Moving to Stavanger - iameven.com

As I wrote in the year that wasn't we bought an apartment in Stavanger over a year ago. Now we've finally moved in.

The old place

I've lived right outside of Oslo next to a train station and area called Stabekk for the last 8 years. In a fairly old brick building with probably not the greatest air quality or even a balcony. The bathroom was really small and was the place we did our laundry. We didn't have room for a tumble dryer, so there was pretty much always a clothes drying rack in our living room.

The location was great for me and Ingvild, right next to public transport and a bakery. I had a really short commute to work, but we did have to drive Sam to school, it was too far for him to walk. Or really visit any friends on his own, which was sad.

The new place

Ingvild and I have talked a lot about what we wanted in a new place. We've created lists, drawn floor plans, and looked at countless house ads. The new place has:

This ticks of all our boxes, where the most important were 2 bathrooms (queues are no fun), terrace, and an office. On our nice-to-have-list we have a laundry room (we paid to change the floor plan to achieve this), and bathtub. We also really wanted something new-ish as neither one of us is keen on renovating/redecorating.

It is so nice living in a completely new apartment with a lot of space. I can move about without crashing into stuff. Ingvild and I can use the kitchen/bathroom together without crashing into stuff or each other. Everything is new, shiny, and practical.

And for the area. Sam can walk to school, which he did already for 2 weeks, for their after school activities. Hopefully he'll get some friends nearby. There is a mall, restaurants and convenience stores within walking distance. We're also within walking distance to a train station with regional and local trains. It is nice to walk 10 minutes, get on the train, and jump off in either Kristiansand or Oslo, or any of the places between (like Kongsberg). The very same train also stops at Lysaker, 5 minutes walk from the Pexip office in Oslo. With an 8 hour train ride that won't be a frequent commute, but it's a viable option for when I need to go there. I'm adjusting to working remotely, but at least the commute to the home office is unbeatable.

The actual move

There ended up being 3 parts to this process. At first we had the takeover, which was at June 1st. I filled a van with our wardrobe, forcing us to keep our clothes in suitcases for a couple of weeks. I also had 8 boxes filled with random none-essential stuff that we want to keep and a bunch of other stuff. I drove by myself on May 31st, got the apartment the next morning, and had my brother Adrian help unload the van in the evening. I headed back to Oslo the next day.

Ingvild's parents rented a van in Stavanger and drove to Oslo the 16th of June. We planned to fill that with everything we had and drive to Stavanger on the 18th. On the 17th we went to Ingvild's graduation ceremony with her parents. Ingvild and I had been filling boxes in preparation of this move day, and thought we were mostly done. Turned out we needed an additional 15 boxes to get most of everything packed. We spent 8 hours on Friday (14:30-23:00) and 6.5 hours on Saturday (06:00-12:30) before we were ready to drive (around 7 hours). With the help of additional family and some friends we emptied the van in 40 minutes[1] Saturday evening and spent our first night in the apartment. Some of them also helped us assemble the beds while we got stuff unloaded to mostly the correct spot.

We had to leave some stuff behind because we were out of room in the van and our car. So the third part was Ingvild and I renting a car trailer and driving to Oslo to get it all. I really wish I rented a van instead, like I did the first time and Ingvild's parents did for the second run. For one thing there is a max speed limit at 80km/h when driving with a trailer, which I'd forgotten completely about. Our car is really not powerful enough for a trailer so acceleration was horrible. But it turned out to be a fruitful trip. We bought some chairs in Drammen and I bought some acuostic panels for my home office. We filled the trailer in a couple of hours and completely emptied the apartment. Ingvild and I went out for a dinner on June 25th to celebrate her birthday at Nodee sky, which was really nice.

Stuff

I knew that it would be more work and more things than we anticipated. Yet I was surprised about just how true that turned out to be. We sold a bunch of stuff and gave away more. Still, just so much stuff. And we need more, at least lamps and curtains. Hoping for at least another 8 years before I have to consider moving.

  1. insanely quick, but we were 10 people in total, vs. 4 to pack and load everything. ↩

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