Action stations!

The last couple of weeks have been a bit nuts, not only tying up the final loose ends, but we also decided to move ourselves out of the house without the help of a removal company. We wanted to try and thin out our stuff and get rid of the things we no longer need.

We hired another van for the day yesterday and as the hours flew by loading it, we realised we weren’t going to meet our schedule. We were going to need to push back our departure date another couple of days as there was no way we were going to be ready, especially with the kids under-foot. We contacted Nina’s folks and asked if they’d come to our rescue and take the kids for a couple of nights. Luckily they were free and, as always, willing. We met up and handed over the excited kids in a pub car park before heading to our storage unit with our van plus a rental van full to the rafters with the remainder of our ‘to keep’ items.

We are starting to get really tired now. The pushing towards making this move happen has been relentless since we arrived back from holiday in the summer. What with decorating and prepping the house, selling it, looking to buy in France, looking to buy in the UK, Christmas, sorting, selling, tipping, gifting, working, tying up loose ends, saying goodbyes and single handedly moving out of a fully laden 4 bedroom house as well as keeping our businesses ticking over. The emotional aspect is beginning to take it’s toll and mini meltdowns are popping up here and there but we have a goal and we need to crack on.

As we pulled up at the storage depot, we knew we were facing a considerable problem. It’s difficult to visualise your worldy possessions packed into a metal cube and even harder to accurately estimate their volume. After a little advice, we’d opted for a 100 sq ft storage unit but after one full Luton van and two loads in our Transporter over the previous week it was almost full. We now had a jumbo transit and another Transporter load sitting outside the storage depot and a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t fit.

It was 6.00pm and we had several tons of stuff to move before getting the rental van back for 8.00am the next morning.

Full storage unit - Action stations!
100 sq ft storage unit almost full.

It was obvious now that this was never going to happen. We had a word with Terry on the desk who we’d already told we might have a problem. We sat there for quarter of an hour, gazing at him like a couple of space cadets as he went through the various permutations of units we could have, offers, deals, timeframes, prices. We were exhausted and it was like listening to a foreign language. We glanced at each other a couple of times (blankly) while he clicked around his screen. It had taken days to load the 100 ft² unit and if possible we wanted to avoid having to move all of that and our two van loads into a bigger bin. The trouble was, the customer deals could only apply to one unit if we were going to split our gear. We’d listened in fatigued confusion for long enough and I asked Terry for a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote down each scenario as he went over them again, then calculated the costs over a two year period. It turned out that we would save £1000 over two years if we moved everything into a new 150 ft² unit!…On the third floor!

All of a sudden, it was a no brainer to me. Let’s do it! Action stations! Nina’s face dropped. It was 6.00pm and we had several tons of stuff to move before getting the rental van back for 8.00am the next morning.

“We’d just saved ourselves £1000 for 6 hours’ effort.”

We got to it and what a mission! It’s a good job it was the evening, and quiet, as our treasured possessions were spread everywhere… two open units, two open vans, stuff all over the loading bays. We commandeered the corridors on the ground floor (where our first unit was) and the third floor as staging areas to organise how we were repacking. We skipped dinner and by the end of it were tripping over, stumbling and banging into things with fatigue. Once we made the decision to do it, it was actually pretty funny and we spent a good amount of time giggling about the situation. Wierdly, as a couple, we’ve always enjoyed this kind of thing, once we’re in the thick of it.

6 hours later at midnight we flipped the padlock on the bin and had a celebratory hug. Job Done! We’d just saved ourselves £1000 for 6 hours’ effort!

150 ft2 full storage unit
150 ft2 storage unit filled!

We jumped in the vans and set off on the hour long journey home.

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