Moving Your Own Furniture

About six months ago, my lovely wife and I happened upon the house we had always dreamed of. Ours was a rather untraditional dream home. Rather than a nice, orthodox brick home with a picture-perfect picket fence out front, our idea of the perfect home was a charming, slightly aged log cabin. Coming upon it completely by chance, we were out visiting an old friend when we noticed a worn for sale sign in front of what appeared to be a large field leading toward a wooded area and up a distant-seeming hillside.

We casually commented on it, and refocused on our drive. A few minutes later, upon arrival at our friend’s home, my wife suggested that the lot would be ideal for someone looking to build a home in the country, and get away from the constant upheaval of the city.

To our surprise, our friend was the actual owner of the lot—well, at least what we thought was a lot. Our curiosity aroused, he kindly offered to give us a quick tour, it was, after all, right down the road. To make a long story short, when we saw the cabin, we instantly fell in love with it. Although my wife was at first opposed to attempting to purchase the home from a friend (and at that time, business associate), I eventually wore her down and we arranged a great deal.

Once the deal had closed and we had finalized the contract and all that fun stuff, it was soon time to move into our little country retreat. Moving was going to be a cinch. Who needs a moving home company, anyway? After all, how hard could it be to move furniture, kitchen supplies, and a few boxes of clothes? You see, we decided that it was probably a good idea to hang onto our apartment in the city. I was still working at that time, and my wife was just convinced that moving completely out of the city would reduce us to Neanderthals in the New York social scene.

Anyway, we had both agreed to furnish the new house with furniture from my wife’s mother’s estate. She had recently passed away—leaving the majority of her things to my wife. Unfortunately, our Manhattan apartment did not boast quite enough space to accommodate it all so we were currently paying a small fortune for storage. It just made sense to go ahead and move it into our new house. I did not actually ever mention this to my wife, but I had sort of hoped that moving the furniture into our new home would give my wife a sense of closeness to her mother, and perhaps give her some closure.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. Being the old school, semi-egotistical man that my wife insists daily that I am, I came up with the wonderful idea of moving everything ourselves. After all, I had boasted, we were moving to a log cabin now, and we definitely weren’t in Manhattan anymore—so why not do it ourselves and rough it a little? How hard could moving be?

And so that was that. I called in a few favors from friends here and there. Two from the office, and an old buddy I golf with, and within a few short hours—I had myself a team of highly motivated movers. Fortunately, one of those highly motivated removalists also happened to have in his possession a long, flatbed trailer that was, in my opinion, ideal for the job.

Loading the furniture and things onto the trailer was a cinch. In fact, we were on our way and ahead of schedule in no time. In fact, we were rolling. And then it happened. You see, I had politely avoided mentioning that that strap ‘co-worker number one’ had so tediously wrapped and tied around the load looked a bit on the skimpy side. In fact, one could even say that the day’s entire misfortune might even be considered his fault. But what appreciative, considerate guy would say something like that? Not me, of course.

I do not think I will ever forget the sounds we heard next. First, came the boom then the rackety-tatt-tatt, then, finally, a series of angry, shaken drivers behind us—screeching tires and honking their horns. As I quickly put on the blinker and pulled to the side, somehow I just knew that my wife would never understand—this couldn’t have possibly been my fault, after all, I didn’t tie the rope.

I’m not sure exactly how to describe what came next. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to remove pieces of broken, shattered furniture from a busy highway? Probably not. I do. And so did my slightly annoyed, yet loyal buddies. An hour later, exhausted from heat and still harboring a sick feeling in my stomach, I surveyed the damage.

We were definitely going to have enough firewood to try out that lovely wood burning stove in the new house. As a matter of fact, we could likely have made it through a cold New York winter—just using the bedroom suite. I was on the verge of tears. My buddy (the one who tied the strap) in an attempt to cheer me up said something to the effect of ‘look man, at least it’s not your real furniture, right?’. Right.

In case you’re wondering, my wife is speaking to me again. Finally. Although I don’t think she ever really got the whole ‘it wasn’t my fault’ thing. For some crazy reason, she insists that due to the fact that it was my idea to ‘rough it’ and try moving furniture myself, it must have been my fault. I know, it’s crazy.

And there you have it. The reason for this post. Fellas, don’t be dumb and macho and all that other stuff we can be sometimes. Hire a moving service. Let the removalists deal with the hassle of getting everything there and take over from there. Believe me, I am. We’re finally getting rid of that apartment in the city. I have retired, and my wife is feeling less socially obligated. Yes, we are moving into the cabin as our fulltime residence. We have had a year or two to make some minor changes and improvements and could not be happier with our new home. But guess what? We’re both retired now. No reason to ‘rough it’. In fact, I’ve already chosen the moving service we will be using. So, if you’re moving heed my advice—don’t try to be a hero. Call the furniture removal experts—call the movers.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 11th, 2005 at 2:25 am and is filed under Moving Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.