The pace is picking up. My cell phone traffic has increased to the point that my phone is hot to the touch. I also need a better understanding of how to manage call waiting because I keep losing calls.
On the positive side, the various contractors in Floyd are fully engaged and my confidence in them is growing rapidly. They are catching details that I have not fully handled and they propose workable solutions.
On a completely unexpected note, the Floyd County and VDOT (Virginia Dept of Transportation) officials I have dealt with are doing the same! These people have gone out of their way to be hospitable and to provide excellent customer service. I have never experienced this level of service before and I like it.
As an example, we had to get our road widened in order to allow the modular home sections to be trucked to the homesite. This required removal of trees and some excavating and grading along a half mile stretch of road. Since this was not a budgeted item, VDOT worked with us so that they provided the tree removal and we provided the contractor for grading and excavating. They even called me to keep me informed of progress.
At the Lake Monticello end, brush is being cut, new plants are replacing old, and all excess furniture is disappearing into storage. It speeds things up considerably when I can look at a cluttered area and say, "That all goes into storage today!" Books, incomplete projects, and the contents of most every closet are being boxed up and sent to the storage unit.
I am very appreciative of the suggestions you have made about moving. The idea of using local labor in a carefully staged series of smaller moves is a win-win situation. Money is pumped into the local economies at each end of the trip.
There is less chance of injury or damage when smaller quantities of furnishings are being handled because there is time for planning and for acquiring the necessary dollies and moving aids to handle heavy items. Too many times in a large move, I’ve seen people wrestling furniture through a door or down a stairs with brute strength instead of using labor-saving tools, because of insufficient planning.
Huge moves require lots of planning and lots of manpower. If the move can be broken into a series of smaller actions, as in the case of loading and unloading pods or storage units, each smaller action can be planned as an independent event with the tools and manpower required for that action.
My younger sister and her long-time boyfriend moved themselves from homes in two states to a new home in a third state by making the move as a long coordinated series of smaller moves. Storage units in several states acted as buffers, allowing them to move selected items to a new home while it was still under construction. Since they are both well past retirement age, they used this strategy to keep the effort and the expenses at a manageable level at the cost of a longer move. Gretchen and I intend to do the same.
As this series progresses, feel free to add your suggestions for do-it-yourself moving tips. If you know of any particularly useful (quick, inexpensive, remarkable) ways to increase curb appeal of a house that is being listed for sale, just pile on in. We are happy to entertain all of your suggestions because, as usual, we are making the rules up as we go along.
Stay tuned.