My mom moved into her new house on September 1st. My step-dad is still, for a little while longer, living in the rented apartment he moved into when they separated. Even though they've been back together for a year, he didn't give up the apartment. First it was too soon to talk about moving back in together. Then he had hip surgery and it made more sense for him to stay in a home without stairs. Then they started the whole house-selling process, and realized that it would be very convenient to have an extra place to store things (including the cats) during the staging and moving process. The three of them (step-dad and my cat-brothers) will be joining her soon.
The new house is beautiful. It has higher ceilings and bigger rooms than the old house. It has brand-new wooden floors that don't creak. It has bigger windows, and a skylight, so every room is full of natural light except the (fully finished) basement. It has a proper garage, which they didn't have before (only a parking pad and a street permit for the second car). It has central vac. It has a beautiful view from both the front and back, and a park across the street. It's only 13 years old. It has a good vibe, that house.
On Friday around noon I called my mom to see how everything was going in the new place. I called her cell phone, but she told me that her land line was already in and working fine. She had a team of workers from the Red Coats moving service in there unpacking all her stuff. The piano movers were on their way with the old upright. Everything seemed to be going well. She asked Ken and I to come on over and see for ourselves.
So, we did. It's only a 20-minute drive from our house to the new place. We did a walk-through and were impressed by just about everything we saw. My mom is already itching to repaint, change the window dressings, and re-do the kitchen. She especially dislikes the digitally-controlled oven. We had to read the instructions at length just to figure out how to program it to bake at 375 degrees. Personally I prefer the old, simple way: stick a dial on the front of the oven, marked from "OFF" to "500F" and leave it at that. One should not have to puzzle for 15 minutes before figuring out that you have to press '2' to make the temperature go up and '7' to make it go down.
But seriously, that place has great bones. It's definitely a big step up from the modest, post-war house I grew up in. I'm happy for my parents and expect that they will settle in quickly and live happily ever after, or as close as humans can get to that, for a while.
11 comments:
Wonderful!
Great for your folks! I'm really glad they're happy and things are going well, even if the self-aware oven is a challenge for the moment. :)
Very kewl.
That oven remins me of the old gas oven I had many years ago.
In order to cook at the proper temperature, you often had to set it about 50 degrees less than what it called for.
It sounds gorgeous...and having a park across the street would be lovely. I'm happy for them and hope that things go well for them in their new home. The oven...I am finally used to the digital controls because the oven in my last two houses had them. It was weird at first and took me a while to adjust.
Rashan's mom has a house full of appliances we need detailed instructions and/or remotes to use. Stove & oven, overhead fan, washer/dryer. We're disoriented for the first 30 minutes every time we go there! I hope everything becomes normal for them very soon! :)
I hope they enjoy it. Sounds lovely.
Sounds perfect to me! I hope they'll both be vey happy living in their new home.
If it's only 20 minutes from you will your mother expect regular visits now?
After this major feat of shifting and shuffling households, I would say they should make it a lot more years if they managed all this.
Oh what good news! Moving into a new home that has all the things you want, love, and need is a wonderful thing. I'm happy for them! And for you, because you'll get to go there for holidays and such now too. :)
Painting is fun too, of course. :)
Thanks for all the good wishes! In answer to LL Cool Joe's question: my folks' new house is not that much closer than their old one - less than 10 minutes difference - so I don't think I'll be called upon for much more frequent visits. :-)
Cool, Do they have a room for me when I come up to visit???
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