We’ve been purging for months. Some of us had an easier time with it than others. Well, the day after we got back from our trip to New Orleans, we packed up our entire apartment and moved it into storage. Don’t worry, we are not moving out of the city! We are renovating over the summer, living at our house for the next few months and then moving back in the fall.

There was 15 years of our lives piling up in that apartment, and although it made me sad to purge, pack, donate, toss and sell most of our stuff, I am so much more excited to start over with a clean(ish) slate.

I’m learning that saving stuff isn’t nearly as important as giving my family a place with room to grow up in. Not to mention places to put their shoes away and hang their backpacks!

Oh, to dream.

I want to give a huge thank you to Handsome Dolly for making the packing and moving process so much easier. (And my friend who recommended them!) After our purge, they came in to pack everything up (way more carefully than I would have on my own), move us out, bring some stuff to our house and store everything else. It was a level of organization and care that I could not have begun to conceive on my own. Mike had a hard time giving up control, but I kept telling him— this is why we hired them. LEAVE IT TO THE PROFESSIONALS.

Finally, Mike decided the best course of action was not to watch and went to work. He came home and everything was done. Whew.

This was Mazzy and Harlow seeing their room empty for the first time.

What a trip. We found so many funny things that fell behind their bed— Legos, books, markers, flashlights. We could open a “found behind the bed” store and do pretty well, I think. Anybody else have items they’d like to sell?

The kids’ room is coming back pretty much in tact. The only thing we are changing is the colorful rag rug because, although I liked how it looked when the room was clean, it made it look extra cluttered when the room was a mess. Which was most of the time.It was also impossible to find things like fallen Barbie shoes and lost crayons on that thing. That rug is basically little kid camouflage.

Other than the girls’ room, we got rid of most of our furniture. We tried and failed to sell our stuff, so in the end, a lot of it was curbed for the taking. Mike went back to see the progress recently and sent me this text.

I wish I had thought to ask the guys to take a photo of our couch on the street, sitting on the curb. Although that might have been way too sad. I prefer to remember it in our apartment with the girls sitting on it. This was the very last pic taken of the couch.

I also like to imagine that some recent NYU grad nabbed it and its living out the rest of its days being destroyed in drunken apartment parties. Such is the circle of life.

The biggest piece of furniture that we were having issues with letting go was the dresser in our master bedroom.

We’re doing a built-in there and won’t need it anymore, but it was expensive and looks brand new. We tried to sell it but no takers. We ended up having the movers bring the dresser to our house and guess what? It totally works in our master bedroom out there! Problem solved. I’ll post a pic soon.

When the moving truck was fully loaded, Brad (the owner of Handsome Dolly) let Mazzy and Harlow ride the truck lift and play in the front of the cab, which took the sting out of seeing all their toys and stuffed animals in boxes.

If you have a move in the NY area, I highly recommend Handsome Dolly. And tell them I sent you! I don’t get any kickbacks or anything. They were just really awesome and I want Brad to know that little things like being super nice to someone’s kids makes a big difference and gets you new customers too.

Alright. Fingers crossed that the apartment is done before school starts!