Sunday, May 18, 2008

T minus 27 days and counting...

Not that I'm excited or anything.

No really, I'm not. I'm still having trouble believing this is real. It's all going far too well to be happening to me. I'm half expecting it to fall through.

That's probably the reason why I'm having so much trouble motivating myself to pack. That, and what am I supposed to do with the boxes afterwards? I asked my Mom that and she said, "Put them where the things were that you just packed up." That doesn't quite work when I'm unloading bookcases, though. And another thing: what happens if I pack something now that I need next week?

What I have been doing is wandering around home improvement centers and sections of stores looking at paint chips. I've decided I'm doing the living room in a sandy color called "honey." It's nice and neutral, and I've been finding it as an accent color in all sorts of drapes, upholstery, rugs, etc. One of the smaller bedrooms (which I've designated "the craft room") I'm leaving alone for now. This is the current owners' daughter's room, and it's cute. They painted a bright blue sky on the ceiling with puffy clouds--looks fairly realistic. Then they put little glow-in-the-dark star decals on it, so at night she's looking up at a starry sky. How sweet is that? They did the rest of the room as blue, and I don't see any need to change it.

The other bedroom ("the guest room") I'm painting lilac or lavender. Gonna get all girly in that room--eyelet and violets and what-not. No doilies, though. I draw the line at doilies. I'm going to (eventually) get a cast iron day bed to put in there.

The kitchen's okay too. I have always wanted a strawberry theme to my kitchen, and for years I've been collected and stashing away little strawberry things for my first house. I've been looking for drawer pulls that are strawberries and I found a few. Of course, the ones I really like are $5-$7 a piece. I have 20 handles in the kitchen (I counted them when we went in for the inspection), so it looks like that's going to have to wait for a while.

The room I really, really need to paint is the master bedroom. And of course, that's the room I'm having the most trouble deciding colors for. At present it's somewhere between peach and orange (I've been calling it Tangerine Dream). I own absolutely nothing in that color, and for a very good reason. I don't like orange. At. All. I keep going back and forth about whether it should be a nice restful color like sage green or aqua, or a bright happy color like yellow. Mom suggested when I move in to buy samples of the colors I like and paint a couple of patches on the wall--test 'em out in the various kinds of light I'll have in the room, see which I think I could live with best. I really want to get the painting out of the way before I move in, but I'm thinking I'm going to take her suggestion here.

I've also been prowling around furniture stores looking for the drop-leaf table I have in my head. I'm not finding it. I think I'm going to have to go with my "Plan B" table. I must say, though, that I didn't know we had so many furniture stores in town.

My real estate agent called me last Thursday to let me know she hadn't forgotten about me. I told her the bank I'm getting the mortgage through had (finally) cashed my check for the appraisal. I asked her if that meant they'd started it or that they'd finished it. She said she thought it probably meant they finished it. Usually, she said, you don't hear anything about the appraisal unless they don't think the property is worth what you want them to lend you. She thinks we're in pretty good shape. It's probably worth more than the asking price.

About a week before settlement I have to get the utilities changed over to my name. I need to give my complex manager a gentle nudge about writing up that release. Other than that, there's really nothing left to do on my end. Except pack, of course. Bleah.

4 comments:

Just Me said...

Yes, packing sucks, and that 27 days is going to FLY, so get your tailfeathers into gear on this, or your moving day will turn into chaos. I well remember flinging Hefty bags of miscellaneous crap into the back of the truck as we vacated our first post-marriage apartment to move into our current house.

I can understand holding off on the essentials, but what about winter stuff, craft stuff for projects not in the works, that sort of thing?

I am very, very, very, VERY excited for you. I admire your ability to already pick colors and decor and such. I am a thorough no-talent there, leaving those decisions to The Oracle. Shoot, I can barely decide to pick a pair of jeans, let alone what color I'm going to look at every day.

They say bedrooms should be soothing, but Precious Daughter's is bright yellow and it works very well for her. It also looks lovely when the morning sunlight comes into her room. I well remember the color: Finnaren and Haley's "Lemon Meringue." I also remember how shocked I was when we first covered the walls with it, and every time I walked into the room I thought, "Wow, that's bright." It took a few weeks for my eyes to adjust, and now I really love it.

Of course, I't like it more if it weren't covered with multicolored crayon streaks.

--V said...

It's not that I haven't packed anything, it's just that I haven't been very energetic about it. I'd call my packing speed "desultory."

Already packed the craft stuff. I only have kept out one project, in self-defense. Otherwise I'd wind up at Michael's looking to buy another project because I packed all my craft stuff and I'm getting twitchy for something to do. Sad, isn't it, the way I have to protect myself from myself?

I've got one bookcase mostly packed up and I'm starting on another one. All my CDs and most of my DVDs and tapes are boxed up. The music I listen to most is loaded onto my laptop and iPod anyway, and I should be packing, not watching movies!

The thing that I'm really not into dealing with is the closet. I have clothes in there I don't want, I know I do. I should probably give them to Goodwill, but that means sorting through everything and putting it into three piles: keep, give, ugh-throw-that-out. Memorial Day weekend I'm tackling the closet, I swear.

And it's not like I have to be out of here June 13. I won't be handing the apartment back until mid July, after I've cleaned it.

My bedroom in my parents' first house was yellow. It had floral wallpaper and a golden carpet. The sun seemed to stay in that room a very, very long time. That's part of why I was thinking yellow, remembering that room. No wallpaper, though. That's a comedy sketch waiting to happen.

Just Me said...

I'm too chickens--t for wallpaper. We bought some for Mighty B's room and it never went up. It's just as well, because he doesn't like his blue walls; he wants green instead.

Check for a Purple Heart or Society of St. Vincent DePaul. They'll come and pick the stuff up and save you a trip.

--V said...

Goodwill picks things up too. It's not the schlepping, is the sorting prior to the schlepping.

One more thing about packing: I can't pack the winter stuff until I'm sure I won't need it. It was 39 degrees here this morning. Last Monday morning we had SNOW, for pity's sake.

Global warming my a$$.