In the midst of our packing frenzy, I had a brilliant idea. Why not have the movers move everything while we were relaxing at an outdoor cafe in Europe? Before leaving, we would mark all the boxes and furniture with one of three colored labels:

• yellow = move to storage
• green = move to Boston
• red = leave for new owners

At this point, I knew exactly which pieces of furniture, as well as paintings, framed photos, and rugs, would fit in our new apartment. I think I measured pretty much every dimension at least five times to be certain. We had boxes matched with each built-in at the apartment. I knew how many inches of books the built-in bookshelves could hold. I even had a floor plan so the movers would know where to put the furniture upon arrival. These were all tagged in green.

The boxes headed for storage were accumulating in our basement, they and miscellaneous furniture were tagged in yellow.

A few items – guest room queen, screen porch furniture, and others wore red.

We met with the mover and I wish you could have seen the look on his face! Much to his credit, his mind was churning through all the things that could go wrong. What if we lose your house key? What if we have trouble getting in when we arrive in Boston? What if something goes missing between the time we unload and you return? What if we take the wrong stuff to the wrong place? What if …?

To reduce the complexity and risk, we decided to do the move to storage the day before leaving on vacation. This wasn’t an option for the Boston move because the apartment wouldn’t be available in time.

Our realtor had a vested interest in getting everything out of the house except the items the new buyers had agreed to purchase so we decided to ask her about overseeing the loading at the house, which she was happy to do.

Our mover was still squirming with the thought of arriving in Boston with a truckload of stuff and trouble. Then he had a brilliant idea! Why not fly our daughter into Boston to meet the movers?

Sold! Seriously!

Our daughter was delighted with the idea. She would get an all expenses paid weekend trip to Boston and was excited to be the first to see our new digs.

A few weeks later in Slovakia, I got a text message that read “Landed.” Only 34 minutes later, we received a photo of our daughter in our empty apartment! 34 minutes from the tarmac to the apartment! That’s something I was going to enjoy!

We had planned to hike in the High Tatras mountains that day, but the rain and fog eliminated that option. We couldn’t even vouch for the existence of those mountains based on what we could see out the window. Nonetheless, we had a really enjoyable day exchanging a couple hundred texts across 6 time zones. Back in Boston, our daughter was exploring Beacon Hill and Newbury Street. She found some nice restaurants for dinner and enjoyed a sandwich in the Boston Common at lunchtime. We received lovely photos, including pictures of spring flowers and the moving truck below our window. She was very excited about our new place!

A few weeks later, we landed on that same tarmac and made the quick trip to Back Bay. When the taxi dropped us in front of the brownstone, a shiver ran down my spine. We were about to walk into one of the biggest changes I’d ever made in my life!

The front door and entry were glorious in the light of the chandelier. We grinned as we ascended the elegant, swooping stairway with key in hand.

We were thrilled when we opened the door. It was home! What a great welcome! All of our things were in place. Everything was neat and tidy. Our bed was made and covered with the familiar quilt. The paintings were hung on the walls and the photos graced the mantle. The lamps were in the right places. The dishes were in the cupboards. Not only were the books on the bookshelf, they were alphabetized by author! Our clock radios were even set to the correct time. Everything was fabulous!

This is the way to move! Of course, you must be well-organized to start with and you must have a fantastic daughter! But this is definitely the way to go!

The only things left for us to do:

• In the middle of one room, there was a neat, 4 foot tall stack of folded cardboard cartons. We posted them for free on Craigslist and they were gone in no time! (Another benefit of city living!)
• In the closet, there were 7 giant bags of crumpled newsprint. The guy who took the boxes wanted them too!
• Organize my desk along with the printer, iMac, etc.
• Get the Internet connected. That, of course, would involve Comcast, which means it would not go smoothly!

We returned home on a Thursday night and, thanks to our daughter, we were able to begin explorations of our new city immediately!

Read Part 6 of The Urban Experiment!