The move is upon us! We are officially, finally, moving to Pembroke on March 25! That’s 4 days from now, I can hardly believe that. Have you ever prepared for a 600KM+ move? No? Let me tell you, it’s a whole other animal from moving across town or even a few hours away.
Moving Experts
Sylas and I are no strangers to moving. Since we met, we have moved 7 times, mostly to apartments, but one of them was a 14 hour move from North Carolina to Ontario, so we’re kind of experts. That said, we definitely realized when we hit 30 that we just simply are not young enough to move our stuff and for our last move we indulged and got movers. Total game changer!
That said, it was obvious that for our long move we would also need movers because there is no way we would be driving a huge truck 6 hours through mountain roads after loading a truck with all of our worldly possessions and our pets.
We are moving from a 1500 sq. ft. house to a 500 sq. ft. house, that’s 1/3 of the size for those math people like me. We’ve been doing so much downsizing to go from 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 3 living rooms down to 1 of each. It’s simultaneously a little sad to see some of our first furniture purchases donated to those in need here in London and also really satisfying to see how minimally we can live. We started downsizing in January and have been living between our kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom to get used to the smaller space and less belongings. Surprisingly, It’s been “freeing” to not feel like we have so much stuff that isn’t being used. Of course, that stuff once served a purpose, especially when we had 6 people living here, but it’s nice to get back to only the essentials. Love her or not, this is something that really resonated for me in this time of transition; from Marie Kondo:
“To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose. To throw away what you no longer need is neither wasteful nor shameful.”
– Marie Kondo
Renovations
One of the first things that we did when we purchased the new house in Pembroke is begin renovations. The property had a large 2 car garage on it and the 500 sq. ft. house. We knew immediately that we wanted to convert the garage into a rec room area and also a place for my (Holly) office. We also had some cosmetic and structural updating we wanted to do to the main house in the bathroom, kitchen, windows and flooring.
We started working on the rec room right away in October and I’ve shared some progress of that below.
Rec Room Reno
The rec room renovation is looking great, as you can see, and is slated to be done early this week and ready for our move on Friday. I’m sure you can see where this is going… BUT, the rest of the house is not even close to complete. We pulled up the floor, found some AWESOME water damage and rot and tore out the entire bathroom. We’re really hoping that the bathroom will be complete before we move next week, because we kind of need that, but the rest of the updating will not be. That’s where things get tricky. Stay tuned on our social media to see how we live in the rec room with two dogs and two cats. It’s bound to be interesting!
House Demo
Animals and Moving
The biggest hurdle of our move has definitely been figuring out how to move two dogs and two cats in our Jeep. Our cats are not lovers of the car, even though Rose did move 14 hours with us, and the sweet little Bo gets motion sickness. We’ve enlisted the help of our vet to get some anxiety medication for our cats, and Bo does well with a bucket and the company of Luna. We’ve actually trained her to use the bucket for any throwing up that might happen.
The biggest hurdle is how we’re going to fit everyone comfortably. We’ve done some test runs with Bo and Luna in the back seat of the car together and things are okay, but where do the cats factor in? We’ve decided to setup a barrier between the back seat and the trunk and then put the cat carriers in the back with easy access. Hopefully it all works out!
New Era
We can’t wait to see where the next few months take us in our new home as we start this brand new adventure. This really is a new era for us, moving from city life to country life. We hope you join us on this journey! Feel free to share any comments, recommendations or advice and always remember, it’s NEVER too late to pursue your dreams, even if they’re on a completely different path.
Goodbye London and Hello Ottawa Valley!
Rainbow River Alpacas 