Constantly moving...comes to a halt

My roommates and I just completed one of the last parts of our move last night: arranging the kitchen!

It brings to a near-end the saga which began roughly two weeks ago. Our lease ended on July 27 (Saturday), but the new one didn't begin until August 1 (Thursday)...leaving us with no place of our own for a few days.

My dear brother sent me the most uplifting text at the news:

Haha so you're homeless. bummer

Yes, we were homeless. But not to fear, for our new roommate was the fortuitous renter of a townhouse in the same complex we lived in and happened to have a roommate recently vacate.

• Stage 1: Move everything from our place in boxes and other such packing shenanigans, to the empty room on Thursday and Friday nights and cram as much furniture as possible into the interstices while still keeping his place livable for his remaining roommate...mostly successful.


• Stage 2: Apartment preparation and waiting period. We managed to schedule our required carpet cleaning for the morning of the last day we were on the lease, not noticing that we were required to be out and have keys turned over by 10am that day.
  
  After a last minute scramble, we got an extension from our complex until 4pm (latest possible) and had the carpet cleaned just in time. Other things cleaned at the last minute: oven (probably burned out my lungs with the lye in the cleaner and a too-hot oven), fridge, upstairs bathroom, downstairs bathroom (remembered at 3:40pm) and range. We turned in the keys at 3:59pm.
  
  Anything we get back on our deposit will be icing on the cake at this point, since we took the lease over after a few years of damage from the previous tenants (fridge was oil-orange, cabinet doors perpetually greasy etc.) and they left us the deposit money.


• Stage 3: The second move began on August 1, after work. We rented a truck for a few hours, which I had overly much fun driving. It took us just two trips:
  1. large furniture
  2. boxes, boxes, boxes
  with some great help from our new roommate's former roommate.
  
  The lion's share of the move was over at this point, with all of our stuff in the new location (sans a few boxes).

Since then it's been the slow process of clearing floors and re-arranging. My own room was mostly done last Saturday (day following the mass move), and Nate and I had a good start on the kitchen as well.

This brings us to last night (Wednesday, 6 days post move) with the last phase of cabinet filling and utensil placing, mentioned at the start of the post...I'm just so glad it's over and that I can rest when I get home.