What do these items have in common? They were all things I found hidden in our cupboards while I was cleaning them in preparation for unpacking the kitchen boxes.
When I've moved into rental houses, I've always done a welcome-clean that makes me feel a little more like the place has been rid of previous tenants. But for some reason, when it comes to our own house, I was a maniac scrubbing every inch and picking up every crumb in every corner.
The kitchen isn't ready yet - still no wall or ceiling - but the construction equipment has been moved out. And since we're not redoing the cabinets, I figured I could unpack our pots and pans and dishes to clear out some of the living room pile.
Stephen had to fly all day today, and I really wanted to impress him with my contribution to unpacking. He's been so wonderful taking the lead with all of the house stuff, and I know it is really important to him to unpack as much as possible. We figured since the cabinets are staying closed and there is no more demo to do in the kitchen, that it was safe to put things away without the danger of having to rewash every little thing.
Boy, did I have no idea what I was agreeing to do! 8 hours and 15 bags of trash later, I finally have all of our stuff crammed into the cabinets. I didn't realize how much of our stuff we left out in Brooklyn - on the counter top, hanging from the pot rack, on a pantry shelf. I had to tuck all of it away. And a lot of the cabinets here are fancy cabinets with swing out racks and pull out drawers, so it was a bit of a tetris game to figure out how to stow all of our stuff. Not to mention the fact that the movers packed everything thing individually wrapped. Even thought we had gone through our spices and removed duplicates, I was cursing that we didn't just toss them all and start over when I had to unwrap each individual container from a square yard of packing paper. At one point, I was literally up to my waist in discarded paper piles.
And I was honestly grossed out not just by the food splatters on the cabinets but by the fact that they left stuff. There had been renters in the house before we bought it, and the owners lived in Brooklyn and did pretty much everything by proxy through the real estate agent. She was overly helpful and left a lot of stuff thinking that we might want it. Everything that I saw (like old air conditioners, 30 gallons of old paint, particle-board furniture) I had them remove before the closing, but I didn't think to poke in the cabinets to see if there were single straws, skewers, bottle openers, canned vegetables, knives, bbq spatulas, wine screws, funnels, or ice cream cones. Just didn't cross my mind.
But my aching back and nauseated feeling was worth it all to see Stephen's smiling face appraise the progress. The living room is almost livable. It just needs furniture, rugs, tables, lamps, a TV, and bookshelves.
Sigh.
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