House Warming.

This house warming post is bought to you by PhotoBox, and you can win stuff. Read on.

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The New House is about 88% unpacked. There’s still a few boxes hanging around, but we mostly know where all the things live now. It’s only occasionally that The Most Amazing Man or I ask the location of something benign (”Where’d we put the can opener?”) and stare at each other blankly, both mystified.

Truth be known, I’ve unpacked far quicker than this the last two times I’ve moved house. But both those times I was the only adult around, so deciding where things went was solely my responsibility. That made life inherently easier.

With two adults in the house, it becomes more of an exercise in compromise than a game of physical, putting-stuff-in-the-appropriate places Tetris. Between kids and work and settling in, the last little bit of unpacking The New House lingered for far longer than it should have. Boxes of linen sat piled in the kid’s playroom. Our only storage space was so cluttered with things that didn’t have a place yet that we couldn’t access our clothes to get dressed in the morning.

We managed to avoid stressing over it for the better part of a week. Until seeing the house in such a state- and feeling, for some reason, completely unable to do anything about it– left me jangled and anxious, unsettled and displaced.

Which, of course, ended in tears. My tears. With The Most Amazing Man staring at me shock, wondering what the hell was going on and how he could fix it.

Like most things, moving the gludge of unpacked linens, ornaments and other bits and pieces proved much easier than it looked. It took us only an hour or two before things began sliding into place with ease, the most difficult part of deciding where the hell to put all these towels and sheets done.

Now, all that remains are the wall hangings. I’m big on hanging pictures and paintings. Oddly enough, the previous tenants seemed to have not had access to any kind of step ladder or stool while they were hanging their pictures. All the hooks in the walls are about four feet high, an odd contrast with the ten foot ceilings. And I’m not sure how landlords feel about their tenants banging new holes, and new hooks, into their plasterboard walls. So we might have to just work with what we’ve got.

Anyway. The unpacking countdown is on. Five boxes to go.

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Seeing as it’s my house warming post, I think one of you should get a present. Cause I’m awesome like that. Thanks to PhotoBox, I’ve got one canvas print to be won- a ‘Canvas Lite’,  30.5 cm x 20.3 cms. You get whatever image you desire printed on your canvas, and PhotoBox will ship it out to you.

To win, fill in the form below and tell me- How long does it take you to unpack, when you’ve moved house? Do you still have boxes sitting around from three years ago, or are you an ’unpack as quickly as possible’ kind of person?

The closing date is midnight AEST Wednesday 18th September 2013; and the winners will be drawn and contacted by email soon after. You gotta have a valid email address to go with your entry, mmmkay?

This one’s open to Australian residents only. The answers that tickle my pickle at the time of the comp being drawn will win. No bitching, whinging, nor compromising shall be entered into.

Happy house warming (to me)!