Justin and I just got home from helping Jessi get moved into her new house. She’s renting a townhouse unit toward the downtown area of Savannah and it’s really cute. It’s two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, with a living room, kitchen, and dining room on the first floor. She’s got yard access from the back door and pretty much free reign to do whatever she’d like with the yard. The floors are all wood-looking laminate and there’s a ton of storage room. The ceilings are forever high and impossible to reach, which means the windows are enormous. It’s an old house, so the floors aren’t level and it’s got creaks and moans like an old house, but it’s also got a cute (non-funcational) fireplace with a mantle that has an old mirror built-in and tiny little columns! It’s adorable.
Here’s how the day went (which might not actually be all that interesting, but I’m writing about it anyway):
I got up and started to get ready — getting sun screen on and pulling together a couple things that she left her the other day and things that we’d need for the day (music, gloves for potential yard word, pitcher and lemonade for drinking). Justin got up a little later because he takes a lot less time to get ready for me and talked with Wendy and Jessi before we left to make sure everybody was onboard with the plan for the day (Jessi was at her place, where she’d spent the night, and Wendy is still up in Vermont, but is still involved in the planning because she’s helping Jessi with some money support and decision-making).
We got out of Bluffton and drove to Savannah where we rented a U-Haul truck. We drove past Jessi’s house to drop off our car and have her drive her car to show us how to get to the storage unit. We emptied everything out of the storage unit and then drove back to her apartment to unload it all. A guy friend of her’s showed up to help with the unloading, so it wasn’t too bad. And she doesn’t have all that much stuff, since she’s been living in dorm rooms for the last 4 years.
After unloading everything into the house and distributing it to the appropriate rooms, we went out to grab some lunch. From there, we went to a mattress store so Jessi could buy a bed. She tested out several, bemoaned how tricky it is to figure out how to buy a bed (which we all agreed with) and then chose one that was comfortable and within her budget. The stock isn’t actually kept at that location, so from there, Jessi and her friend went to buy some sheets for her new bed while Justin and I drove the U-Haul truck over to the warehouse in Pooler to collect that bed.
We got it without any trouble and got back to the house only a little after Jessi did. Her friend left before we got back, but the three of us managed to get the bed into the house. Some neighbor guys offered to help, but we thought we had it pretty well under control.
I feel bad, though, because apparently we made them feel like we weren’t accepting their help because of their skin color. One of them came up to me as I was getting into the U-Haul after taking in the bed and explained that he’s really a decent guy and not someone to be worried about or anything, and I apologized and said that it hadn’t been any reflection on him and we really appreciated the offer; we’re just tired and trying to get it all done as quickly as possible. I’m not sure if my apology was sufficient. We never intended to give any negative impression. So I’m still a little bothered that we came across as being racist. I mean, I’m still *really* bothered and I wish I knew what I could do to help reassure him that it really had nothing to do with him or the color of his skin or anything. Gah! I’m bothered!
Justin stayed at the house after we dropped off the mattress and worked on putting the frame together while Jessi and I drove back to drop off the U-Haul truck before the due-time. After that, we all worked on getting the house more put together. Justin moved the washer and dryer and got those scrubbed out underneath, since there was black gunk possibly growing underneath that. And then we leveled them so the washer should work really nicely once Jessi’s got it cleaned out a little better on the inside.
The box spring was tricky getting up the stairs because it’s a sharp turn up the stairs and while most of the house has really high ceilings, right there at the bottom of the stairs and for the first little while at the bottom, it’s really kind of short. So we wrestled with that for a little while before making it up the stairs. But we got it and the mattress upstairs and Jessi’s got her bed all made (except for the comforter that should have arrived at our house today but hasn’t shown up yet) and it looks super cozy. She still has a lot of unpacking to do, but at least she’s got a nice place to sleep tonight, instead of on our air mattress that was apparently a little complicated because it deflated on her after about an hour last night.
There are some projects that still need doing that Justin and I are going to help her fix — like the pipes under her sink are loose and could benefit from some cleaning and plumbers tape. The entire sink isn’t connected to the counter, so we’re going to get that put together and caulked. The yard is partially jungle and partially covered in black plastic (yeah, seriously) and I have a lot of ideas about what could be done with that, without even spending a lot of money. (Step #1: throw away that awful plastic.) So we’ll go back next weekend sometime and help with those and anything else that she notices needs work.
But we feel pretty good about getting her all moved in. It made for a long, tiring day, but she’s got all her things in her house and they’re all in the rooms where they go. She’s been doing a great job of getting the place cleaned up and fixed up (refreshing white paint and washing the banisters and baseboards and stuff) so I feel comfortable that she knows how to get settled in. Her roommate will arrive in a couple weeks. And Justin and I will help with projects when we have time or until she gets sick of seeing us, whichever comes first. And let’s be honest, Justin is a good older brother, so he’ll keep helping even after she’d tired of us.
So that was our day! We wrapped up helping, drove home, showered, and now we’re sitting around, waiting for our feet to stop hurting. And I’m starting to get really hungry, so I think it might be time to have dinner.