It's been a long, long time. When the news hasn't been great it was super hard to share progress. There have been so many challenges with our builder and I found writing about the negative just brought me down even more than I already felt.
There was so much to learn about how to keep our designer and builder communicating, most of all to us. But ultimately it was getting our builder to communicate with us. It was like digging through clay. There were huge gaps with us reaching out numerous times to no avail.
The bright side of this is that nearly eight months after our house fire and four months after the demolition of the burnt house we have decided to sell the cleaned up lot (with a useable foundation) and buy a already built house.
Last week we contacted our realtor to list the lot and begin our search. Saturday we looked at 5 houses, drove by about 8 more and think we've found the one. Now we just need to iron out a few details with our insurance company and mortgage company and then we can move on to the next chapter.
I so desperately want to move on and put this behind us. I look forward to start buying the things that fill our home that we want and are ours, not rented.
I will share much more about the process we have experienced and what can be learned from it soon.
Monday, October 1, 2018
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Finally! Finally the house is torn down.
It was a very long time coming. Four months and a day to be exact. And on Tom's birthday.
Finally the house was torn down on June 5th. We practically held our breath all weekend waiting to see if changes were going to be made again. After so many times being told that "it looks like next week we'll get started" and something would come up it is hard to believe that it finally happened.
Some of the delays included a migratory duck affectionately named Phoenix. Migratory birds are federally protected, so we had to delay demo till she hatched her eggs. She chose the back deck in the direct sun as her nesting spot among the debris of the fire and sat diligently on what we discovered as 3 eggs.
Finally the house was torn down on June 5th. We practically held our breath all weekend waiting to see if changes were going to be made again. After so many times being told that "it looks like next week we'll get started" and something would come up it is hard to believe that it finally happened.
Some of the delays included a migratory duck affectionately named Phoenix. Migratory birds are federally protected, so we had to delay demo till she hatched her eggs. She chose the back deck in the direct sun as her nesting spot among the debris of the fire and sat diligently on what we discovered as 3 eggs.
Sadly her two hatchlings didn't make it. Between the extreme hot spell we had and probably the poisons in the nesting material the odds were against her and them.
Then the gas company needed to turn off the gas at the street! Seriously they had only done it at the house initially. Bureaucracy at its best.
Monday night we got confirmation that the demo company had completed staging fencing and silt barriers to prevent stuff from going into the pond and storm drain. So Tuesday morning it was.
We were not even sure what time till that morning and realized that our plan to all be there before heading to work wasn't going to work out because we were told it would start at 10 am.
I got there at 9:30 and they were already chewing away at the house with a giant piece of machinery.
That was truly a surreal morning. Not in a emotional way though. I'm just so relieved that it is finally gone. I can't imagine living near that eyesore for those four months and wondering if it would ever be gone. Don't get me wrong I loved our house, but we are so deep in the redesign that I see the promise of better things, so getting rid of the carcass of that burnt house is a relief.
It was a relief of all of us; Tom, Kyle, Brian (the friend that was with us the night of the fire) and Troy (our host, along with his wife, for our first three displaced weeks) and me happily popped the cork of some champagne and clinked our glasses that evening in celebration before going out for dinner for Tom's birthday.
The slab got cleaned off by Wednesday night. The demo guys were meticulous and have provided a clean slate for true measurements to be made for the designer/architects and for inspectors to determine how much of the foundation can be used and what needs to be replaced. Generally it looks pretty good to me, but there are some things that are broken. Luckily there are no major cracks in the slab that I could see. I'm sure we'll hear about the nitty gritty details in the coming weeks.
With those measurements we'll be able to get more specific about things with the layout of rooms and where windows will fit etc in the design phase, which I imagine will kick up a notch soon.
It's been an exciting week.
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Let's get this party started
Yes, we are still alive and kicking and No, I haven't forgotten the blog. Absolutely nothing has happened over the last three weeks. Well, I fib. We have met with the designer after a painful lapse of communication and we learned he's be drawing! In the meantime we've been living our lives as normally as we can.
Flowers are blooming much slower this year and with a snow storm in mid April that covered the ground with 15 inches we still hadn't found our bulbs popping up. In fact we went to the house the last weekend of April expecting to see some greenery in the bulb bed and saw nothing. Of course I have no patience for that, so we dug and recovered about two dozen bulbs, some even still had ice around them, that were transplanted to a window box and are doing beautifully with full southern exposure at the townhouse.
We also have started meeting with the designer and visualizing our floor plan and talking about our use of space. Oddly enough the most difficult room to lay out so far was the mud room. That's probably because we want a mudroom on steroids. Having such a large garage it makes more sense to put the mudroom door more centrally located than on the far side, like we had before. Also the bathroom access will be from the mudroom and the laundry area will be partitioned off, but in that area. This all is because when you have folks that work in the garage, like Tom does, you don't want them traipsing around the house to get to things or drag their dirty clothes up to hampers in the bedroom. On the inside between the mudroom and kitchen we will have a lovely pocket door.
Placement of the laundry room is a heated discussion among many people, it appears. What I have learned is that most want it closest to run easily and manage the collection and distribution of the laundry. So that makes having it near your bedrooms, right? The consequences is that you hear the machines run while in your bedroom and perpetually have laundry on your bed. We decided to keep the machines far from the bedrooms and closest to where the dirtiest laundry is produced: the garage and kitchen.
Then we tackled basic design, not down in the weeds details, but very basic design of the kitchen. This is where things get interesting. Kitchens are primarily designed to store stuff and prepare meals with the stored stuff. So... if you lost all your stuff in a fire then you don't have it to put in cabinets and therefore you can save a ton of money by not wallpapering your kitchen with cabinets. This is where most people I talk to ask about resell. What an interesting way of deciding how you want to live in your house. Design it so you can sell it rather than how you want to live in it. We've learned that the expensive cabinets are the ones hanging on the wall. We won't have many. I'm sure I'll have lots to share about this when we get in the weeds of kitchen design.
Our old house had a tiny master bathroom. The new house will have a lovely bathroom suite with a tub, new to us!, a doorless shower (no glass cleaning) and a toilet in a closet, so to speak. That way the bathroom can be used while the toilet is being used by someone else. In addition to making the bathroom worthy of being part of a master bedroom we are pushing the bedroom over the garage making it larger too.
Roof lines. When you hire a designer you get some interesting proposals and roof lines is our first introduction to that. We are staying more traditional but need to decide between gable and hip and using standing seam accents. Yep, a whole new vocabulary is becoming part of our lives. I won't go into details but will share that we are not brave enough to just have a very modern flat roof, even though it will cost less.
One more item having to do with looking back. I will preface that our insurance company and experience has been fantastic about everything except the loss of our '71 VW squareback. That darn thing has been a thorn. First of all an adjuster insisted on coming out to look at it and the VIN to verify its demise. We explained that the VIN plate was destroyed and it's a heap of scorched metal, which didn't matter. Now we are having to coordinate the insurance's hauler with the house demo company to retrieve the carcass of the car so it can go to a scrap yard. My only thought is that there was someone sometime that took their car carcass and made it a new car after collecting insurance money. What a pain.
Speaking of demo. It's being scheduled! I'm sure our neighborhood is so excited. Yes, the party is actually getting started. We meet with an entourage of people, which includes our builder, his project manager and the demo company rep on Wednesday to make a plan. We've been told that now that road restrictions have been lifted by MNDot, Dakota County and the city of Farmington that dumpsters can be staged and will be deliverd on Monday, May 14, maybe Tuesday... it seems like this operating on estimated dates all the time is common place. I feel like I'm in perpetual "manana", like you hear about when you are on vacation south of the border.
We also meet with the designer again this Thursday and get to discuss other room designs. I look forward to his concepts and reception of our tweaks. It was a very positive experience last time. He got super excited when we talked about a "coffee station". We also have to sit down with the builder and hash out cost and prioritize how we want to spend our money. We aren't bringing more to the table than the insurance, so we have a tight budget.
Hopefully as things start getting going I will have more to say about the process and share some fun new vocabulary and insights. Just a reminder: check your homeowner policies for Loss of Use so you too can be sitting on a patio drinking coffee while waiting for your house to be built if this crazy path should ever unfortunately come your way.
Flowers are blooming much slower this year and with a snow storm in mid April that covered the ground with 15 inches we still hadn't found our bulbs popping up. In fact we went to the house the last weekend of April expecting to see some greenery in the bulb bed and saw nothing. Of course I have no patience for that, so we dug and recovered about two dozen bulbs, some even still had ice around them, that were transplanted to a window box and are doing beautifully with full southern exposure at the townhouse.
We also have started meeting with the designer and visualizing our floor plan and talking about our use of space. Oddly enough the most difficult room to lay out so far was the mud room. That's probably because we want a mudroom on steroids. Having such a large garage it makes more sense to put the mudroom door more centrally located than on the far side, like we had before. Also the bathroom access will be from the mudroom and the laundry area will be partitioned off, but in that area. This all is because when you have folks that work in the garage, like Tom does, you don't want them traipsing around the house to get to things or drag their dirty clothes up to hampers in the bedroom. On the inside between the mudroom and kitchen we will have a lovely pocket door.
Placement of the laundry room is a heated discussion among many people, it appears. What I have learned is that most want it closest to run easily and manage the collection and distribution of the laundry. So that makes having it near your bedrooms, right? The consequences is that you hear the machines run while in your bedroom and perpetually have laundry on your bed. We decided to keep the machines far from the bedrooms and closest to where the dirtiest laundry is produced: the garage and kitchen.
Then we tackled basic design, not down in the weeds details, but very basic design of the kitchen. This is where things get interesting. Kitchens are primarily designed to store stuff and prepare meals with the stored stuff. So... if you lost all your stuff in a fire then you don't have it to put in cabinets and therefore you can save a ton of money by not wallpapering your kitchen with cabinets. This is where most people I talk to ask about resell. What an interesting way of deciding how you want to live in your house. Design it so you can sell it rather than how you want to live in it. We've learned that the expensive cabinets are the ones hanging on the wall. We won't have many. I'm sure I'll have lots to share about this when we get in the weeds of kitchen design.
Our old house had a tiny master bathroom. The new house will have a lovely bathroom suite with a tub, new to us!, a doorless shower (no glass cleaning) and a toilet in a closet, so to speak. That way the bathroom can be used while the toilet is being used by someone else. In addition to making the bathroom worthy of being part of a master bedroom we are pushing the bedroom over the garage making it larger too.
Roof lines. When you hire a designer you get some interesting proposals and roof lines is our first introduction to that. We are staying more traditional but need to decide between gable and hip and using standing seam accents. Yep, a whole new vocabulary is becoming part of our lives. I won't go into details but will share that we are not brave enough to just have a very modern flat roof, even though it will cost less.
One more item having to do with looking back. I will preface that our insurance company and experience has been fantastic about everything except the loss of our '71 VW squareback. That darn thing has been a thorn. First of all an adjuster insisted on coming out to look at it and the VIN to verify its demise. We explained that the VIN plate was destroyed and it's a heap of scorched metal, which didn't matter. Now we are having to coordinate the insurance's hauler with the house demo company to retrieve the carcass of the car so it can go to a scrap yard. My only thought is that there was someone sometime that took their car carcass and made it a new car after collecting insurance money. What a pain.
Speaking of demo. It's being scheduled! I'm sure our neighborhood is so excited. Yes, the party is actually getting started. We meet with an entourage of people, which includes our builder, his project manager and the demo company rep on Wednesday to make a plan. We've been told that now that road restrictions have been lifted by MNDot, Dakota County and the city of Farmington that dumpsters can be staged and will be deliverd on Monday, May 14, maybe Tuesday... it seems like this operating on estimated dates all the time is common place. I feel like I'm in perpetual "manana", like you hear about when you are on vacation south of the border.
We also meet with the designer again this Thursday and get to discuss other room designs. I look forward to his concepts and reception of our tweaks. It was a very positive experience last time. He got super excited when we talked about a "coffee station". We also have to sit down with the builder and hash out cost and prioritize how we want to spend our money. We aren't bringing more to the table than the insurance, so we have a tight budget.
Hopefully as things start getting going I will have more to say about the process and share some fun new vocabulary and insights. Just a reminder: check your homeowner policies for Loss of Use so you too can be sitting on a patio drinking coffee while waiting for your house to be built if this crazy path should ever unfortunately come your way.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
The "lull" is almost over
This has been such a painfully slow process. Waiting on bids from demo companies and getting permits to get the dumpsters there and whatever else needs to happen before it all really starts to happen. Now we find out that the movement of the demo'd house may be an issue as we move from frost leaving the ground and the area becoming mush. Ugh, that spring mush is so horrible. I hate just walking on the grass when the ground starts to warm. It won't prevent the demo, but it will slow the removal down because the dumpsters can't be too heavy for the roads. Even the ground under the pavement gets mushy. What crazy things we are learning.
In the meantime, life is becoming what would be considered as normal. Except for those days that I find myself completely fall apart. Luckily that doesn't happen very often. I am pretty sure what triggered a recent crash was after spending a fantastic weekend on my own, while Tom and Kyle went to get my father's car from Florida. I accomplished so many things over the weekend, hung out with friends, Paraded some houses with a bestie, ate awesome meals where and when I wanted (ie the couch at 9 pm) and purchased fun things to continue to make the townhouse our home.
I was convinced that my tulip bed would be starting to peek out and swung by the house Sunday late afternoon with new garden tools in hand. I realized as I was driving there that I hadn't been in weeks and was feeling anxious. Sadly there was still about 4" of snow on my flower beds, but I'm ready with potting soil and planter boxes when the snow melts away and allows those flower buds to begin to peek out.
While there I walked around and was shook by seeing the house. I even caught myself looking in through a window and feeling like I would have seen one of the kitties in the house looking out at me wondering why I was outside. Not like ghost kitty, just one of those moments that you remember about how they would sit there silently meowing at me because I was outside and they weren't. That in itself didn't make me emotional, it just nicked at my heart.
The next day Tom and I sat down to cross reference the receipts we've been racking up against the paper copy of all the things that have been itemized in our loss list. That task was impossible for me. I felt like I was accomplishing nothing, treading water swirling in an eddy. I know how to do that kind of stuff. I get it. But it was unbearable. Gloves, we bought gloves... where are the gloves on the list... what is their number? Cross reference the list of all the things, so many things. Lost. Gone.
The simple question "how are you?" or "how are you doing?" It has such a different meaning to me now. That was brought to my attention not too long ago by a friend that lost a parent. It rings so tru for me now too. We don't really ask that question expecting much more than the answer "fine". But when things aren't fine how do you answer the question. I would never want anyone to not ask, but I need to be prepared with how to answer, to share how I truly am without burdening the casual question but also how to share with those that really want to know.
The painful list has been downloaded digitally, so the process will become easier. Luckily there is not a timeline for that and it's OK to take evenings off and just enjoy time to relax. This next week can't go by fast enough. We've been told that demo should start next Thursday...8 days and counting. If all goes well.
In the meantime, life is becoming what would be considered as normal. Except for those days that I find myself completely fall apart. Luckily that doesn't happen very often. I am pretty sure what triggered a recent crash was after spending a fantastic weekend on my own, while Tom and Kyle went to get my father's car from Florida. I accomplished so many things over the weekend, hung out with friends, Paraded some houses with a bestie, ate awesome meals where and when I wanted (ie the couch at 9 pm) and purchased fun things to continue to make the townhouse our home.
I was convinced that my tulip bed would be starting to peek out and swung by the house Sunday late afternoon with new garden tools in hand. I realized as I was driving there that I hadn't been in weeks and was feeling anxious. Sadly there was still about 4" of snow on my flower beds, but I'm ready with potting soil and planter boxes when the snow melts away and allows those flower buds to begin to peek out.
While there I walked around and was shook by seeing the house. I even caught myself looking in through a window and feeling like I would have seen one of the kitties in the house looking out at me wondering why I was outside. Not like ghost kitty, just one of those moments that you remember about how they would sit there silently meowing at me because I was outside and they weren't. That in itself didn't make me emotional, it just nicked at my heart.
The next day Tom and I sat down to cross reference the receipts we've been racking up against the paper copy of all the things that have been itemized in our loss list. That task was impossible for me. I felt like I was accomplishing nothing, treading water swirling in an eddy. I know how to do that kind of stuff. I get it. But it was unbearable. Gloves, we bought gloves... where are the gloves on the list... what is their number? Cross reference the list of all the things, so many things. Lost. Gone.
The simple question "how are you?" or "how are you doing?" It has such a different meaning to me now. That was brought to my attention not too long ago by a friend that lost a parent. It rings so tru for me now too. We don't really ask that question expecting much more than the answer "fine". But when things aren't fine how do you answer the question. I would never want anyone to not ask, but I need to be prepared with how to answer, to share how I truly am without burdening the casual question but also how to share with those that really want to know.
The painful list has been downloaded digitally, so the process will become easier. Luckily there is not a timeline for that and it's OK to take evenings off and just enjoy time to relax. This next week can't go by fast enough. We've been told that demo should start next Thursday...8 days and counting. If all goes well.
Monday, March 5, 2018
Stil waiting mode... not so patiently
I can't believe 10 days have flown by since I last posted and that we moved into the townhouse. We've really settled in and done our best to make it a home. We continue to do so, with a few plants in a window display and a freezer full of Schwan's delivery thanks to our amazing delivery guy. We are outside of his area, but he's figured a gap in his schedule to make sure he doesn't lose us as a customer for a year.
It drives me crazy that the house is just sitting there being all burned and destroyed and with snow or rain in it. Even though there is nothing else we could want to take out it just seem miserable that it's wide open to the elements. Thankfully we are meeting with the contractor tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping the demo will be coming soon. I'm sure there are permits required, but dumpsters need to start showing up and emptying it out! Can you even imagine what that fridge will be like! Yes, it's going to the dump, but GROSS! Thankfully it's cold so the place doesn't stink.
Work is going well. I'm close to being caught up on data entry and pulling acknowledgement letters. Some stragglers haunt me, but I'll get them under control soon. The staff at the zoo could not be more amazing with making sure we are settled into our home. It's crazy things like a bread pan! A bread pan showed up today in the hands of a lovely woman that I've gotten to know even better because I joined a group of folks I knew well enough to say hi to for lunch last week and now my circle of friends has expanded even more.
The mail is amazing too, when we make it to the PO Box. We've yet had anything delivered to us at the townhouse. Blake's support system has reached out to make sure he doesn't feel the stress of worrying about his family by sending us cards and care packages. It makes us feel so good to know that he has people where his that are just as caring as the support systems we have here.
I've just about mastered getting the Scrip cards ordered as I'm checking out to a science. There is no point in us spending money to replace the things we need to move forward without it benefitting someone. We are setting up an office space in one of the bedrooms to get all our paperwork organized and start a dream station. Since we are in a rental I hesitate to put bulletin boards on the wall, so we've pushed a sheet of plywood behind the desk, taped cork board up on it and with a handful of pushpins we are armed and dangerous.
We went through about a dozen homes with the Parade of Homes this past weekend and are starting to see things that we can dream about, like a stove top separate from the double oven, and somethings that we are truly amazed why anyone would do "that"! I'm sorry but a laundry room on the far end of the master bathroom!!! Um, NO!
Some things we've learned... Property taxes need to still be paid. With the fire report, proving the date that we lost the ability to occupy the house and then when we are allowed to move back in we will be given a declaration of occupancy we will get reimbursed for those months of property tax. That is a bummer, but it is what it is.
The adjuster authorized a preliminary check to be cut and I about freaked when I opened that envelope. The check was made out to us and the mortgage company, so we sent it off to be held in escrow to be available distributed as the house gets torn down and built up. I'm ready for that step to start. I want my neighborhood to see something start happening.
It drives me crazy that the house is just sitting there being all burned and destroyed and with snow or rain in it. Even though there is nothing else we could want to take out it just seem miserable that it's wide open to the elements. Thankfully we are meeting with the contractor tomorrow afternoon and I'm hoping the demo will be coming soon. I'm sure there are permits required, but dumpsters need to start showing up and emptying it out! Can you even imagine what that fridge will be like! Yes, it's going to the dump, but GROSS! Thankfully it's cold so the place doesn't stink.
Work is going well. I'm close to being caught up on data entry and pulling acknowledgement letters. Some stragglers haunt me, but I'll get them under control soon. The staff at the zoo could not be more amazing with making sure we are settled into our home. It's crazy things like a bread pan! A bread pan showed up today in the hands of a lovely woman that I've gotten to know even better because I joined a group of folks I knew well enough to say hi to for lunch last week and now my circle of friends has expanded even more.
The mail is amazing too, when we make it to the PO Box. We've yet had anything delivered to us at the townhouse. Blake's support system has reached out to make sure he doesn't feel the stress of worrying about his family by sending us cards and care packages. It makes us feel so good to know that he has people where his that are just as caring as the support systems we have here.
I've just about mastered getting the Scrip cards ordered as I'm checking out to a science. There is no point in us spending money to replace the things we need to move forward without it benefitting someone. We are setting up an office space in one of the bedrooms to get all our paperwork organized and start a dream station. Since we are in a rental I hesitate to put bulletin boards on the wall, so we've pushed a sheet of plywood behind the desk, taped cork board up on it and with a handful of pushpins we are armed and dangerous.
We went through about a dozen homes with the Parade of Homes this past weekend and are starting to see things that we can dream about, like a stove top separate from the double oven, and somethings that we are truly amazed why anyone would do "that"! I'm sorry but a laundry room on the far end of the master bathroom!!! Um, NO!
Some things we've learned... Property taxes need to still be paid. With the fire report, proving the date that we lost the ability to occupy the house and then when we are allowed to move back in we will be given a declaration of occupancy we will get reimbursed for those months of property tax. That is a bummer, but it is what it is.
The adjuster authorized a preliminary check to be cut and I about freaked when I opened that envelope. The check was made out to us and the mortgage company, so we sent it off to be held in escrow to be available distributed as the house gets torn down and built up. I'm ready for that step to start. I want my neighborhood to see something start happening.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Settling in: shopping and cooking
We slept in our townhouse Friday night, rather than staying at host house#2. Kyle ended up working late that night and Tom and I went out to dinner with Brian. Other than the fact that we had no food at our house there was no excuse not to stay there, wifi be damned. I should check into upping the data on our phones for the month.
Saturday we hit the ground running: chiro, bank, furniture store for a rug I saw on clearance the night before. I am of the philosophy, if it is still there the next day it was meant to be, especially dice I had a few cocktails with dinner. It was.
Then we went to Home Depot armed with a Scrip ecard, lunch delivery for Kyle at work, because the groceries don't show up on their own, and then Post Office, where we missed the moody postal workers by 15 minutes. Boxes will have to be picked up on Monday. Next we shopped for mattresses at the high school fund raiser and walked away with a great deal.
After dropping Tom and Brian off in St Paul for a beer outing I did some speed shopping at Ikea. I was grateful to be on my own. Speed shopping is better done on your own. My cart was overflowing of many little things that turn a house into a home like flatware sorter, bathroom rug and such.
By this time the snow storm was really settling in, but the Yukon continued to handle it well. A quick speed shopping run through Cub Foods then I headed home to make the first meal in the townhouse, unload the truck and figure out where things should go.
A kitchen without a pantry perplexes me. It has been a long time since I used regular cabinets as a pantry. That takes some serious organization skills. Assembling cube shelving was next on the agenda. I really need to buy some wine!
The evening ended with the three of us finally in our new home, food in the kitchen and stomachs and some decor making it or own.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
Sigh of Relief
This week things started coming together, except for me keeping up with work that is. Work will come together soon. I couldn't ask for a better team of co-workers with regards to work or emotional support. I recently joined the Foundation team full time, but have been with them part time and temp for a few years, and the Zoo team has been phenomenal too.
We've had meetings with two contractors and were blown away, positively, by one. Both are recommended, preferred contractors with our insurance company, USAA. We'll follow up with USAA and set up conversations with a few families that have been through this to make sure our heads are in the right place before we commit to one of the restoration contractor companies.
Tonight is our last night with our host family, who have graciously enveloped us into their lives. I will miss having the support system right there, but am acutely aware that the bonds we've strengthened are only a phone call away.
Today was a landmark day. Furniture was delivered to our rental townhouse. The two guys that brought the furniture were so very nice and polite. The company is used by the placement company, who is contracted by USAA. I learned that they frequently are furnishing homes for families that are displaced and I could tell that they probably had been trained on some sensitivity. Not that I was emotional, you know me, but they just were so kind asking about furniture placement and such.
We aren't staying in the townhouse tonight because we have no food... not even food that goes on food (inside joke) and we have no Wifi! I know it's a bit ridiculously privileged, but there is a ton of emails and stuff we are doing on our phones hourly that I really don't want to eat into our data, not to mention blogging, Netflix and facebook Oh! My!
A full day of work is on the schedule for tomorrow, spending the night at host family #2 because they've generously offered their empty house for the night. Did I mention Wifi? Saturday we get to finish moving into the townhouse and grocery shop, so much grocery shopping, and hit the mattress fundraiser at the high school. The boys' high school is doing a fund raiser for nice quality mattresses.
The mattresses we got from the rental company are nice, but why not replace our mattresses and help the school now rather than in 9 months. We'll see if it is a wise decision now. I am also reserving the right to not make this decision too because I realize large expensive commitments are not the wisest move at this point in our lives
I've also been in contact with our Schwan's frozen food delivery guy that we've know for probably close to12 years and he's making a delivery next week. I don't even think our new address is in his route area, but he's amazing and will swing by.
Progress. A big sigh of relief as we move to the next stage. Next on the agenda is to dream about house design, layout and affordability. When is the Parade of Homes?
We've had meetings with two contractors and were blown away, positively, by one. Both are recommended, preferred contractors with our insurance company, USAA. We'll follow up with USAA and set up conversations with a few families that have been through this to make sure our heads are in the right place before we commit to one of the restoration contractor companies.
Tonight is our last night with our host family, who have graciously enveloped us into their lives. I will miss having the support system right there, but am acutely aware that the bonds we've strengthened are only a phone call away.
Today was a landmark day. Furniture was delivered to our rental townhouse. The two guys that brought the furniture were so very nice and polite. The company is used by the placement company, who is contracted by USAA. I learned that they frequently are furnishing homes for families that are displaced and I could tell that they probably had been trained on some sensitivity. Not that I was emotional, you know me, but they just were so kind asking about furniture placement and such.
We aren't staying in the townhouse tonight because we have no food... not even food that goes on food (inside joke) and we have no Wifi! I know it's a bit ridiculously privileged, but there is a ton of emails and stuff we are doing on our phones hourly that I really don't want to eat into our data, not to mention blogging, Netflix and facebook Oh! My!
A full day of work is on the schedule for tomorrow, spending the night at host family #2 because they've generously offered their empty house for the night. Did I mention Wifi? Saturday we get to finish moving into the townhouse and grocery shop, so much grocery shopping, and hit the mattress fundraiser at the high school. The boys' high school is doing a fund raiser for nice quality mattresses.
The mattresses we got from the rental company are nice, but why not replace our mattresses and help the school now rather than in 9 months. We'll see if it is a wise decision now. I am also reserving the right to not make this decision too because I realize large expensive commitments are not the wisest move at this point in our lives
I've also been in contact with our Schwan's frozen food delivery guy that we've know for probably close to12 years and he's making a delivery next week. I don't even think our new address is in his route area, but he's amazing and will swing by.
Progress. A big sigh of relief as we move to the next stage. Next on the agenda is to dream about house design, layout and affordability. When is the Parade of Homes?
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