Special Delivery

With all the bad winter weather we have gotten in the last week, I was not surprised that on Monday I received a call stating that the delivery had to be postponed until this morning. As mentioned in a previous post, I was looking into getting a  Pods delivered to our house for ease of packing and moving. Well, we bit the bullet on the cost and ordered one last week. After speaking to our realtor, he wants us to be able to get the house on the market as fast as possible. Since we don't close on the house another 2 weeks, we needed a way to move things out of the house so we can start to do the touch up paint and cleaning required to sell it.

 

It’s a pretty neat set up. They show up with a flat bed truck with a Pod and a crane like moving thing. I visualize it at a dock unloading a boat. They back the truck up and then use the crane device to lower the Pod into our drive way. I will say, I was pleasantly surprised by how big it was. We ordered the 16 foot Pod, but I was worried it wouldn’t be very tall.

As you can see by using the gentleman who delivered it, it’s tall. We feel very comfortable knowing that we will be able to really fill this baby up.

And here she is, sitting pretty on the ground waiting for us to fling up that door and start a life size version of Tetris and make everything fit as snug as possible.

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." Emile Zola

So this weekend was a very busy weekend for our family. In case you couldn't tell, we are big Denver Broncos fans and with it being playoff football, I surprised my wife with Broncos tickets. Our son is a little young to enjoy the games, so he was going to be staying in town with my parents while we went up and enjoyed.

We love spending as much time as possible with Aiden as we can, so we decided we needed to do a fun activity with him on Saturday. He loves the show Dinosaur Train, so we decided we would take him to a exhibition in town called  Jurassic Quest. Sounded like a great idea, until we arrived and the dinosaurs were very life like with actual movement and sounds. We ended up staying for a max of 10 minutes. So instead we just played at home, to much snow out to go out and enjoy the park.

Saturday night, I also was finishing up a present that I was making for our friends. It was our Christmas present to them. If I can, I prefer to make the present for friends and family. It doesn't always work out depending on what they want, but in this case, it was possible.


Our friends love to play Cornhole. We have all been playing for a few years, but I am the only one who had a board that was made, not bought. I decided this needed to be changed so that more than one board was available for everyone to borrow.

 

 

Home Depot sells the size board needed, so luckily I didn't have to measure and use a table saw to cut the boards to the right sizes. The hole does need to be drilled, but it's very easy as there is an attachment to make the size hole that's required. Here is the hole cutter. I didn't get a picture of it, but its very easy. It attaches to any hand held drill and goes right through the board. Once the holes were cut, and sanded, just a few coats of white exterior paint to coat the whole board. If this was internal, primer would work as well, but since I was saving as much time as possible, the white exterior was the choice as portions of the board were going to stay this color.

 

 

 

 

Once I was certain the paint was dry, I used Scotch Blue Painters Tape to paint off all sections that will be white, and get the board ready for its colors. Not only are my wife and I Bronco fans, so are our friends. I wanted to make a Broncos board for them. Unknown to me prior to going to Home Depot was that there is a paint out there that actually has all the team colors. Not just NFL, but MLB, NBA, Colleges, Racing and NHL. Made matching the colors that much easier. So when you are worrying how you are going to match your team colors perfectly, don't. Just go to Home Depot and use Glidden. That link takes you to their site so you can see the teams available.

 

 

I started with orange first due to it being the lighter color of the two that needed to be painted. In case there was a mistake; I know a darker color will cover the lighter than vice versa. I have never painted with exterior paint before, and I feel like it does not coat as well as interior; probably due to it having more chemicals to with stand the elements. It actually took 3 coats of orange to coat a white board. Knowing it will with stand the abuse they will receive was worth the extra coat.

 

 

This blue looked so dark going on. Was very hard to see how this was going to come out looking like the broncos color. And once again, it took 3 coats to make sure now white was peaking its face through.



Once the blue paint had only been drying a few times on the third coat, I put some latex gloves on and removed the tape. I like removing it before it dries; I feel it gets a crisper edge. Then the waiting game once again started. I had to make sure everything was dry. For some reason, probably same reason that water wont boil while you watch it, this paint never seemed to dry. Eventually it dried and I was able to do the final 2 steps.

The Bronco head is a sticker bought of Amazon. Once it was placed on the board, I used clear polyurethane to go over the bronco edges. I want it to have a tight seal against the wood. It came out looking great. I was worried it would be too shiny, but with the semi gloss paint, you could not tell it was done. In all, I think they will really like these.

9 Best Packing Tips

With all of the packing taking place in our house, I thought today would be a good day to go over some packing tips that I have learned and am using to make this move from one house to another. Moving can be a very stressful and chaotic experience for many and hopefully these tips will alleviate some of the stress.  

Tip #1: I stated this in a prior post, but go through everything you are packing and if it hasn’t been used in the last 6 months to a year and there doesn’t look like there will be a use for it any time soon, set it aside to either be sold at a moving yard sale, donated to charity or thrown in the trash. This guarantees you start out in your new house with things you use and need, not things that are just taking up space.

 

Tip #2: As you are going through things, set aside essentials you will need the first few days when you arrive at the new house. I am one of those people that can’t move into a new home until everything ahs been cleaned. So many of my day one essentials are cleaning supplies (Lysol wipes, 409 cleaning spray, sponges, dish soap, rubber gloves, etc). I also will pack a few paper plates, plastic silverware and red solo cups so as the days exertion continues, I have everything I need to make a quick snack and be able to throw it away instead of worrying about something else to clean.

 

Tip #3: Make sure you write what room every box goes to on all 4 sides. I also will write what is in the box on the top of it. This way, no matter how you stack them in the moving truck, when you are unloading you can know where everything goes without having to rotate the whole box. Once the boxes are in the correct rooms, labeling what is inside of each box makes it easy for when you need something specific like pots and pans or bathroom essentials.

 

 

Tip #4: My wife and I both have most of our clothes on hangers. Many people will take these all off and then fold them and pack them. Depending on how far you are going, there are a few options that make more sense. If like us, you are moving only a short distance, I would recommend that you just use a trash bag to cover them. This keeps them together and makes moving them easy. If you are going a much greater distance and need to pack them, there are boxes that you can hang things in. It costs more, but the time saving of not having to take them off the hangers, fold them and then re-hang them at the new house is worth it to me.

Tip #5: If you are lucky enough, you will be able to find boxes and other moving supplies for sale on Craigslist. I was only able to find a few boxes for sale, but at a price of 25 cents a box compared to a dollar, I took them. No reason to complain about savings, no matter the amount.

Tip #6: Many items in the house now a day’s come with many parts and pieces to assemble them. When you move, most of these items need to be disassembled. I will either use little snack Ziploc bags to place all the parts in and use a sharpie to label them and specifically tell me what it goes to.  If it’s just a few screws, I will just use two pieces of clear packing tape, write what it does to and even go a step further and tape it directly to what it goes to. Makes moving in and trying to sort through what seems like an endless amount if bolts, screws, twist ties and all other sorts of accessories that much easier.

Tip #7: To build off of the last tip, when it comes to electronics, I will take a picture of all the wires so that when I am looking at 20 different wires, with different colors, different ends and different lengths, I get a visual to use to help sort through the mess.

Tip #8: With all the furniture and storage containers that have drawers in a house, these can be a real pain when moving them. Heaven forbid you lean a little too much to one side and the drawer comes flying out and hits the wall. Now you have a dent and paint you need to fix.  To avoid this, just use plastic wrap. You can buy large rolls from any home improvement store, worth every penny.

 

Tip #9: I am one of those people that will try to clean as I pack. Why take all the time to pack up a room and then have to come back another time to clean it. What I have learned is to pack up a room and before I leave, clean it perfection and then close the door behind me. I always start from the top down. Anything high, clean and dust, that way whatever is not picked up by the duster just gets pushed down to the next level. Once it every level is done, vacuum or mop the floor and that room is done and ready for showing.

 These are the main things I do when I am packing and getting a house ready for showing to sell it. Emptying a house is the most important part of selling a house as it allows you to stage a home and do any finishing touches that need to be done to make it perfect. We are still in the process of emptying the house, but once its empty I will be giving some tips on staging and finishing a house to be shown.