Unpacking The Sewing Room

引っ越しの荷ほどきを続けること2週間半。やっと私の部屋の荷物の荷ほどきができる日がやってきました。裁縫室兼、仕事場となる私の部屋は、なんと地下室。それも地下室の一番奥の部屋なので、小さな窓が一つあるだけで、とても暗いです。新しい電気買ってもらわないと暗くてやってられないわ。

I spent 2.5 weeks unpacking our stuff from the storage. It was a slow process with cleaning all the dust and grime off. But the day finally came to unpack my sewing room. What's the first thing to do? Pledge the hell out of furniture.

The next part was the hardest part: decide the orientation of the desks. I have two sets of nesting desks. I used to use 1 large desk for my sewing machine, another large desk for cutting, a small one for ironing, and another small one for my serger and a cover stitch machine (you can see my old sewing room here). But now this sewing room is also my office (I work from home), I need to use one of the large desks as my "desk." So it took me a while to re-think the layout.

The room is in the deepest part of the basement next to a storm shelter with just one tiny window, so unfortunately I won't have a very good natural light. Until I get a better light fixture, it's going to be all blurry dark photos.

There is a closet, but half of it is filled with MOTH's RC car collection.

For now, I just unpacked everything and shoved them in the book shelf or in boxes. The contents of the boxes are all mixed up but at least they are off the floor. It's going to take a while for me to sort all the little things and organize the whole thing a bit better before I can be in a mood to sew but this is a start.

Since I will be in this room for most of the day for work, I made a dog house next to my work desk out of a cardboard box (she has another one in the living room, too).

New Walking Route

イギリスの田舎暮らしがとてもよかったので、アメリカに帰ってからの家探しも田舎暮らしを選びました。もともと引っ越し先が小さな街というのもあるけど、そのまた郊外の、農園の広がる地域、最寄りのスーパーまで7キロ弱というかなりの田舎になりました。裏庭を、普通に鹿の家族が横切っていきます。散歩道も林に囲まれてて、春になって木に葉っぱがついたらいい景色になるだろうな～、と楽しみにしています。

My new walking route is amazingly similar to my walking route in England. But I guess it is not that funny considering how our country living in England affected our "must-haves" when we were choosing a house to buy.

We had known back in the Desert that we didn't want to live in the planned development anymore. The HOA we lived in had more than 4,000 houses and the houses were just stacked on top of each other and we were provided with a thick stack of HOA rules. We used to even have a "3 shrub rule" that said we had to have at least 3 shrubs in the front yard.

But having lived in the country side of England , we pretty much solidified that our next house environment would be a bit more unique than a planned development. So it is: we chose a house in an unincorporated town where the property tax is half of what the house within the city limit would be.

Our house is on a dead-end street so it's very quiet and surrounded by woods, with a little peak of farmland down the hill. Luckily, unlike it was in England, the street is wide enough for 2 cars to pass by so I don't have to walk off the street when a car goes by.

It has gotten warm last week and the daffodils shot out in a matter of 2 days. We are really loving it here, Deep South!

Moving Truck Has Arrived

引っ越し屋さんのトラックが来ました。2年4か月ぶりに家財道具と再会です。巨大なトレーラーがやって来た時には、こんなに物があったっけ、と心配になったけど、トレーラーの3分の1はカラだったので、ちょっと安心。（でも物ありすぎ）

もう何度も引っ越しを繰り返してきたけど、引っ越し屋さんを使うのは今回が初めて。いや～、重い家具を運ばなくていい引っ越しというのはいいものだね。

さすがに砂漠地帯の、ただのブロックでできた倉庫に2年4か月も眠っていた家財道具は、どれもすべて小汚いです。段ボールに入っていた物も、持ち手の穴から埃が入るのか、もうとにかくすべてが小汚くて、ただ荷ほどきをする、ってことができず、全部洗えるものは洗うか、雑巾で水拭きしなくてはならなくて、荷ほどきに非常に時間がかかっております。

この2年間、必要最低限のものだけで暮らしてきたので、物の多さにちょっと焦っています。頑張ってコンマリしてます。やっぱりときめく物だけに囲まれて過ごさないとね。

The day has finally come: the moving truck full of our household stuff from the Desert has arrived.

Since MOTH had a business trip back in the Desert, he was able to coordinate and oversee the shipment of our household goods from the storage in the Desert to the Deep South. When I saw the ginormous trailer, I was worried that we had so much stuff, but luckily the trailer was less than 2/3 full. (Still that's a lot of stuff...)

We have moved quite a few times in the past 15 years but this was our first time using a mover. It was nice I did not have to do any heavy lifting.

A ramp makes a huge difference.

Halfway through and still jam packed.

When we moved from the South to the Desert, we had to store our household goods in Pods for a year because we couldn't sell our house and buy another house right away. The Pods was nice: we packed it ourselves and it got delivered on our door step when we moved into a house. The contents were clean and we just unpacked.

What is different this time is that our stuff sat in a storage unit for 2 years and 4 months. We got a good ol' cinder block storage unit that is not climate controlled. So everything got very dusty, literally, everything, even the the stuff that was in a box. Everything has thin layer of dust and grime.

So the unpacking has been a slow process. I have to wash everything if I can, or wipe them off every single item.

The house is a hot mess and my allergy has flared up from all the dust in the house. There are just so much stuff compared to what we had in the past 2 years so I'm a bit overwhelmed and trying to do KonMari and let things go if they don't spark joy anymore.

Today's goal is to finish the kitchen area so that I can start cooking a proper meal. Let's get to it.

Bought a House

イギリスから深南部に引っ越してきて40日。ローンの書類にサインして、家を購入しました。ということでまたしても引っ越し。

イギリスから送った荷物は荷ほどきせずにとっておいたのでそんなに荷造りする必要もなく、アパートから家への引っ越しはとても順調に終わりました。1か月半ぶりの荷物との対面。ずっとトレーナー3つとジーンズ2本をローテで着ていたので、いろんな服が出てきてちょっとうれしい。

まだ家具は一つもないので、ベッドもなく、床に直寝。私はユキのベッドに寝ています。全く文句なし。

私は今も在宅で仕事をしているんだけど、もちろん机も椅子もないので、アイロン台をイケアの棚二つの上に渡して机代わりにしています。ワンルームアパートに住む男子大学生の部屋みたいになっております。

After 40 days since we moved from England, we signed off the loan documents and bought a house. That means moving, again.

Since we only have stuff that we shipped from England (means essentials only with no furniture) and they were still packed tight in the bins, and the fact that we had 2 overlapped days at the apartment, we had very few packing at the apartment and just made a few trips to transport the bins. It was really nice to reacquaint with our stuff after 6 weeks. I had been wearing a rotation of 3 hoodies and 2 pairs of jeans so it's nice to have more options.

Since we have no furniture whatsoever, we are currently sleeping on the floor. I'm using a dog bed. The high-density foam bed is pretty comfy, as I discovered when I had food poisoning. There are also 4 layers of packing blankets under the quilt, too.

And this is the state of my "office." My ironing board laid across 2 Ikea boxes. After all, I am Japanese, I should be totally fine sitting on the floor all day long, right?