Eight and a half weeks after our crate left our house in Arkansas, it has finally arrived at our rental townhouse in Linköping, Sweden. Being without most of our belongings for this long, was more difficult than expected.
The first three weeks after it shipped out, we were still at our house, getting rid of stuff and in the process of moving out. Since the only furniture we shipped was a book case and our dining table and chairs, we still had most of our furniture. As we sold individual items, little by little, our house emptied out. We were able to hang on to our sofas and coffee table until almost the end. And due to an arrangement with the buyers of our house, they took some of our furniture in exchange of letting us stay two more weeks after closing, we ended up getting to use our desk and guest bed until we left.
The last two nights in Arkansas, we stayed at a hotel. We could have stayed at our "old" house until we left, but decide to have a deadline of when we needed to be out of the house, to make sure we weren't still moving out/cleaning house up until the time we were boarding the plane. We needed a deadline.
Once we arrived in Sweden, my new job provided an apartment for us, the first three weeks, until we got access to our rental townhouse. Staying in the apartment was a good solution, for when we first arrived, mainly since it was furnished and had linens, towels, cook ware, table ware as well as other necessities such as toilet paper and soap. All we had to rush out and get, when we first arrived was some groceries. The main disadvantage of staying in the company apartment was that they only had reserved two out of three rooms for us; meaning we had
company. Luckily, this was only the case, the first two and last two nights of our stay.
When we finally got to move in to our townhouse, we had beds delivered from IKEA the same day. We had prepared some, by buying bedding and some cook and table ware as well as a vacuum cleaner, but we still needed a lot more stuff. The next day our IKEA couches arrived, that we had ordered over a month earlier, during one of their sofa campaigns (for each sofa you buy, you get 1000 SEK to spend at IKEA). The next two weeks after moving in, we filled our pantries and kitchen cabinets and drawers. We got light fixtures (I had totally forgotten that in Sweden, you have to bring your own when you move in to a place), hangers, towels, cook ware and a stereo and TV.
Finally, this Thursday, our crate with our most beloved material belongings arrived. Since it arrived in the morning, and Chris isn't the most patient person, everything was already unloaded, in our house, by the time I got home from work. He had even assembled our table and chairs! Thank you superman! I went right to work, unpacking. I started with the plastic tubs, holding our kitchen stuff. A pleasant surprise was that NOTHING was broken. Considering, we had done the packing ourselves, this is pretty good. Afterwards, I cleaned the bookcase and unpacked all our book boxes into it. Our bookcase is full! William had his own bookshelf in Arkansas, and we will probably get him one soon, cause his books alone, take up four out of nine cubes in our book case.
The things I had missed the most were:
- Dining table and chars
- Silverware (we only brought 2 forks, 1 knife and some spoons)
- Winter boots (I realized quite fast that my canvas boots didn't stay dry in the snow)
- Hooded sweatshirts
- Jeans (I only had one pair with me in my suitcase)
The unpacking is a work in progress. It will take a while to find a spot for all our stuff. We didn't actually bring that much. Only approx 160 cubic feet worth of things. But our townhouse is considerably smaller, with much less storage space than our old house. This Christmas holiday will be spent unpacking and organizing. I am sure by New Years, we will be settled in and ready to relax. All and all, I think we did good, prioritizing what to bring, and getting by with very little for a long time. Now, we are ready to get back to some normalcy.
I am so happy to have our stuff back!
