How Moving Feels!
Hi again, it’s me, Marissa! Hopefully, you didn’t miss me too much. The past few weeks have been some of the absolute craziest, hectic, and most exhausting weeks of my life. Which was why I took the necessary break from writing blog posts. To make up for this absence of time, I wanted to break down what’s been happening!
Prep Time
To loop in readers who may not already know, my husband Aaron and I bought a 1970’s tri-level fixer-upper in Chicago (linked is the blog post about it). FOR MONTHS, leading up to the move we were traveling down to Chicago from our rental in West Allis so we could work on the house. This was either us packing lunches and snacks in a cooler and driving down super early in the morning so Aaron (who’s working remotely) could clock into work by 7:30 A.M., and then I could work on house-related projects. Or it looked like us packing more food (only things that could be made on a pizza pizazz or toaster oven) and overnight bags so we could sleep over on the weekends and have his dad help us too. Those 2 months of doing that routine were mentally draining and physically exhausting. We were both getting burnt out and sick of traveling.
Pack it up
Amidst us hustling real hard every moment we could to get the house in “liveable” condition, (liveable being in quotes because the kitchen still wouldn’t have any cabinets and the flooring needed to happen in both the living room and kitchen), we needed to focus on packing up our old place because move-in day was approaching rapidly. Aaron had a trip with two of his friends planned well in advance, which of course, landed on the weekend before we moved. Fortunately, I have a rockstar Mom who helped me pack all weekend long, which I greatly appreciated!
Get Moving
Onto moving, it’s now Thursday, May 27th and the movers have arrived at our duplex. This was the first time we had ever used professional movers, and we have moved a lot in our young lives haha. This was a GAME CHANGER! We decided to go with Two Men And A Truck and honestly, they did a fantastic job. It was so nice not having to haul all of our stuff up and down the 20+ stairs we had. (You really realize how much stuff you’ve accumulated when you have to move). Aaron then left the duplex right after the movers drove away, and I packed up our furry bundle of joy Finnley. She was locked in our spare room the entire time the movers were at our place. You could tell she knew something was up because she was huddled in a corner of the closet and never came out. Luckily, she acted more like herself once it was just the two of us driving to Chicago in my car.
My Memoir to West Allis
Now, I don’t want to just glaze over the fact that we just moved out of our West Allis duplex as if this place didn’t mean anything to us. This rental was pretty much our first home together, even if we didn't own it. Prior to moving to West Allis, we were college kids living in a bunch of different small apartments on the East Side of Milwaukee. Aaron and I moved to this duplex right after I graduated because it was near the interstate for his job, and would be a good option for wherever I landed a job. The rental ended up being in the perfect location once I started working at Harley-Davidson, and slowly a handful of our closest friends started moving to West Allis too! All of a sudden this once foreign area became home and felt so comforting.
We spent just shy of 3 years in this duplex and it had a lot of firsts and memories for us. This was the first place we had 3 bedrooms, the first place Finnley really felt at home, the place we lived while we were engaged, the place we quarantined and worked from home at, the place Aaron accepted his new job from, the place I lost my job at and also the place that I started my business at, the place we came home to as a married couple, and the place we made a lot of memories in. Our West Allis duplex will forever hold a special place in our hearts. The city in general now holds a lot of memories for us, which is why in a couple of years we plan to purchase our next home there or close by!
*I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying*
This move was hard for us to make, we originally wanted to buy our first home in West Allis, and having to move to Chicago wasn’t part of the plan we crafted in our minds. We were so sad we had to leave our friends and the places we were comfortable with, but the only thing that was getting us through was knowing that Chicago was temporary and we are still close to everything. We are 1 hour and 15 minutes from West Allis, and 2 hours from our hometown, which honestly makes the move more bearable knowing we aren’t too far away.
Settling In
But onto new house things, it’s now Friday, May 28th and we have to drive back to Milwaukee to rent a 20’ U-Haul truck so we could pick up our custom kitchen cabinets from MKECabinetry (we were outside of their radius to have them install at our house for us which we knew when purchasing). MKECabinetry was phenomenal to work with. They not only were super nice people, but they were helpful during the planning process, always communicating, and super precise with their work. Every contractor or family member that walked into our home after seeing them has complimented the quality. I highly recommend working with them if you’re looking to have custom cabinetry that doesn’t cost your entire life’s savings.
Waking up Saturday, May 29th we felt eager, excited, and mostly nervous because this was the install day of our kitchen cabinets. We asked my parents and two brothers if they would come down to help us out with that, and thankfully they agreed (mind you, none of us have installed cabinets before *insert nervous looking face*). But rest assured, all went well with the install and a huge thanks goes to the men in my family for being so smart and handy!
What We’ve Been Up To Now
After that Saturday, Aaron and I have been working so hard to wrap other projects up. We had to pick out countertops (those are hopefully being installed in 1.5 weeks *fingers crossed*). I could write a blog post entirely about countertops, but long story short, we stumbled across this nearby place called A-American Custom Flooring that has a ton of quartz countertop options. We went into the place and I was able to walk through the back slab area which was exactly what I needed to do to visualize how the counters would look. We had to deal with a gas leak in our basement which took 3 days to resolve and left us with no hot water for those days. I Installed all of the living room and kitchen flooring after my dad came to help install the island portion of the cabinets. I installed the handles on our closet doors (that took way longer than I’d like to admit because I wanted them to be perfect). And quite frankly, so many other small things have happened. It’s truly been wild over here, and it feels great to finally take a moment to pause and reflect and what’s all been accomplished and write it down for ya’ll to read!
Each project we have been finishing is helping to make the house feel more like a lived-in home. We are so excited to finally install trim and doors in the near future because that will be the last big “finishing” element of our reno. Right now without trim, the rooms and windows feel unfinished. Our rooms are either open with no doors or still have the ugly dark brown ones on them as well. After that, it will be a lot of me adding personality to the home and getting to see my design plans come to life. It’s been killing me that I haven’t been able to tackle the designs of the rooms yet, but when that moment comes I’ll be sure to document it and take you guys with me.
Closing Regards
I hope this recap of the last 3 weeks of my life was enjoyable to read, and I’m happy to announce that the regular Wednesday blog posts are back in session! If you’re not yet already following me on the Untapped Potential Instagram account you should check it out for more real-time reno/design/home adventures! Leave me a comment below sharing if you’ve ever experienced a hectic moving season of your life or what you’ve enjoyed watching me renovate thus far on the house, I’d love to hear from you. :)
