Well, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, but I have been busy.
Let me start with the move from hell. My only advice is that if you are doing a multi state move, do the following:
- Hire people to do everything for you. Even if you are getting rid of most of your furniture and think you can pack and move yourself, you are wrong.
- Leave the toddler with your parents while you finish packing and moving. Or at least take him on a plane with you so he doesn't have to endure the ride after watching everything he knows and loves get packed into a moving truck. (It wasn't that terrible, but it certainly would have been easier on all of us.)
My siblings did leave us some nice welcome gifts as surprises!
A tower of household items and a Dahlia plant
The world's biggest teddy bear that my son loves!
The day we moved in....
- We had movers come and unload the truck. Saved my sanity because we were all tired from packing the truck and driving across 4 states the day and night before.
- Our landscaping got put in (The exterior paint touch up and caulking have had to wait because of this - don't want the scaffolding to mess up the sod. Expect to get an update from our PM on Monday.)
- I had Guardian come out and set up the system. Would have been fine, but a couple of the fire alarms got wired incorrectly so after 6 hours and replacing them with battery powered alarms (rather than tearing down the drywall), we had our security system up and running.
- Cable guy came and set up cable, phone and internet.
The next day, I tried to get my kitchen as functional as possible:
Before
After
Command Center
As of today, I also now have my roman shades up in the morning room and 95% of my curtains up throughout the house.
Baby's room is basically unpacked (still need wall decor)
I'll post more pictures of the house as we get settled, get furniture, and get things put away.
Side Note - Ryan Homes customer service has been awesome. We have had one problem with our dishwasher where water dripped out while it was running. It is an issue with how the door sits and that it can move from side to side. Our PM made an adjustment and told us to continue watching it. If it continues, he will replace it.