Our New Home: Misadventures and Gratitude

We’re all moved into the new house and about halfway through the unpacking process. We’re still surrounded by boxes and everything is generally a mess, but we’re happy to finally be here and getting settled. These past few weeks have been quite a roller coaster of emotions. I won’t bore you just yet with all of the ups and downs that took place during the actual process of purchasing of our home, but I will let you in on what a crazy week we have had.

(P.S. This is what the kitchen looked like on Day 1.)

First, the misadventures:

• We couldn’t get the water turned on in our home as we were moving in. We were told by the seller that all we had to do was turn it on at the street and we’d be good to go. Wrong. Finally after searching high and low, my father in-law found a hidden valve in a dark corner of our basement, near the ceiling. You couldn’t see it without a flashlight, and it took forever to find. We finally got it turned on.. but…
• We couldn’t get the pilot light on the water heater lit. My husband and his dad followed the instructions on the tank but it literally would not light. I texted our realtor who called the seller’s agent who called her “winterization guy” or whoever the person was who winterized the home for her. There was a reset button on the tank that just refused to be pushed all the way, but finally after messing with it long enough, they got it lit. It just took forever and we really thought we might be without hot water for a while.
• We smelled gas in the kitchen coming from the vents on the floor. We had to immediately have our furnace fixed (cha-ching).
• The pipes burst at our old house during Atlanta’s snowmageddon just two days before we were planning on turning over the keys. Luckily we had already moved out, but seriously?

But, I am thankful. So, so very thankful, because:

• My in-laws helped us with the move, and even though we hired movers, we couldn’t have survived without them!
• We have hot water.
• Our furnace is fixed and doesn’t pose a threat to our family.
• Our family and our belongings were moved out of our old house literally a couple of days before the pipes burst. If it was going to happen, it happened at the best possible time. Our landlord’s insurance will cover the damages.
• We did not get stranded during snowmageddon. I picked Aiden up from school at the beginning of the storm and got home safely. Chris opted to work from home that day and thank goodness he did. I saw several car accidents on my way home from the school, including an overturned car. I am so thankful that we all got home safely, and my thoughts and prayers were with those who were stranded on the roads or in schools, etc.

It was actually kind of nice to be snowed in for a few days. I got a chance to spend some quality time with my boys, and it forced us to focus on unpacking and getting stuff done around here since we couldn’t get out and do anything else.

We’ve made a little bit of progress, but so far the most progress has been made in Chris’ office. If you follow me on Instagram then you’ve seen that this room is our dog Indy’s favorite place to hang out. (I’m guessing it’s the soft rug and ample sunlight.) Still a lot to do, but here it is so far:

We have no window treatments in the house yet so I’ve been forced to improvise.

Yes, that would be a towel hanging from Command hooks in our master bathroom.

This week we are having our basement waterproofed (more on that later) and I’ll be working on getting everything else unpacked and put away. The boys got a head start on unpacking the playroom and it looks like a toy factory exploded — but then again, that’s nothing new. Can’t wait to share more progress with you very soon!

Did the polar vortex hit your hometown? Were you slammed by snowmageddon? Hope none of you were stranded!

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Thanks for visiting!

-Erin