Furniture Arrival

So on Wednesday afternoon we received the keys to our new house, but we weren't quite ready to move out of our comfortably furnished flat because our household belongs were still in customs. Fortunately, they were all delivered on Friday, which filled-out the new home rather well. I wasn't home to witness the delivery, which is a shame because it appears they did a fantastic job.

All the major furniture items were brought in (through a 27" doorframe, I have no idea how), correctly reassembled, attractively positioned in appropriate locations, and then all the boxes unpacked with the contents arrayed in neat little stacks throughout the house. I really was astonished at how well everything fit, and how convincingly the contents of a Florida ranch-style house from the '80s could be uploaded into a British semi-detached two-storey from the '40's, and still manage to look like they'd been purchased for the site. Of course, it helped that when we previewed various houses, we had our furnishings in mind, so the colours and styles mostly agreed; still, it was a welcome surprise to find the empty house so quickly transformed into a liveable "home".

So did everything make it across intact? Well no, not quite. Apparently the headboard to our master bedroom suite cracked in shipping, and the associated box springs has no chance of making it up the stairwell (meaning it's currently lodged in our entrance hall where it looms rather agressively over would-be callers by). We're still exploring options of whether I can fix the bed, or saw the box springs in half and reassemble upstairs, or whether we just scrap the lot and order a new bed (surely what my father will recommend upon reading this); but even so, considering the risk of moving so many goods so far through time and space, I think we can live with these few minor complications.

As it is, we're all enormously pleased to be wearing something other than what got packed into those few suitcases more than FIVE WEEKS ago :-) Come to think of it, today was the first day someone else decided to share our "peww" at church...maybe a connection there? Those suitcases also proved their worth when it came time to truck our few belongings over from our temporary flat; apparently we've managed to acquire a few things in our weeks overseas (darn you Forbidden Planet!!!), causing Laura, the kids, and I to make something like a combined 20 trips from flat to house and back, rolling one of our multi-hued suitcases in tow :-) Naturally, English weather being eager to showcase the full spectrum of greys of which it is capable in winter, yesterday's chill was accentuated with an icy drizzle which persisted throughout "the day", as they rather euphemistically call it hereabouts.

As they say, "Home is where the heat is!" Or in our case, a steaming pot of tea for Laura, mug of hot cocoa for Christopher, and mug of mulled wine for Mark :-)

And the best part was when the kids realized that, after all that trucking and walking, the new house has "no TV, no internet, and no phone?!? We want to go back to the apartment! Waaaaahhhh..."