Mindy Carlson

The move has happened!! It was weeks of taking small loads in our minivan and then a long and hard 4 days of “real” moving with a moving truck (and a few very excellent friends), but we managed to clear out our rental house and move to our new home.

Our house looks like Boxlandia rather than the Carlson Household, but we are starting to win the battle on the boxes. With my Mom’s help I got the kitchen tackled first. Then we moved into the dining room and got the bedrooms sorted out.

I even got my youngest’s room finished! He’d picked out a Marrakesh stencil pattern he wanted done on one wall in yellow and grey. Stenciling is trickier – and slower – than it seems. You can only do so many repeats at a time until you have to stop and let the stencil dry out. If you don’t, you risk having wet paint smeared across the lovely grey surface that you’d just gotten all nice and pristine.

Considering I could only do about 3 or 4 stencils in a session, it took me over a week to get his wall done. But it is spectacular! He is so pleased. “It turned out better than I imagined it could.” The boy sure knows how to get me willing to commit to more fussy projects.

The unpacking is a constant chore. Just this week I finally got the boxes unpacked in the living room. Now it is clean! And I feel calm – or at least a lack of stress – when I sit in the room.

Today I went down to the basement and got some entertainment gear out and put away – dishes, glasses, grilling equipment, etc. And now we can see most of the bar top. The likelihood of having a housewarming is looking better and better.

I also got a new TV stand delivered! And it was brought as an actual piece of furniture. Not a flat box with pieces of MDF that I had to put together myself. The boys were delighted to help get the television set up on top and then, with the unerring accuracy of a bloodhound on the trail of an unwashed convict, they found the Wii in the bottom of some random box and got it set up to play in record time.

This inspired Mark to get his stereo equipment out and set up as a unit with the TV as well. We are almost ready to start having family movie nights again!

And then there is the CHANDELIER!! We have a winner and it isn’t anything that we thought we’d get. But that’s what happens when you walk into a lighting store to check out a your two favorites in person and end up hating them. This is (a) round and with (b) gold tones. Two things that would never, ever be in my Boolean search parameters. But I ended up really liking it.

What we have left are the rooms that are easy to avoid. Like the office and a section of the basement family space where I avert my eyes as I pass by to get the laundry. Many of the boxes are full of mementos. Or things that we shoved in there in moments of desperation during any one of our last 3 moves that would should now really and painstakingly go through and purge.

And on top of that there is the decorating aspect of making this house into a home. Pictures to hang. Mirrors to position. Furniture to nest (and purchase). The foyer needs painting, too. There was a great hanging shelf in there that the previous owners took with them. I filled the holes and I need to repaint the wall to cover some other incidental scratches and dings. And I would LOVE to find a shelf like it again.

And clearly I need to buy another orchid. And a basket.

But we are far enough along that I can look forward to an actual house warming party! The plans are in the works and we would love to have you all over to see the house once we are finished unpacking. xoxo