Saw IV
Transforming Moving Woes into Creative Solutions
Have you ever faced a moving day surprise or a furniture assembly fiasco? Whether abroad or at home, I want to hear your clever fixes and stories!
I’ll go first…
My apologies for another gap in the news but we’ve been hard at work assembling furniture and then recycling the insane amount of cardboard in which it came. But we’re in our more permanent place now and my back is finally feeling better from the hours spent on the floor screwing and cam locking things together.
As it happens, I have a bit of astigmatism that impacts my depth perception. I’m using that as an excuse for the fact that I’m not very good at measuring things and often assume they’ll be fine only to be crippled by the laws of physics. As a costumer, it was a consistent issue and there are twenty four pairs of ill-fitting pajamas at Rose State College to prove it. When I was living by myself, the not measuring furniture never seemed to be a problem because I had cheap stuff that I mostly abandoned when moving. I still think about a chair I left behind in Oklahoma…
While my body reminds me that I’m not twenty any more, William and I are seasoned at relocation. Besides my years on tour, I’ve lived in five different states and together, we’ve lived in two more. We first met on a “dating” app that caters to gay men, spending something like seven hours messaging before he said he had to get up early for a flight back to Alaska. I’d heard of brushoffs but that one took the cake…until the next afternoon when I got a picture of the puddle jumper that carried him from Anchorage to Kodiak Island.
To move in together, he came back to the continental US and I drove to the next county where we secured a tiny one bedroom apartment. Fresh from my years of extended stay hotels and corporate rentals, I had big plans for furnishing the place and a pot of savings set aside for “adult things” like dishes that weren’t bought at CVS or free cups given away at restaurants. I drew a scale map, scoured the internet for ideas, and PACKED that space full of everything it could possibly hold. I now shudder to think of how cramped it was, but we were newly in love and he still proposed.
At the time, I was working at Macy’s selling women’s apparel (the closest thing to a “career match” for a theatrical wardrobe professional) and I remember eyeing the housewares and kitchen implements “supposed” to go into a home. I wasn’t much of a cook, but I felt like a wedding registry was a chance to “catch up” on the things that I’d never acquired being a nomad. I wasn’t aware enough of the stuff of “real life” to make mindful decisions about what we asked our friends and family to give us, though I appreciated their generosity all the same.
Not long after our marriage, we made our first move together from Minnesota to DelMarVa where William had lived on more than one occasion. We hired an actual moving company since our new place was on the 19th floor. I suspect there are a pair of movers who still bristle at the memory of carrying our queen-sized sleeper sofa up all those flights of stairs since it was too large to fit into the elevators…sorry, I have astigmatism!
Rather like Goldilocks, we tried two familiar beds and, finding them not fitting, decided we were ready for a place neither of us had any history. After not falling in love with Burlington, VT, we scouted apartments in Manchester, NH. Securing one, we didn’t use “movers” per se but instead local day labor to load the truck we rented…after thinking ahead and taking the sleeper portion out of the sofa. We needn’t have bothered: our oversized red sofa with the chaise ottoman was too large to make the corner leading into our new apartment.
William was probably always meant to be Dutch since he suggested using a pulley to raise it up to the second story and bring it in through the sliding patio door, but some raised eyebrows from the hired crew disabused us of that notion. Instead, we bought our first handsaw and said goodbye to the sofa, slipping pieces into the dumpster over weeks…although we held onto the cushions until the new furniture arrived.
From that small two-bedroom apartment, we purchased our first home. After years of apartment living, having three floors and a yard was incredible! We bought a very large gray corner sofa that was modular and therefore far more flexible for future relocation—see how well I learned my lesson? I’m fairly certain we bought a saw there too, but I can’t think of what it was for except maybe to cut away the weedy overgrowth left from the previous owner’s laziness.
Full-fledged guncles to a brood of niblings, we made the choice to move back to Minnesota during the height of the coronavirus pandemic after William was furloughed and my remote job said moving wouldn’t be an issue (except for leaving NH’s no income tax behind). We bought a home sight unseen (except for the video tour from our incredible realtor who also visited a couple of real stinkers on our behalf). After loading our furniture into one of those pod-type containers, we planned our route carefully and drove across the country, arriving just in time for a final walkthrough the day of closing…
We loved our last house despite our utter distaste for the petty tyranny of the HOA. An older home, the sheetrock struggled to hold anything weighing more than a few ounces and drank paint by the gallon. Reinforcing all the wall art was one thing, but I had dreams of a hanging rack for the pots and pans since the kitchen had maybe four cabinets. I even measured to make sure the rack I ordered would fit…only to be crestfallen when it wouldn’t stay in the wall!
Seasoned adapters, we bought our third handsaw which I used to cut the shiplap once after I measured thrice and I am proud to say that rack stayed in place until we sold the house!
When we began the process of moving overseas, we knew it was highly unlikely we’d bring much, if any, of the furniture we’d amassed in our dozen plus years together. By then, we’d replaced our gray sofa with a gorgeous custom-made one which I kept hoping would make the trip with us. It was built in Asia and made its way over to the US on a ship (a process that took longer than gestating a human) so why not send it on another voyage? A few quotes for moving services quickly changed my mind and I’m glad to say our lovely celadon sofa now provides comfort for my brother and his entire family…including the dog.
Paring down our possessions, we researched options for “moving” our seven boxes but they proved equally as outlandish as if we’d brought the bed, couch, and Subaru along, so we settled on the US Postal Service. To the agency’s credit, our stuff showed up within the first two weeks, long before we had a proper place to deliver them. At first, we thought we might pilfer a few things out of them, but after seeing the size of our temporary rental and realizing what a schlep it would be…
If you’ve never read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, I highly recommend it. I haven’t seen the HBO adaptation since I read the book before the pandemic and had no interest in revisiting afterwards. Without too many spoilers, there’s a virus that wipes out life as we know it and the “before times” end up memorialized in the “Museum of Civilization,” featuring all the items from unclaimed luggage abandoned at what was once an airport. In the world of the story, these seemingly commonplace and everyday objects are strange reminders of a life from another era.
Our own personal time capsules, neither William nor I remembered exactly what was in those boxes and it honestly felt like a journey of discovery when I opened them. I knew I had packed my running gear, certain I would be ready to hit the streets as soon as they arrived…I haven’t and am still in my bathrobe at 4 PM. Instead, when I opened the boxes, it was to find the cat food dishes William was certain we had packed because Guillermo and Bear are snobs who did not like the €0,99 plastic ones we bought on arrival.
In the period living between our Rotterdam rental and our new home in The Hague, we made excellent use of the floor plans conveniently available on the apartment listing to plan our purchases. Our trip to IKEA was mostly to take pictures of the Swedish names of things we liked so we could confirm they would fit in the space once we were back at our computers. For someone who was not good at properly measuring things to begin with, converting everything to the metric system is an utter mind fuck…can that be blamed on astigmatism?
After the ceremony of the keys, we went out to find ourselves a proper bed (the Rotterdam one folded like a taco when you climbed in) and a new couch. We probably paid too much for our faux leather sectional with the chaise and electric recliner…but it comes in three pieces! In a model of Dutch efficiency, both items were purchased on a Monday and delivered exactly at their appointed times on Wednesday. Friday brought our truckload of an IKEA delivery which included not only rugs, lamps, dishes, and a bed frame but also a clothes dryer.
There are a lot of things we are glad to adapt to in this new country, but the possibility of damp sheets when ready for bedtime was not one of them!
In addition to my astigmatism, it seems I have a heretofore undiscovered form of IKEA-based dyslexia. Their manuals have fairly decent instructions that use side-by-side images to show you the “right” and “wrong” ways to orient a particular part of your bed frame or nightstand. No matter the amount of sleep, double-checking, or self-chastising I did, for every piece I built, I inevitably needed to double back when I had proceeded with the clearly labeled “wrong” way.
Nearly everything we bought and assembled also came with brackets to mount them to the wall. Don’t tell IKEA, but our place has concrete walls that we’re not allowed to drill into. Similarly, I’m very confused by why they warn you that everything can tip over if you climb on it. I may be bad at eyeballing measurements, but I don’t believe it is possible for me to end up crushed by a two foot tall entertainment center…
Despite the challenges of reading in metric and converting to imperial so we understand the relative size of a thing, everything we purchased fit nicely in the rooms of our new home. Since the bulk of it came in flat packages we tore open, there wasn’t much of a challenge to get things through the door though I somehow pulled a glute shoving the mattress up our new stairs, mercifully not as narrow as some we’ve ascended.
When I finally opened our boxes, I kept thinking about the Museum of Civilization and remarking at some of the things we’d kept and wondering why we’d let some others go. It’s funny how some of the things we agonized over selecting were long gone while others I don’t specifically remember acquiring made their way to our new side of the world. Placing the decorative objects and our collection of magnets from our travels certainly helps the place feel more like home. I was sure we’d donated all of our napkins and so bought more, only to discover we had indeed dropped a few in the box.
For the record, we did not ship any of the cat dishes and Guillermo and Bear have new fancy faux china saucers…which were also €0,99.
Unlike when we registered for our wedding, I’ve been more deliberately mindful about what we’re selecting…well, at least I’ve tried to be. I can do more than microwave or empty a box into a pot now, so I understand what I prefer to keep in the kitchen. I have realized that I don’t need something to occupy in every corner though I couldn’t resist this sign:
Learning all the ways a Dutch house works is an awesome reminder of how different life can be in a new place. For example, it is common for bathrooms to be tiled on all four walls and for the shower sort of run all over the floor. On our first visit to Amsterdam, I couldn’t understand why the whole room needed to get wet, but I suppose the compound word “bath” plus “room” should have been a giveaway.
In several places we considered renting, the “badkamer” was separate from the “toilet kamer,” an idea that makes sense to me unless it’s on a different floor—Dutch stairs in the middle of the night? Our new place has a “guest toilet” which is a quarter bath at best with a cold water only mini sink. Upstairs, we have a second loo plus a towel radiator (seriously, those things should be everywhere) and a shower that doesn’t drain directly onto the floor (well, not now that we’ve replaced the bottom seal).
What our new bathroom does not have is much of any storage. When we viewed the place and in the countless revisits to the virtual listing’s photos, I mentally checked out after confirming the plumbing fixtures—is that astigmatism too?
Thankfully, IKEA has a cabinet designed for our needs and I only had one dyslexic moment building it. Proud as punch of having solved the problem, I excitedly placed the thing under the sink only to discover that our washbasin broadens the closer it gets to the wall. Fortunately, my sense of shame at not having measured that specific thing is long-buried under the pride of how much William and I have accomplished in relocating to another country.
Telling William I was heading out for reasons I would rather not discuss, I walked to Action where I purchased our new Dutch handsaw for only €7,99. I would like to tell you that I measured, but with a glass of wine in one hand, I eyeballed the cuts and it fits just fine.
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Ah, moving. A weird form of Hell, where life teaches you about your deficiencies. I know it well. There are still some boxes in the garage with uncertain contents--probably stuff I don't need or have already replaced, but who knows? Didn't know you had some dyslexia. Maybe it runs in the family. My own was discovered before there was a word for it; I apparently came running home from first grade one day shouting, "Mom, Mom I can read! K-O-O-L spells look!" It has manifested itself in various ways since: I have mostly gotten over writing b when I meant d, though it occasionally plays hell with a crossword puzzle. But I once constructed the entire ceiling for a model of museum I was designing, only to discover it would only fit if I turned it upside down! Love to you both!