Did you know that a giraffe’s pregnancy can last anywhere between 400 to 460 days? That’s a long time to be pregnant! You know what else can take that long?
Ok, it’s not typical for it to take 448 days to build a new house (and yes, that is the final count!) – but that is what has happened in our case. We wrote a check on February 25, 2012 to make a deposit on a lot and a new house. We had some delays in figuring out what we wanted to do and we went through a few different floor plans, lot choices, and waiting for the builder to open up a new part of the subdivision. We got all of that worked out and we wrote an even bigger check in May of 2012 and started meeting with the architect and picking out everything for our new house. We were told that construction would begin around the end of June and we would be in our house by October. We had a great time picking out colors, cabinets, and flooring.
I started packing up some of our non-essential items and preparing our current house to go on the market once our new one was underway. June came and went. So did July, August, September, and October. Even though the subdivision had been approved, the particular parcel of land that our lot was part of became tied up with the city because a church was going to be built nearby. That led to complications and we could not start the building process until that was cleared up. Finally, in early October, we got the go-ahead that it was going to happen. We got word that construction would start around the end of the month. I got serious again about getting the house ready and packing up a few more items. I tried to work on de-cluttering and getting rid of things that we didn’t need anymore. October came and went. So did November. By the first of December, I was feeling convinced that there would never be a hole in the ground before the end of the year and that it would just keep getting put off by winter after that. It was very discouraging. We had looked for quite awhile before we ever settled on building a new house, so it felt like we had been in limbo for such a long time (and we had)!
Then, it finally happened! They started digging a hole on December 13, 2012. Of course, it happened while we were out of town for our Disneyland trip. We had been waiting around since May and then the day they started digging we were out of town! My agent snapped some pictures and emailed them to us and I really couldn’t believe it until we got back in town and I could see it for myself. Our builder has been able to complete houses in about 90 days (which is kind of miraculous) but they told us ours would take longer because there were sure to be weather delays and we were also finishing our basement. Our agent said he really thought we would be in by around the first of April. I knew that wouldn’t happen. I was just hoping we could somehow move in by the end of April so I could host a family dinner for my brother’s wedding the first weekend in May.
Well, we had the coldest January we’ve had in Utah since 1949 so it was the coldest winter I have ever lived through. There were a few weeks where they couldn’t pour cement. I felt terrible for the workers who were framing our house under those conditions. It was miserable to bundle up and walk through the house. More delays. We didn’t want to put our house up too early and have to move twice. We felt like it would sell quickly (it did!) and it would be too difficult on our family to move somewhere temporarily if we sold our current home. We decided to wait until about 6 weeks before the house would be finished. I knew that I needed to finish getting the house ready though and we even had a friend who said they knew of someone who was very interested in this area and wanted to move in April or May. In early February, he said that they wanted to come through and look at the home. I went into high gear of getting things done and packed up a storage pod full of stuff.
The friend never ended up coming to look at the house, but I’m still glad I took action because it has lessened my current workload. It became apparent that the new house would not be done before my brother’s wedding. We made arrangements to host the family dinner elsewhere. We figured that it would be completed around the end of May. We put our current house on the market in the middle of April and it went under contract 6 days later. It worked out so perfectly, that we still keep worrying it will fall through since nothing has been easy for us with this process. The buyers didn’t need to move in until the time that we were going to be ready to move out. Things started really happening on our house and we are set to finally close the deal tomorrow. Crossing all fingers and toes that everything works out!
So I’m knee deep in final packing and making a lot of different arrangements. We will be in transition between 2 houses over the next week as we wait for a few final projects to be completed and some new beds to be delivered before we can start sleeping in the new place. I also still don’t have an answer yet from our internet provider on when they will be able to get everything hooked up in our new house. And somehow, I need to keep life stable enough for our family (especially Alex who is struggling with all of this change) during these transitions. It’s not like we didn’t have any warning… but somehow, all the advance notice has just made us weary instead of ready. As we walked through the new place last night, we are not quite sure how everything is going to get done before we close on Friday. There is still a lot that needs to be done. It looks like it is going to be crazy til the end on this one.
So at this point, I’m not really sure of what my blogging schedule will look like over the next week or so. I will try to post when I can, but I’m going to let myself off the hook and not make any definitive promises. I’m sure I’ll post some instagram photos to document our journey to the new house. Of course, I’ll have plenty of new scenery and fun things to share in the coming months. Now I get to finally put all of those ideas I’ve been pinning on Pinterest for the last 448 days into action! Here’s to hoping for as smooth of a move as possible.
…
