Movin’ On Up
Lets just cut to the chase here, shall we? I’m not fan of moving. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say I hate it. I know I’ve spoken about wanting more room, but deep down I suspect the real reason we’re building this house is so we won’t ever have to move again. I mean, once the house is complete, I can’t foresee a reason why we’d ever want to leave. Of course, we can’t exactly build it without first moving out, so we’ll have to endure this necessary evil one last time.
At 8:30 am on Friday morning, 2 guys from Rent-a-Son arrived to help us pack. If you’re not familiar with the company, I’m sure the name is self explanatory (that, and they apparently don’t employ women). They were significantly cheaper than hiring actual ‘movers’, but I’d say the end result was just the same. The guys were polite, friendly and didn’t complain when I told them we needed to move a 300lbs TV. What more can I ask for? I suppose the only downside was that we needed to supply all of the packing materials… which was fine, although we really weren’t sure how much we needed, and as we quickly came to realize, boxes don’t come cheap. Of course, we could have hit up the LCBO for some used boxes, but that didn’t seem like a wise move, what with them being stacked on top of each other for the next 8 months.
The best prices we could find were from a place appropriately named Packaging World. Now, I don’t know the guy’s name, but the gentleman who helped us was quite a character. If anything, he reminded me of Tom Smykowski, the disgruntled employee from Office Space. That said, he was very friendly, knowledgeable, and extremely passionate about packing. His recommendations also turned out to be spot on (I think we only had 2 extra boxes), which is hard to poke fun at.
Most of our belongings will be held in storage until the construction is complete, however I wasn’t too enthused about renting a truck, packing everything into the truck, driving to the storage facility, unpacking the truck… and then repeating the process again in 8 months. So to lessen the pain a little, we had the storage container brought to us.
Giant Storage (also appropriately named, hmm…) dropped off a 20’ container, which apparently holds “the contents of a 1600-1800 sq ft, 3 bedroom home with no major appliances.” When it arrived, I was convinced we wouldn’t actually fill it. I mean, come on, it barely fit in our driveway. However, it appears we have a lot of junk or oversized furniture, because our stuff barely fit inside.
The containers are sturdy, ventilated, and stored at a secured storage facility, so everything should survive the 8 month vacation while the house is being built. Should we need something, the facility is nearby, and we’ll have access to the container. I’m not expecting we’ll actually need to get into it, but it’s comforting to know our stuff isn’t entirely out of reach.
So now the house sits empty, patiently awaiting it’s fate. I must admit, saying goodbye was a little saddening… but of course, I cheered up in my own special way:
Post Tags: demolition, moving, packing, storage
love how Jess is pretty much ignoring you the whole time…(my funny husband and his funny digital camera).
Nice hammering. I’m going to forward this to Alec fer sure.
— posted on July 22, 2008I didn’t really plan this out… I mean, I had brought the sledgehammer inside, but I hadn’t mentioned to Jess what I was going to do. I just walked in, took the tour, handed her the camera, and went to town.
I just can’t believe the sledgehammer busted so quickly. Sigh.
— posted on July 23, 2008dude – you swing like a girl
— posted on July 31, 2008I loved the little yellow brick bungalow the way it was! I’m wondering why you didn’t buy a lot with a tear-down condition house on it, rather than tear down a house that is really nice as is? We live nearby in an even smaller bungalow and would love a house like yours!
— posted on August 3, 2008Thanks Claire – we definitely loved that little house too! We had actually looked for another house for quite awhile before making this decision, but our search was unsuccessful. There really aren’t that many houses in the area that are in tear-down condition… and those are that might fit the bill certainly weren’t coming on the market very often. I suppose one can only wait so long before you have to bite the bullet.
— posted on August 4, 2008Thanks for the reply. Too bad the old house isn’t portable or we’d take it off your hands :-)
— posted on August 4, 2008You’ll likely move again. Don’t ever think you’ll sit still forever. Things change. As such, always keep in mind that one day, you may have to unload the place. So always ensure that whatever you design for yourself will also appeal to others. So far, your plans are normal and unextreme, so you’re on the right track. But if you think of adding a special “feature”, just keep in mind its resalability—if you ever need to unload it, you’ll want it to be EASY to unload.
— posted on September 8, 2008I’m not too worried about being able to sell it – the question is balancing the investment vs the future sale price. I don’t want to invest too much into “future payback” features (ie geothermal) because I’d hate to be saddled with those costs should we need/want to sell it.
However, I must admit that this site was also created to help the future resale. I figured if I put everything online and could get enough attention to the project, I could create a brand for the house. You know? It would no longer be “that modern house on Winnett”, but rather “360 Winnett”. That, plus all of the construction details, should help the future resale. Or so I hope.
— posted on September 8, 2008Hi Jeremy,
I am a real novice so can you explain in general how you approach a bank about financing the demolition of your old home and the buildingoof your new more efficient home?
Without being too nosy home much did you budget for the whole process and was that secured entirely by the lending institution?
Thank you and I look forward to the book being published. I know it the one thing I will by this year!! Or next?
Sam Sacco
— posted on January 28, 2009Regarding financing, you typically have to secure a construction loan from the bank. This is quite costly because you really don’t have any collateral to secure the loan… you’re essentially tearing down all of your equity and are only left with the value of the land. As a result, the bank charges high interest rates to lower the risk.
In our case, we (luckily) weren’t forced to secure a construction loan as we had a family member who was willing to lend us the money at a lower interest rate.
— posted on February 17, 2009