hallway
More Hallway View
Living Room / Dining Nook / Fabulous View / Scientific Measuring with Takeout Menus
View from the Living Room into the Kitchen/Hallway
Kitchen View
Some organization later on during move-in day - and the finished table!
So, there you have it! That's our whole move-in story! Part of the reason it went as efficiently as it did is because I'm an obsessive list maker and spent the days and weeks beforehand planning everything out to the last detail. That, and Josh was really good about making sure I didn't just let boxes sit unpacked for more than a day or so - if even that long. Within just a couple of weeks after we moved in, we were completely unpacked and set up. Nothing in our apartment is officially done done, or set in stone, and there is a never-ending list of changes and updates and things to add, but we love the apartment and we are so thrilled that we picked it to be our first home! 

CONVERSATION

2 comments:

  1. This is very nice work. Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful work with us. If anyone interested to buy beautiful apartment You can easily buy from Home auctions.

    ReplyDelete

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