This is a multi-part series of how Ashley and I are thankful that we had excellent insurance coverage (from Nationwide). Water does a lot of damage! To catch up, read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 before continuing with this post.
Moving is no fun, and I think moving back in after a damaging event is worse. We found that the way our boxes were packed was very odd – a lot of stuff was packed per room in a nice order, but maybe someone got lazy, because we were finding kitchen items in the bathroom boxes, living room stuff in the bedroom boxes, etc. To top it off, just like when you have a contractor do work on your house, you want to really verify everything immediately. It’s hard enough to get their attention, but I’m sure if you waited to mention something until months later, that’d be even more difficult. I tried to keep an open mind about all of the bad mojo with housing contractors, but a lot of it was true for us. After they “finished” up, we had our belongings moved in the next day. There were over 20 things that I found that weren’t really finished, or not done well enough. Some small, some completely obvious – someone really should have done a final walk through.
For some reason they removed the last line of the backsplash and the counters were put so close together, the stove wouldn’t fit into place.
Builder Services – Unfinished Kitchen
Last minute patching I guess, but no painting.
Builder Services – Unpainted patch work
A brand new vanity door hanging off the hinge.
Builder Services – Hanging vanity door
Missing fan cover and light globe – also tape left from painting. At least we know for sure we had the ceiling freshly painted.
Builder Services – Missing fan and light covers
Broken garbage disposal and clogged drain. It turned out to be that screws and drywall fell into the disposal.
Builder Services – Clogged garbage disposal
These are simple fixes, but made me question – why was it like that?
Anyway, we had a house full of boxes…
The start of all of the boxes. This is the Harmon Kardon amp, speakers, stands, and mounts.
Boxes stacked almost 9 feet to the ceiling
Boxes stacked in the office / second bedroom / guest suite
The start of the broken down boxes and trash in our back yard
Partially unpacked living room with the essentials set up, TV, surround sound, internet (and all that nerdy stuff like UPS and NAS)
A little progress on the office
We found that our cats did a lot of “helping” and watching, and a lot of sleeping while we unpacked.
Owen helping unpack
Owen, Taby, and Riley look kind of like they are in a jungle
Owen, Taby, and Riley again
Riley enjoying the new La-Z-Boy chair-and-a-half twin sleeper sofa
Owen enjoying the new La-Z-Boy chair-and-a-half twin sleeper sofa
Taby enjoying the new La-Z-Boy couch
It was rough getting in and out of the back yard to bring the trash and recycling out. I figured with the amount of boxes and trash, it would take at least 3 months to get rid of it all. It was really nice when Builder Services came to get it all, I didn’t realize that was part of the service.
Builder Services – Removed all boxes and trash
One of the coolest upgrades was our extended vanity. Thanks to the Billingsley’s, we were able to upgrade the lights and mirrors to go along with the new vanities. Without space in a medicine cabinet, and just a mirror now, we put together these storage bins around the toilets – again thanks to the Billingsley’s! This along with the extra space in the vanities, we have no need for the medicine cabinet.
Bathroom storage around the toilet
Full-width vanity with the mirror and lights that the Billingsley’s helped with
Downstairs we had to pretty much start over. New furniture, coffee table, end tables, flooring, etc. We went to La-Z-Boy and picked out some microfiber fabric like we had, which is similar and comfortable. All of the furniture we ended up getting was smaller, so it makes our whole living room look quite a bit bigger, but we still have sufficient space to sit on and put our computers, candles, remotes, etc, on.
New La-Z-Boy couch
New La-Z-Boy couch
New La-Z-Boy chair-and-a-half (or love seat)
New La-Z-Boy chair-and-a-half twin sleeper sofa
We had to keep the TV the same size, though we thought about going bigger =)
New Vizio M702i-B3 70 inch TV
New iRobot 380t wet/dry hardwood floor cleaner
When the wood floors were half the downstairs, it was easy enough to maintain ourselves. Now that the wood is not only through the whole downstairs, it’s in more of the high traffic areas, so we found that the iRobot 380t was a great help.
We knew right away we had to keep at least one piece of furniture clear so we could take a break, eat meals, and relax after a long day of unpacking. Our cats were in agreement.
The cats enjoying the new couch
Home is where the Netflix is
After a long day of unpacking, we just needed some Netflix – as we all know, Home is Where the Netflix is (this is a link to a hand-lettered print that my wife created and would go along well with your living room or movie room!).
New retractable coffee table from Amazon
Thinking positively, a couple nice things we were able to get out of all of this was not only cohesive furniture – you know how it is when 2 people with their own lives meet, get married, and move in together, a lot of times the furniture doesn’t match with each other. The other nice thing was we were able to have this really tall wall painted in the stairway, and we stopped being lazy and hung a picture – something we’d talked about for a long time! We also did a ton of reorganization since we were starting from scratch.
Finally hung the picture in the stairway
Ashley neatened her nail products
After all of this, it’s been nice running my own business and taking days off when I need, but there’s been a lot to catch up on. Owen has always loved coding with me, and now he’s back to being the boss!
Owen loves to help me code
Owen loves to help me code
Owen loves to help me code
And Riley is playing on the job.
Riley playing like usual
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading each part of this series. When it first happened, it really was hectic and struck my emotions (as you read in part 1). During was a huge hassle – dealing with all of the paperwork, different contractors, the decisions of what materials to pick was time consuming (although we found that part fun), the time it took to get the construction completed, and being away from our comfortable home and neighborhood. Now that we’ve been back over 3 months – I wouldn’t quite say I’ve forgotten about it, it’s kind of one of those things you’ll never forget – but it’s been really awesome to be back home, to have things organized in a way we’ve been talking about for a while, and to have done some upgrades, like the Ethernet and recessed lighting. It’s really nice to know that Nationwide had our back. Ashley and I also grew closer together. It was a situation that we had to get through whether we liked it or not, and we did a really good job keeping each other calm, trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, working together shopping and staying on top of the construction. We became experts at putting furniture together – Ashley even mastered most of the power tools. It was difficult and I’m definitely glad that chapter of life is over – and that we’re on a new chapter of life with what feels like a new house!
An important lesson we learned is that we really don’t need all of that “stuff” we had piled up. As we unpacked, we threw away a good amount of stuff. We figured if we lived without it for 3 months, then we probably didn’t really need it. There’s a difference between need and want that we had plenty of time to think about. Of course it’s nice to have stuff that you want, but when you boil it all down, you really just need each other and some necessities, like food, a place to sit, some pots, pans dishes, and though TV isn’t a necessity, it’s really part of every day life – especially for us. I think we (as a society) get so nuts about “I need this”, “I gotta have that”, that we end up working way too much and we still feel like we don’t have enough money. For us, the thought into the definition of “enough money” started about 2 years ago when I got fired from my job and almost 6 months to the day, Ashley was let go from hers due to a reorganization. I was extremely determined to not work for someone else again and Nevis Technology has been thriving ever since. I want to do a separate blog post about what we’ve learned with finances through our situations – but, if you’re in that thought bubble of not having enough money, ask yourself do you really need whatever you’re trying to buy, but don’t have enough money to?