Moving on Up

(For those anxiously awaiting my Paris post, rest assured that it will be coming tomorrow! I'm still compiling pictures to include, but the text is written. Expect a three-part summary!)

Moving is never fun, and moving in New York is more challenging than it has been in almost any other place I've lived. (Tokyo is a notable exception.) My lease is up at the end of April, and I have decided to move in with my wonderful boyfriend, Ed. This is great news, because his apartment is already furnished, and since his stuff is a lot nicer than mine, I won't be taking much furniture with me when I go. I am still faced with several challenges, however.

CHALLENGE 1 - Getting rid of my stuff
The environmentalist in me doesn't want to throw things away, and the financier in me wants to make back some of the set-up costs I faced when moving in, so I'm selling as much stuff as I can. Craigslist (a sort of online classified ad service for those who don't know it) is great for this - mostly. I've put up postings about my couch, bed, and other large things. I also created a Photobucket account, and have photographed, written descriptions of, and priced everything I want to sell. (Access it here if you're curious.) So far it's going fairly well. I have buyers interested in most of the big stuff; in fact, two of them will be coming by tonight. Several people have expressed interest in some of the smaller items as well, like some of the kitchen items. However, I've been getting a LOT of scam emails from people supposedly interested in items when all they really want is my contact information for fraudulent purposes. They're easy to spot, but it's a bit of a pain to keep getting them.

CHALLENGE 2 - Moving out of my building
I live on the 5th floor of a building with no elevator. Even though I won't be bringing much stuff to Ed's - clothes, books, and personal stuff - I still have to walk every single thing I want to keep down all those stairs. Ditto for things I'm donating, like clothes I no longer want, kitchen items no one will buy, etc. This makes selling as much as possible even more important. Not only will I make money on everything I sell, but I won't have to move all the sold items out myself, which is a huge deal. In New York, it's a pretty well-accepted rule that if you buy something from someone on Craigslist, you're responsible for picking it up yourself.

CHALLENGE 3 - Moving without a car
This is a biggie, and is the reason I drove huge, gas guzzling cars throughout college, when I moved into and out of a dorm every year. It's important to have a vehicle that can shift a lot of stuff when one is moving. Or any vehicle at all, for that matter. Luckily, I've known about the move for a while, so I've started ferrying things to Ed's every time I go over. My books were the first to go, and I've got about 75% of them re-shelved at his place. I've also moved my winter hats/gloves/scarves and ski stuff, and I plan to move more clothes over this weekend. I know I'll still be left with a huge pile when it comes down to the wire and I've got only a day or two to make the final move, but every item I get over there in the interim is one less that I'll have to shift when it's crunch time. I plan to rent a car for a few hours on moving day to do this all in a reasonable amount of time, but I'm hoping there will be little enough left that one trip in a sedan will do it.