Moving Out of 734 — Savannah by Season

Remember at the beginning of July when we moved Montrell out of his apartment? Well, I'd been preparing for quite a while for my own move, moving things slowly to my parent's house. Nothing could have prepared me for the time I would spend cleaning our apartment the day before move-out, though!

Two roommates moved out early and didn't clean any of the shared spaces before leaving, which left Crystal and I to do it all. We went without sleep and cleaned and painted for around 20 hours. It was stressful, horrible & tough, but watching the Olympics helped keep us going.

Here's the run-down of our cleaning process:

clean out the fridge, scrub down the fridge, scrub down the washer and dryer, fumigate oven, take out burners and scrub them, scrub microwave (inside and out), clean out the pantry, clean & paint pantry walls, sweep and mop pantry floor, clean out all kitchen cabinets and drawers, scrub down all cabinets and drawers, touch-up kitchen wall paint, sweep and mop kitchen floors, sweep the outdoor closet out, sweep the balcony, dust dining room light fixtures, wipe down dining room furniture, vacuum & rug doctor the dining room, scrub down baseboards (dining, kitchen, hallways, living room), touchup paint the baseboards, scrub living room carpet stains, vacuum out couch and chair, febreze couch and chair cushions, dust entertainment center, wipe down coffee and side tables, move all furniture out of living room, vacuum twice, spray floor with 409, rug doctor over and over and over and over again, let the carpet dry, rug doctor some more, touch up paint in living room and hallways, take 12 bags of trash down the three flights to the dumpster...THEN I could start on my room...5:00am move-out day.

While painting the living room walls red (a year ago) some of it got on the carpet. I finally made up a method that works for getting it out. Scrape the dried paint out of the carpet (with anything sharp, like this tool) then blot and scrub and blot some more with a dish soap/white vinegar mixture and a rag. Looked just like new. Not a dark red spot in sight.

The oven took me at least 2 hours. I probably breathed in way too many fumes and got harmful oven-cleaning chemicals all over my hands. The oven was spotless when I was finished though!

I think after 20+ hours of being awake and cleaning, I started hallucinating a bit. You know when you've been up so long you start giggling for no reason? Yeah, I was there. Fun times I tell you. Fun times. The important thing is, the apartment was clean and spotless and beautiful. It was probably cleaner than the day we actually moved in, 2 years ago. That was my goal: mission accomplished.

Handing in my key was really weird. Knowing I don't have access to 734 anymore is a little heartbreaking. Besides dorm-life it's my first "adult" home. I'm going to miss it a lot.

My car was so packed down with my last load of stuff that I probably wasn't driving legally. I couldn't see out of the back and there was a poster literally sitting on top of my head. I felt like I was in a cave! Crystal and I had nowhere to go (her apartment would be move-in ready the NEXT day), but we got lucky! Some of our good friends had both the keys to their old and new apartment, so we got to stay in the old one for the night.

Eventually, I made it to East Texas with all of my things. This is what happens when you move from a 4-bedroom apartment to your childhood bedroom in your parent's house. Still looks like and episode of Hoarders at the moment, but I'm working to make it organized.

This may take me about a week, but I NEED to see this floor and have walk-around space. The chaos is absolutely driving me insane. My cleaning philosophy is a lot like Monica Geller from Friends, so you can imagine the anxiety this room is causing me! Happy cleaning, y'all!