And, We're In!

We spent the night at our new place last night. It is a wreck. I almost cried when we went to see it Friday after they finished the work. There is crap everywhere. There is no storage. And the hilarious thing is that we don;t even have everything we need. We turned in our government furniture so we have to but a couch, tv stand and book shelves for sure.

The place is about 10 pyeoung smaller than our previous place and because of the layout and lack of storage, we are losing a lot more than that in useable space. Why, for example, did they put three sets of double doors that open outward on to the living room balcony? We are either going to have to look two sets of doors so they are blocked with stuff, or put less out there.

Why, oh why, did they feel the need to put a big hallway in the master suite? Completely wasted, but I guess I can hang some pictures in there.

Our washer and dryer barely fit in the laundry room. There is no cabinet for the detergent, etc. We have to demo the smaller cabinet, extra burner and Korean washer out to make room for the American washer. The Korean washer is too small and takes too long, so I guess that is the trade-off.

The kitchen is small and I don't think all of our appliances, pots, pans, and food will fit. There is no pantry. We may have to have the American fridge taken out and put shelving in its place. I am not making any big decisions, yet, but just trying to puzzle it out.

The shelves in the foyer and bathrooms are very shallow.

There are 4 bedrooms but one of them has no closet. They all have the storage balconies, but they are shallower than the ones at our old place.

So, this is the space we've got which means we have too much stuff.

I've moved through the crying, swearing and avoidance phases (mostly) of this most dreaded and most necessary of tasks. Now, I am onto the action plan.

Most organization experts say you should only touch something once. That does not work for me. Either, I get too overwhelmed to start or I get stuck obsessing about each item. I am a big picture person and work best going from big to small. Large complete vision to narrowing in on the details. The major problem that we had was determining purposes for each bedroom.

When we moved in, we put the master as the master, one room dedicated to the office, one as the guest bedroom and one as the exercise room with Ian and Eva's clothes (like we had in the old place).

The problem with that set up is that this place has a lot less storage than our old place and I want to start working on moving Ian to his own room. I was thinking of getting him a twin bed, but there is no room for an extra bed. The queen sized guest bed used to be for our bedroom (before we knew we would co-sleep and need to up-size to a king). It is a big bed frame and there is no place to store it, so it must remain set up. We are going to out bedrails on it and use it as Ian's bed. It only has a mattress, not a box spring and adding a box spring would make it really high, so I am going to have to figure out a way to get the bedrails on without destroying the bed.

The master bedroom, will, of course be the master. The room without the closet will be the office and craft storage room. The small bedroom with the small closet that has Ian and Eva's clothes in it will be Ian's room (and guest room when we have guests). The larger bedroom with the large closet will be the exercise equipment room and general storage. I do not want Ian alone in a bedroom with lots of extra storage things. The capacity for getting hurt or breaking things is too great. I don't know if my sister and I will attempt to switch those two rooms now or just wait a week until C returns.

Right now, my general strategy--Plan B, since I determined that Plan A, jumping out the window was not a viable option:

1. Do a general sort. Group like with like. This will help see what kind of furniture we need or what we need to get rid of. This will also help clear a space so that we have beds and can perform basic functions during this process.

2. Take out the trash. We moved quite a bit of stuff that should have been thrown out, but we ran out of time.

3. Reduce the amount of stuff we have. We have a lot of stuff that we don't use or need. We have saved the original boxes for almost everything and while I do believe that is a good practice, we just don't have the space to keep that many boxes. Some things, like Ian's bike or basketball hoop really don't need the original boxes to be moved back to the States.

This is going to be a lot of work. A big pain. But, living in total chaos is much worse.

I'll update with pictures later.

Moving in Korea, Part III: Panic Room

The big reveal. Curt went to the new place and I stayed at the old place until they were done. When I got to the new place, the damage caused a slow panic. Exhaustion delayed the full panic reaction which came late that night. A sampling of what we are dealing with:

Moving in Korea, Part II: The Waiting

We spent a lot of time waiting around and watching the movers. We waited in the recliner until they wrapped it up and took it out:


My palm was itchy. Does this mean I was destined to come into money? No, we're in Korea. It means I had 4 mosquito bites on my palm:

Eva spent most of the day sleeping in the Beco.


The waiting was exhausting.

Moving in Korea, Part I: The Movers

The movers were an interesting bunch. There were 5 of them:

1. A skinny, older man with a voice like he'd been chain-smoking since the age of 5.

2. A buff, younger man (most movers that I've seen are either tiny and muscular in a wiry way or big and muscular, yet overweight, but this guy knew his way around a gym)

3. A gruff woman in platform sandals who was overly interested in Eva.

4. The boss had a perm.

5. Another guy who wasn't as much of a character as the others.

They showed up with one truck that looked like a big pickup truck with an open bed. I wondered how they were ever going to get our stuff loaded on. I wondered how they would transport the stuff on the hills without things falling out. I called Sarah who assured me that this was typical and not to worry.

Since the move was just across town, they packed things in crates and some reusable boxes. They wrapped the furniture and appliances in furniture blankets that looked like cheap Turkish-type carpet designs.

It took 4 trucks to get our stuff out. They were fully loaded as well. The female mover talked to and looked at Eva a long time. It was a little unnerving because she was sleeping most of that time. She asked me through gesture if I was breastfeeding and was very happy when I told her that I was. She said,"Bap" and was making eating gestures. I couldn't understand whether she was telling me to eat rice or offering rice to me. I didn't have any food. They ordered food and ate. She spoke no English and I spoke no Korean.

Moving on Outta Here!

The lease is signed. The government furniture has been picked up. The movers are scheduled to come Saturday morning. I wish we had more time to get ready for the move. Even though it is only across town, there is a lot of junk that I wish we had time to get rid of before the move, but as it is, we will just do the best we can.

Today, I got rid of Ian's letter mat. It is a foam mat that can be pieced together. The letters are cut out of the mat squares and can be put together like a puzzle. The ends come off as well. It sounded like a good idea, but it was so hard to keep clean. It grossed me out and I wanted to throw it out months ago, but Curt wanted to try to clean it and save it. He did one cleaning and then they sat in one of the bath tubs we never use for months. Finally, today I threw it out. Ian also has a toy that has never worked properly. He got it as a birthday gift last year and we can't get it to stay together so I got rid of it. He has lots of toys so we don't need to keep broken ones.

Here is a list of things I'd list to get done before the movers come:

1. Go through Ian's toys and pull out anything broken or not needed anymore. At the very least, I hope to group the toys together in bins so there are easier to keep put away.

2. Take all the food out of the refrigerator and put it in a friend's fridge until the fridge is moved. We have to do this one. I've been working the contents of the fridge/freezer down all week, but we'll still have a large cooler full at least to transfer the day before the move.

3. File/Shred/Throw out papers. If we could get this done that would be awesome. We need to Fly Lady it. Maybe a little each day before the move.

4. Put electronics and appliances in their original boxes. Things tend to survive the move better and even though it is only across town, we want to save those boxes for the eventual move back to the States. I know that the movers get paid to do these things, but a little prep work before they come can make things go faster and smoother.

5. Take down the satellite. Even though we can't use it in the next apartment, we might be able to use it in the future or sell it.

6. Get all the leftover dog things washed and put together so Katie can take them back to the States after her visit.

7. Get everything out of closets and cabinets so we don't accidentally leave anything.

8. Try to get a few pictures in front of the beautiful view that we are leaving.

9. Ask the real estate agent whether we are moving the water cooler, water jugs, transformers, cable box and anything else provided to us by the landlord (now a bank). I don't think they would take it back. They don't plan to rent to anyone else, only sell so I don't think they'd want the stuff back, but I'm wondering if they need to turn things back into the water and cable companies. Guess we'll find out.

10. Take our Egyptian tables apart to give them the best chance to survive.

11. Take the Bowflex apart because the movers asked us to.

12. Take pictures of the Bowflex so we can try to sell it.

I think that is it. It is more than enough. My sister comes next week so I'm glad we'll be moved in before she comes.