August 19, 2020

If you never unpack...

...you'll never unpack. 



We had this same rug in Colorado and in Laramie. It's still at Walmart for $9.95 years later if you're high-end like I am. Scout loved it there, so here we are. 

Years ago, another army wife told me that you should always unpack and settle in as quickly as possible because if you never do, you never will. 

Sometimes you only live in a house for a year, sometimes for 3 or 4 years. But, unlike having the luxury of a major portion of the population who gets to settle down for decades at a time, I don't hem and haw over furniture placement or window coverings. I buy things I like and things that will serve us well and I don't get caught up in maximizing every item.

An example is that I generally buy all of our window curtains and shower curtains at Walmart, Target, or TJ Maxx. Unless you are getting custom drapes for a near-forever house, buy neutrals or classic patterns that aren't trendy and you're done. I bought our first few sets of curtains in Alaska at Lowe's. We happened to be there picking out a washer and dryer. We'd just moved into a house with no window coverings at all. We needed curtains. I picked a bunch of neutrals out. We used them for 5 or 6 years. It was great. 

When we sold our Colorado house, the curtains went with it. They weren't anything special (probably from Homegoods) but that left me with nothing when I got to Pittsburgh. I got a few at Walmart and I really liked the pattern. I'll use them here again because I do still like them. 

Luckily, this house has blinds on almost every window but there's a LOT of windows, so that means a lot of curtains. I grabbed a few neutral gray (with a hint of a pattern) at Walmart and they'll be fine. You literally wouldn't know they were from Walmart aside from the fact that I just told you. 

Same with our shower curtains. I had to leave my shower curtains in Colorado. Our house in Pittsburgh had one that I liked. When I got here, there were two showers and no shower curtains. 

I bought shower curtains, went to put them up, and...no shower curtain rings. 

Our first house in Alaska had no shower rod, no rings, and no curtain. This is something I promise you will literally Never Ever Think About unless you move around a lot. Always have a plan for a shower curtain and/or a plan to secure yourself a shower curtain before you spend the night in your new house. 

Seriously. That's more important than you think it is ^

And I bought a cheap $9 shower curtain because I thought it'd be fine and then realized I look at that shower curtain every time I walk up the steps and nope, don't like it. So I ended up spending $20 on a nicer shower curtain. 

But other than having to procure some new curtains and a washer and dryer, this house is twice the size of our last house. Hall.e.lu.jah. All of our furniture fits with room to spare, which I love. 

Some things are different though...

We got Wells a table. 





We can't put anything on the TV stand, not because Wells will destroy it, but because he'll just play with things or move them around. This is really the only baby-proofing I've done. The gate is just to block the wires. Again, he doesn't seem to care about the modem or the power strip; he just runs into them and that seems unnecessary. 

The couch isn't the center of the house anymore, which is the best thing about this place. It just sits there, sometimes there's a dog on it. Sometimes I sit on it to read. Otherwise, it's generally left alone. Wells doesn't even care about it. Sometimes he puts his toys on it. It took quite a beating in Pittsburgh. 

The washer and dryer aren't in the deep recesses of the basement. 

Wells has enough space to play downstairs AND upstairs. He loves the steps. Since they're split and carpeted, they don't make me that nervous.

The kitchen isn't great. My least favorite so far, actually. But the layout of the house is perfect so I'll take 30+ year old countertops and cabinets.

Tile floors + carpet > hardwood. We've had hardwood for the last 6 or 7 years. I was over it. It's so hard to clean! The ceramic tile and a sturdy carpet is great here. The carpet isn't new, but it's definitely held up well, I think. 

All in all, as soon as I get pictures on the walls, I think it'll feel more like home. My neighbor in Pittsburgh had lived in her house for 48 years. When we moved in and I told her we'd before there for "a year or two", she said she wouldn't even unpack. That stuck with me because all I could think of was the military life and how if you never unpack, you literally never unpack. 

4 comments:

  1. Wells is a cutie. Good luck in Pittsburgh.
    www.rsrue.blogspot.com

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  2. Very interesting! Do you ever get tired of packing and unpacking?

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  3. You've got this down to an art now. Pack & unpack. Life where you're at & move on to the next thing.
    I'm glad this home seems to have some good things - sounds better than the last one.

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