Moving In!

Last I wrote, I was enjoying exploring Misawa with new friends while James was settling in to his new position as a deployed pilot in Korea. Shortly after that, I received a surprise email from James saying that our household goods shipment would be delivered on Thursday, May 20th. We weren't expecting it till the end of the month, so I had to kind of scramble to get ready to receive all of our stuff.

The first order of business was painting before the movers arrived. All of the units on base come with very sterile white paint which drives me crazy. The base is totally fine with us painting as long as we're willing to paint it back when we move out. Normally I'd say that was too much work... but since we're going to be here for three years I figured it would be worth it to invest some extra time and money in making this generic apartment look like a unique home. Thankfully, my friend Lisa was an art major in college and has some good experience with painting so she volunteered to help me. We ran over to the Japanese home store and picked up a couple of cans of red paint and created a few accent walls in the living room and dining room. It looks pretty bright in some of the pictures, but it's actually a nice deep burgundy which matches a lot of our home accents. I absolutely LOVE IT!

Then, the base agency that leant us some furniture while we were waiting for our stuff to arrive had to come pick that all up. The way the timing worked out, they had to do that the afternoon before our shipment arrived... so I spent the night over at Lisa's house while my house was empty. (Have I mentioned how awesome my neighbors are? ;^)

Thursday morning, the movers arrived at 8:20 am. After confirming that these were indeed our crates, 5 Japanese men started prying them open and unloading everything. The Japanese may be short, but they are incredibly efficient. It only took them 3.5 hours to unload everything, move all of the boxes into the house, unpack their contents, and reassemble all of the furniture and place it where I wanted it. It was such a whirlwind! Since most of the movers speak little to no english, they had me number the rooms, so as they brought the boxes and things in, I could hold up a certain number of fingers to tell them where I wanted them. The language barrier was actually kind of funny because they were all talking to each other and laughing as they unpacked our things. I'm not sure, but I think they were very amused by many of our strange American possessions...

While it's nice that the movers are willing to take everything out of boxes for us so we don't have to dispose of all of the boxes and paper, it's a little annoying because they just leave everything out on the floor in a jumbled mess. Our second bedroom especially looked like a tornado had gone through there as all of our books, papers, and other random items were piled up together. I'll admit that I was a bit overwhelmed and had no idea where to even get started...

Since I was still recovering from my surgery at that point and couldn't do much for myself, several people came over to help me get everything organized and put away. That first afternoon, two ladies from my Bible study came over and washed everything in the kitchen and put it away for me. That was such a blessing because it usually takes days to get all of the dishes and appliances cleaned and organized. But by that evening I had a fully functioning kitchen and dining room!

Soon after that, I had the living room, bedroom, and bathroom completely set up as well. Right around that time, though, I came down with a bad cold and kind of lost the energy and motivation to keep going (which is why this post is so long in coming.) But I finally got the office all organized this afternoon. So now I just need to work on the final cosmetic touches - hanging curtains and pictures. I don't know when that will all come together, but at least 1842-B is starting to feel like our own home. =^)

I wanted to wait until all of the pictures and things are hung to take pictures, but that might be weeks away so I went ahead and did that so you can see what I've been up to.

The first change you notice when walking through our heavy, metal front door is that we painted the wall behind the sliding pocket doors in the living area to make it more of a feature than an awkward stretch of empty wall. I plan on printing large black and white photographs to stick on there so it's truly a feature!

Here's a shot from the middle of the living room so you can see where the accent walls are in context. As you can see, the other big red accent wall continues from the living room into the dining room.

It was a challenge to figure out how to orient the furniture in the small living room, but I like our set up now. It's nice and cozy and gives you a view of the TV and the backyard. I'll be hanging some large, custom framed photos from the wedding on that far wall by the TV.

Looking backward over the love seat, you can see that we decided to put James' desk out in the living room. We probably could have fit it in the second bedroom, but then we literally would not have ANY space to house guests. I'll be hanging some of his Academy photos and awards on the red wall. I also plan on getting navy blue curtains to put over the sliding glass door so that the room will have a sophisticated red, white and blue theme. =^)

Here's a shot of the dining room. I picked the red paint because it goes with all of our accent pillows and cushions and things from our previous homes. I'll be making a photo collage on that red wall, and put up a navy valance on the windows in the kitchen to make the space feel cohesive. I'd also like to get an area rug to make the dining nook feel a bit more like it's own distinct space.

The kitchen is about the same as the last time you saw it, except that all of the cabinets are full.

Our bedroom looks terribly bare right now. I decided not to paint in here - and instead left that whole wall behind the headboard blank so that James can paint a mural there when he gets back from Korea! But I think that once I get pictures hung and our red curtains up over the window, it will look a bit more colorful in there. Hanging those curtains will be a big help anyway because Japan doesn't do daylight savings time, and we're so far north that the sun rises before 5 am every morning. It's very disorienting waking up at 6:30 or something and having it be completely light in the room...

The bathroom is pretty much the same except I now have my shower curtain hung. I'm planning on painting the walls in there a light blue-grey that will match the stripes in the shower curtain.

And finally - the office. We don't have a guest bed yet, so I put my desk right under the window for now. I like looking out at the trees in the backyard while working. I realized as the movers were placing all of the furniture in here that we have a black and white theme going in here... So I may end up getting some curtains with a black and white graphic print and painting the walls a bright color like yellow or blue. But that will require a lot of help to move everything out now that I've got all of the books up on the shelves...

And that concludes my house tour for now. The backyard has been nice and trimmed up but it's still empty so I didn't take any pictures. Eventually I want to put a grill and patio set out there and make it into a fun party space. But that requires a lot of money that I'm not sure I'm willing to spend right now. I have to keep in mind as I'm making all of these household adjustments that we're planning on doing some international traveling after James gets back from Korea so we need to be saving up for that.

I'll post a few more pictures once I put all of the finishing touches on. Till then - hope you enjoyed this not-so-brief glimpse into our new home on the other side of the world!