Move complete...well, sort of

In a few hours we will be turning in our keys to our old place, Lowertown Commons (pictured above). Yippee! Then we will be officially done with moving.

It's been a month of moving. 5 weekends of moving during the glorious time of the year when the world here in Minnesota is becoming green again.

I am ready for moving to be over.

Not that it is over, really. We are far from settled in our new place. But that will come along. This morning I started arranging things in the work space that my hubby and I will be sharing. This will be my creating space...largely for beading and smaller art projects. (We will still keep our studio space at the Jax where I do my painting).

Yesterday I think the exhaustion from moving and all this upheaval hit me...I sort of had a little meltdown...just so tired that I needed to have a good cry. There's a lot of change in the air these days...plenty of endings and new beginnings rolled into...I'm not sure what. In the past month, I have not had my usual "down" time...time to myself to putz, create, or whatever. I really need that time. I feel out of balance without it.

So, I'm looking forward to life returning to normal...this new sort of normal called Life at the Tilsner.

First pics

I picked the hardest walls to paint first: the main living room wall (3-12 ft sections), which was a pain because it was a dark plum color (Plum Legacy) and the bathroom. I was a little overwhelmed as I was painting this wall because it was so much plum. But you'll see...it works well with our furnishings and complements the brick wall opposite it.

The bathroom. Pain in the ass to paint. We started, got halfway done and then went on to other projects for a week. The color is more of a aqua (called BeachHouse)

The new captain's bed for the guest bedbroom. Room is painted a light spring green (Pale Pastures). It needed a very light color, because it is an interior room with no window. I have some nifty decorating ideas for this room.

The new Ikea table that my son lovingly put together ( a project that took several hours). Also the 4 chairs that I picked up at Art & Architecture (an architectural salvage place)...you can still see the dust on them.

After much debate about color, the kitchen has been painted (June Morn). It was a hard room to pick color for, with it's gray/black countertops. As you can see, we have a lot of kitchen unpacking/organizing to do.

Another shot looking into the kitchen, towards the bathroom. There's the cat, Squeakers, checking out the place.

A shot of our living room. Very cozy. The booksheves come out from the brick wall to serve also as a room divider. Our bedroom is on the other side of the shelves.

Another shot of our living room. Check out the beautiful braid room that I just picked up...it pulls together all our colors.

So I thought I'd take a little time this Sunday morning to post a few pics. It is still a work in progress. Lots of unpacking/organizing to do. Heck, lots of packing still to do at the old place...all the small crap! And then we have to clean it!!!

We have slept in the new place 4 nights now...it feels like home. Even though we face a major road, look out over the river and train tracks, it is very quiet (by our standards...we are urban dwellers after all). It helps that the windows are all double paned and we are 5 floors up.

I am very tired of the moving process. I would love now to just sit back and enjoy the new place. But it will still be another week of cleaning up and the old place and organizing the new.

In the meantime, I dream of actually doing some painting (on canvas, not walls). I actually had an inspiration for a painting at Ikea (something reflective of the Ikea shopping experience!)...but it will have to wait for now...all my creative energies are being poured into setting up our new home.

I can't wait to show you pics of the "finished" product.

Moving Update 2

I had every intention to post pics of the new place as we're working on the move...really, I did, but it's been so busy. Today was a typical workday...the 9-5 gig followed by some errands (trip to Target for supplies) and then to the new place to do some more painting. The bulk of the painting is done. Still some hallways to do. I will be so glad to be done with painting walls. I'd rather paint canvases any day!

Just 2 more nights of sleeping in our old place. Joel has lived here over 6 years and I have been just over 2. It was the first place we lived together.

But the new place will be the first home that we have chosen together and decorated together. It's a fun beginning. And even though it's been a lot of hard work and there's been plenty of stress and little squabbles along the way, we are both excited about our new place and this beginning.

Wednesday will be the day for moving all our big stuff. We've been moving lots of stuff ourselves, but Wednesday is the day the furniture goes to the new place. We'll still have stuff to move after the furniture is moved, but it's a major hurdle.

So I make no promises that pictures will be posted in the next few days. But there will be the deluxe tour in the near horizon.

Moving update

We are halfway thru Week 2 of the move and a little over a week from the day when we move all the BIG stuff (i.e. the day we start "living" in the new place). Which means we are somewhere in the middle of the Land of Limbo.



The Land of Limbo is a very busy place. Weekdays are filled with the 9-5 gig and evenings are filled with painting walls, picking up furniture and making runs for other stuff.



Progress seems slow, but really things are coming together. This weekend I finished painting the guestroom (a lovely spring green) and we picked up the bed for that room (still to be put together). On Saturday, my son put together my new dining room table. He cursed Ikea up a storm, but was so nice to do it for my mother's day present. We picked up some chairs for the table at the architectural salvage place on University. They are beautifully weathered red chairs...I like their old look.



We also keep hauling stuff to the new place...sometimes we are quite the gypsy parade. On Saturday, Joel, my daughter and I traipsed the one block to the new building, each pushing a cart loaded with stuff. Hey, it's easier than loading/unloading the car! Every time I go to the new place I look around to see what I can take.

Tonight I return to painting the bathroom...we got it halfway done and then left it unfinished for a week...it's not a fun room to paint...the worst part is still left (above the shower, around the toilet...). Now I'm determined to finish the job.

I'll try to post some pics from the Land of Limbo in the next day or two.

We're on the move

It's official. We are now Tilsner residents.

Friday, May 1st we picked up our keys and promptly moved in a few loads. We are moving s-l-o-w-l-y. By that I mean that we are taking the month of May to move into our new home. By that I also mean that we are physically moving slowly.

Moving is hard work. Physically it takes quite a toll on the body. I am glad that we can take our time moving...and at the same time, I wish we were already moved in. It's hard being in two places at once.

This past weekend we spent lots of time painting. I hate white walls, so I love the idea of having color on the walls. I get so many positive comments about how my studio at the Jax is painted. I have the dream of turning our new place into a warm, cozy, creative space. I loved picking out colors for our new walls. But the act of painting... Unfortunately, I love painting canvases more than walls.

I have the bathroom half painted. It was the wrong room to start with...very labor intensive. The name of the paint color is "Beach House"... it does have that beachy feel. It's sort of a light aqua/mint color. I'll take pics. (You can see pics of the place empty here. And you can get a good idea of the colors I'm painting by just looking at my blog)

Then I worked on the main room. The wall opposite the brick wall is 36 feet long--divided into 12 feet sections by wood beams (these sort of define our rooms). Originally I thought of painting each section a different shade of plum. But once I started painting I decided to paint the whole thing the medium shade called "Plum Legacy". It's a bit darker than I expected, but I like it. I'm anxious to see our furnishings and accessories in our new home.

The painting continues this week. Last night included another run to Lowe's for more paint. This is taking a lot of paint (and time).

In the end, it will all be worth it. It promises to be an exhausting month. I apologize in advance if it seems I have dropped off the face of the earth. I'll try to keep posting updates here (with pics) of our progress.

Stay tuned.