We're finally mostly settled in our new apartment. Last week and weekend was really busy with all the packing we had to do to get ready. Thankfully we still had most of the boxes we used to move here, including four big wardrobe boxes and boxes for our kitchen dishware and appliances. We signed the lease on Thursday and moved in some small things that night and Friday night.

We had originally wanted to have the movers come Saturday morning around 8 or 8:30, but our old apartment wouldn't give us the elevator key to use because the office didn't open until 10. So we ended up changing our move time to the afternoon, which had a big start window of 12-4. We used Gentle Giant, which I read good things about and checked on the BBB website. It ended up working out well that they came later because we were still busy packing up things and getting furniture emptied. Three big, strong guys showed up at the old apartment around 12 and took about an hour and a half to get everything padded, wrapped, and in the truck. I was impressed with how fast and hard they worked.

The only thing that got broken was a cheap picture frame that fell off the wall when they were lifting the mattress. To compensate, they didn't charge us for the packing materials used to wrap the mattress (which we weren't told about in the beginning, but I guess it didn't matter). It seemed to take longer for them to move everything into the new place. The couch looked especially difficult to fit through the door. They ended up finishing around 3:45.

After they left, we spent the next several days unpacking and putting things away. The place was quite a mess for a few days with boxes everywhere. We still have some piles of stuff here and there that we don't know what to do with or where to put, but it's starting to look like a home now. We hope to have some pictures up by this weekend.