The related parties and ideas around moving house

My friend Fanny bought a house in Brooklyn Bay 16 street. A group of close friends and I went to helped her move her items, unpack, and assemble her furniture. She is a girl with a ton of specificity and requirements. Therefore, I was genuinely happy for her that she found a condo that fits her pragmatic needs.

Here are some of her criteria for the condo:

It has to have a balcony for her mom to have a cigarette

It needs to have two rooms: one for her boyfriends and the other one for her mom.

It needs to be a walking distance from the subway station

It needs to have a parking spot for her boyfriend—Tom, to park his car

It needs to have decent interior design

It needs to be within the budget

After months of checking around different houses, negotiating, and they went through all the legal documents. It is purchased. All of a sudden, in mid-October, they informed us that we can help them move, and that we shall have thanksgiving at their home. And this entire transition made our friendship stronger.

With that being said, last Saturday, I helped them move their things. I was also actively observing the systems that were involved in moving a house. First, it is the U-Haul they rented. Tom and Jason had to ride Tom’s private car to the U-Haul pick-up location; and Jason helped drove U-Haul to her old home. Meanwhile we are carrying the boxed items down to the sidewalk in front of Fanny’s old house.

Then, it is the loading of boxes. I was surprised by their planning. They planned to have the moving company on Sunday to move the big bulky furniture. So, whatever we moved on Saturday are their portable manageable items. We carried the boxes to the bottom of her old house and loaded them on the U-Haul. Then, Tom and Fanny ridded the U-Haul while the other friends took the car and tailed the U-Haul. Upon arrival, which is around 6-8 blocks away, we unloaded and carried the boxes up the stairs. The boxes were labeled in advance to be sorted into respective rooms or basement. So unloading was quick, it was the stairs that took most of our energy. They then had to return the U-Haul. While waiting, we unpacked some of the boxes, cleaned the dirt on the walls, cleared a space in the living room for the couch to come in the afternoon.

When they returned, they started to assemble the desk, which is way more difficult than the ones in IKEA. The instruction started us off with labelling the pieces of wood tiles with a code. For example, we identified a tile with three holes on each side and taped the pre-fabricated alphabet stickers on the tile. “S”+ “A”, “B”+”A”, “A”+”T”… and they did not design enough stickers of “A”s, and we ended up with a tile that has “B” “ –“ “ 1” (B minus 1 equals A). The desk took much longer than what we expected.

I was fascinated by U-Haul’s network, their organizational method to move from one house to another, and the arrangement of the desk.