Moving During a Pandemic - We’re Finally in the New House

Filed Under: Things I would not recommend

We’re finally in our new house and we managed to do it with barely any contact with the outside world. We did most of this move ourselves over the course of several days (not recommended), then had movers move the bigger furniture we couldn’t get. My husband stayed far away, but on premises while they loaded the truck, and I stayed with our son and the dogs at the new house while they packed the old house and then took the gang to on a two hour car ride around the neighborhoods in our area while waiting for them to unload at the new house. That was fun…two dogs got carsick and B started screaming about being hungry and ready to go home.

The movers did have a few snafus that had me pretty annoyed — forgot masks, had to get some, and came with way too many people (7 instead of 2-3), but I never had any contact with them and my husband only had contact from a distance, and the move took about 4 hours. This isn’t ideal, but we had to get ourselves moved somehow.

Then we Lysoled everything, and my husband is using a separate bathroom and sleeping in a different room for the next two weeks just to take extra precautions.

New house! Now I need to add some palmetto trees to the front and maybe some smaller palms and elephant ears.

Overall, this move was…nuts. I’ve moved a lot — in my 20s I moved, on average, once every 9 months and in my 30s, I moved 6 times. So yeah…lots of moving. This move was far and away the most crazy, largely because of the pandemic. It would have been pretty normal otherwise. I’m hoping to move much less in my 40s.

It’s safe to say, I’m exhausted. But we’re done. At last. And I’m typing this from the table in our new art/craft/homeschool room that is completely separate from our dining space! Yes!

I’m so excited about this new house. Not only does it feel more like a “city house” with its layout, it’s also in a neighborhood with lots of connectivity and walkability to major amenities (you know, when we can use those again), including the library, schools, grocery stores and other shops, doctors/vets, and my yoga studio!

Neighborhood views

What really drew me to this house was that the layout reminds me of my two favorite past residences of ours: one was an apartment in downtown Lancaster, Pa., and the other is our house in Lancaster. If you come in the back door to the kitchen, it’s like our awesome apartment from when we first moved to Lancaster. If you walk in the front door, it’s like our house that we still own up in PA (and will someday use again for vacations). It’s just quite a bit bigger than either of those places with room for working from home for both of us and space for our dogs and son.

In summary —
Moving during a pandemic: 0 out of 5 stars, definitely would not recommend to a friend.

But I’m thankful we’re in, had minimal contact, and can get back to just staying the f*ck home.