Movers Shouldn't Be Shakers

When last we spoke, I had moved about three quarters of my stuff into the new apartment and had ordered furniture from IKEA.

Things looked sort of like this - although this picture shows only about half the boxes that were in that pile at its largest point.

Since then, the delivery guys came and assembled most of the furniture.  I've assembled six items, spent about 45 minutes on the phone with IKEA customer service - a term which I use in its loosest sense, unpacked and put everything away except for shoes (Mitch and I are great movers - nothing broke), gone to Fort Wayne to see some friends and return with the last load, put that away, and enjoyed a glass of wine while looking at the Lake.  Oh, and met with my business partner to work on some things.

Wow - no wonder I was a bit wiped out last night.

Let's start with the furniture, because its completion was (is) necessary to everything else getting done.

The delivery/assembly team, Marcus and his two guys, showed up as scheduled on Thursday, with 31 boxes although there were supposed to be 32.  Apparently IKEA's inventory system doesn't update real time, or something, and the sofa cover that was in stock at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday was not there at 8 a.m. Thursday when Marcus and his two guys picked everything up.  Although disappointing, that is not a big deal.

A bigger deal is that they sold me the wrong size bed slats so Marcus and his two guys couldn't finish the bed.  As a result I am sleeping on my uncovered sofa bed which is okay but annoying (a First World Problem, as they say).  It means that the bedroom looks like it is in disarray even if the rest of my stuff were put away, which means that it is attracting all of the miscellaneous stuff and therefore is a mess.  But here is proof (photographs of empty bins) that I have made great progress.

At least they got the rest of the pieces assembled, which took about six man-hours.  That reinforced my decision to leave the major assembly to someone who A) knew what to do and B) had the right tools.  But there were several items that had been suggested as easy by a helpful sales clerk, so to save a few bucks I did these myself. She was right, although "easy" for most people is still a bit challenging for me. Still, nothing worth doing is easy, right?

I assembled a table lamp (six steps, plus I had to unwrap it!), four chairs, and a coffee table.  The chairs and coffee table were a little hard for me, but that's because I have the spatial intelligence of a dead bug.  Here are my creations:

Here's what the table looked like halfway through:

My chairs work so well that I don't even think about them when I sit on one.  Here's what the room looks like, complete with my bedding (and without the sofa cover) in the interest of journalistic accuracy:

This last picture wasn't taken until Friday afternoon.  I wanted it nice and tidy before I left for the Fort so that it would be nice and tidy when I returned home.  And it was.

Another thing I did on Friday was to cook my very first meal that involved actual cooking (versus heating).  I made roasted vegetable salad for lunch and it was yummy.

On the way back to Fort Wayne, I decided to pick up my Ipass transponder in person at the Toll Road rather than order it online and wait for it by mail.  This required me to take the slow way out of Chicago and wait behind six people at their service center (who knew so many people did business with the Toll Road in person?), but at least I have it now.  Of course, it stopped working on Saturday, so I need to figure out what's going on with that.

Oh, good news:  my little butterfly friend lived!  (Mitch figured that out by process of elimination, in case you're wondering - I didn't tag him or anything.)  Apparently I have the magic touch with butterflies.

Okay, back to Chicago.  Here are a couple of pictures of the new place:

Speaking of the bathroom, last night I made a minor home improvement of which I am especially proud, since I not only figured it out on my own but actually did it myself and it worked great the first try!  The only bad thing in the bathroom is that the soap holder in the shower is corroded, so I got some colored duct tape and fixed it right up!

Pretty slick, huh?  Maybe I could be on one of those HGTV shows.

Okay, now it's off to check out a new church - Second Unitarian - and use that as a reason to learn how to navigate the El.  I've taken the El before, about fifteen years ago, but I'm giving myself a lot of extra time.

Let me close with a plaque that's on an underpass a block from my apartment.  Here's the underpass:

And here's the plaque:

And my new home.