Our New Home: T-minus 1 day!

This whole week has been a blur of packing, unpacking, moving boxes, loading and unloading cars and having the most sore shoulders I have ever had, but finally the day is almost here! Tomorrow night all of our furniture will be in our new place and we will have officially moved in. 

I'm not 100% sure where this last month went... I can't believe it's already June 1st this weekend. I'm excited and tired and not looking forward to trying to get settled in, but we have lots of time to get everything right where we want it. 

I can't wait to spend the summer out in the sunshine on our patio with friends and family and enjoy our living space that we've really created from scratch! We still have a few things to buy to finish everything up, but we are definitely close to having everything just as we want it. 

It can't wait for you all to see it! :) 

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: Keys!!

I have been waiting almost 3 weeks to write this post! Yesterday we went up to our new place, signed some rental agreements and GOT OUR KEYS! 

I'm so excited. This is actually the sign that this is real... As if all the boxes and the excessive spending of money wasn't already making it real. If I could frame these keys I would... Except I need them to get into the place so that's probably not a good idea.

We measured and re measured, took some pictures and tried to visualize our new home... It's coming up really fast and we are able to start moving in boxes next week! 

I'm so stoked to move and I can't wait until we are moved in and I can post about something other than packing! 

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: Packing and Pinterest

I've moved many times in my life and packing is not even remotely fun any of the times you have to do it. I'm throwing out as much stuff as possible so I don't have to pack it... It's not really working. 

What I have discovered is that when you're stumped on the best way to pack something, pinterest is rampant with ideas!

I have loved Pinterest for several years, it is especially useful for planning my imaginary wedding, finding awesome DIY projects I'm far too uncoordinated to actually do, and looking at delicious food I'm too lazy to make... But it has actually been super useful for planning my packing! 

I honestly have never packed up by myself before... All the times I've moved in the past I've moved with my mom so I really had no idea where to start. What I did find on Pinterest is somewhat of a schedule that helps sort out what you can pack and survive without for several weeks or only several days. I've been trying to follow the rough schedule... But I have about a months worth of packing to do in 2 weeks so it hasn't been going well. 

I also found some handy tips about the best way to label everything so boxes don't end up in the wrong rooms, and something I never thought of that most people call "Box #1".

Box #1 is pretty much one of the most useful things I've read about in my search for efficient packing. It's basically a box that you label "open first" and it's the essentials to get you through the first night/day before you can get to unpacking all the boxes scattered around. A lot of people pack an overnight type bag with clothes and toiletries, but I didn't really think about other things required for the first night! Most people include the following in Box #1:

Cleaning supplies

Paper plates, cups and napkins

Toilet paper

A shower curtain to shower after a hard day of moving

A couple of towels 

Sheets/bedding 

Cables, remotes and chargers (although phone chargers should probably stay out of boxes and be in purses)

A utility knife for opening boxes

Pens and sharpies 

Pet supplies (if required) 

Honestly, a lot of these things seem super straight forward, but I'm the kind of person who would most likely pack these all in separate boxes without a clue where I put them. 

We are lucky however that we can move boxes slowly, so we shouldn't have too many problems keeping things organized! 

I can't wait to post about getting our keys... Any day now! :)

Blog, and be happy! (And happy long weekend!) 

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home: Furniture shopping.

So... Furniture shopping sucks. 

Well let me clarify, I actually find it kind of fun to go around and sit on different couches and see if I could imagine important things in my life happening on that couch. Really, where else do you live more than your living room? The reality of it is, furniture shopping on a budget for a home that isn't your 'forever home' is pretty exhausting. 

Alex and I definitely have different ideas about what we should have as far as furniture, and how we should lay it out. 

I am the practical type. I like something cozy, something I can snuggle up on, read a book, watch tv, take a nap now and again. I'm not very big so I don't need a 14ft couch... I like things not huge, clean and reasonable. Our suite is big but it's not a mansion... I'm looking at furniture that would be movable to other places we may live in the future.  Example:

Alex is the go big or go home type. He literally likes only the biggest, most ridiculous sectionals in the store because he is a lounger and loves to have as much room as possible to lay across the whole room.   Example: 

You can see why furniture shopping is a challenge. 

We definitely don't see eye to eye on a lot of the stuff we are looking at. We also don't have a 5000$ budget for furnishings either... Trying to keep the shopping at a reasonable price point is also a challenge. Have you been furniture shopping lately? Who knew an ottoman was 400$! 

As we are looking around, we also came to the realization we don't actually know the dimensions of our new home, and that's really thrown us for a loop. Funiture is usually about 3-4 weeks away, and we move in 3 weeks... We can't really wait until the long weekend when we get the keys to measure and decide then! We did some guesstimate work last night and so we hope we can get something that will make us both happy.

Who knew couch shopping was such a chore? 

Blog, and be happy,

Kyleigh. 

Our New Home!

So... I'm sitting here with food poisoning on my day off, watching Dexter and I thought I would write a quick post about some changes in my life... it's been like 6 months since I really sat down and felt the desire to blog about something, but I'm pretty excited so today seems like as good a day as any to write a post!

As most of you probably know already, Alex and I are moving in together! After 4 years we pretty much decided that now was a good time.. so as of June 1st we will be moving up to Westwood Plateau in a beautiful basement suite we just knew we had to have the minute we saw it! The fact that we got it is a whole other thing... We've liked suites before and they have gone to other people but I am SO excited to not have to search Craigslist every other hour looking for new postings... That part of the stress of moving is finally over!

Here are a couple photos to give you an idea of why we are so excited!

The big living room and the door to the bedroom!

The massive kitchen that faces out to our own private little lawn area and patio.

        We actually have two little patio areas outside which will be awesome for the summer.  Maybe we will actually try to have a couple plants around even though I have a super brown thumb and I kill absolutely every plant I come near. It's worth a shot... right? I'm also so looking forward to having people over for dinners or game nights... it'll be so cool to actually have people over instead of always being the ones going over for a change!

So we left the security deposit yesterday, and we get the keys on the Victoria Day long weekend! I'm super excited... but now comes the difficult part.

We need to buy a LOT of furniture. Well... not a lot.. but we don't have a couch and so that now becomes priority #1. We also need kitchen stuff... probably a coat closet of some kinds as there are hardly any closets... probably a rug or two... some side tables....

The list goes on, so the next 3 weekends will probably be spent at Ikea, various other furniture stores... hopefully it will be more fun than stressful, but I'm looking forward to picking out some stuff together and building our little home!

Anyway... I feel absolutely horrible so I'll stop here. I look forward to various new home updates as moving is probably going to take over the next 4-6 weeks of my life!

Blog, and be happy!

Kyleigh.