101 days after we moved in to our current home, it is fully furnished.
Heading East
I’d like to think my wife and I know a few things about buying houses, and about moving in to them. Over the course of the last twenty-four years, we’ve owned nine houses that we lived in as our primary residence.
In July, I wrote, “Heading East,” to share the news that we were selling our home in downtown Fort Worth and moving East.
A few weeks later we closed on a home in North Arlington. On August 18 we moved in.
Furnishing the New Place
Fun fact: Buying furniture during the COVID-19 pandemic is a bit like shopping a mirage: some items appear right in front of you yet are not really for sale (or more often not available for some length of time measured in weeks or months).
Since our new house is about 50% larger than our last one, we needed to purchase quite a bit of furniture.
- Formal living: four chairs, coffee table, and rug
- Family: two couches and two coffee tables
- Breakfast: table and six chairs
- Guest bedroom: bed and nightstand
- His home office: couch
- Her home office: desk, desk chair, and bookcases
After visits to several stores and a commitment to only purchase items that were in stock or were promised to be available within ten days, we bought everything listed above.
The Big Reveal
We coordinated the many required deliveries so that everything would be in place a day before our big reveal. And we hired someone to repaint the interior and make some updates so that things would look just as we envisioned. Everything worked according to plan until it didn’t:
- a desk chair was delayed and rescheduled to arrive after the reveal
- a coffee table was damaged while being loaded on the delivery truck and the first available replacement would arrive after the reveal
So What?
In the end, the big reveal was wonderful and the incompleteness was just part of the story. Decorating one’s home is never truly finished.
Besides, the delivery saga would continue on for another few months providing the delivery folks an opportunity to damage another coffee table in the delivery process and to drop the desk chair on the floor with enough force to damage the floor.
Apparently, I’m a slow learner. The last time we moved, I wrote about a similar experience: “Waiting.”. That time, we were without a refrigerator. For that experience it was the fourth delivery that yielded the desired result, and it occurred after 31 days.
In preparing a house to become your home you may find that the wait is longer or just different than expected. It may take an extra 31, 101, or even 4,291 days.
As we begin Advent, may your experience of this season of preparation be marked by unexpected moments – moments that call upon you to wait in new ways, moments that challenge your assumptions, and moments that remind you of the importance of both the journey and the arrival (or birth).