| Adventures in Moving |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|08:50 pm] |
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August in San Francisco has been fun. I just realized that it's the first month since last September (!) that I have not spent a day outside of California -- also the first month in that same span that I've not flown anywhere. And what a great month for that to happen (August and September have some of the best weather of the year, for those of you reading from outside SF). But the fact that I've been here all month doesn't mean the month was uneventful. So, here's one story:
Last weekend, I helped ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) hoyhoy and Rachel move, which didn't go exactly as planned (do moves ever go as planned, though?) First, it took two hours to get a U-Haul. Sure, it was Saturday morning, but having to wait two hours for a U-Haul behind some people with no reservations sort of defeats the purpose of making a reservation at all. I had only told Tony that I'd help him get the truck and move his couch, but he supposedly had another friend, Bob, coming to help, so we took one truckload to the new place before we attempted the couch. After the first load, Bob hadn't shown up yet, and we decided two people could probably move it. Now, keep in mind that the professionals who moved the couch into the apartment gave up and had the front window taken out to get the couch in there. So, given that, we figured it was going to take some engineering skill. Somehow, it just worked, though, with a little prep work:
- Remove the locking gate on the porch of the apartment
- Remove the front door
- Take the cushions off the couch
- Unscrew the feet from the couch
- Remove the light fixture and bulb from the porch
- Stand the couch up on one side.
- Tip the couch through the doorway
- Move the lower end of couch out the door, standing it on the same end again on the porch.
- Rest
- Move it down the steps.
- Put the cushions back on and sit on the couch at the curb waiting for Rachel to bring back lunch.
And silly me, I though this was going to be the hard part. As it turns out, the hard part was attempting to move the couch into the new place with three people. By the time we got to that point, though, I was tired and went home.
Two days later, I asked Tony how things turned out with the couch, and he informed that it was still on the porch at the new place. Knowing the effort we'd expended getting it that far, I wasn't going to stand for that. So I drove over to his place and surveyed the situation. He said they'd taken the front door off and made several attempts, so we looked at the possibility of taking out the kitchen window, which looks onto the porch and was definitely big enough for the couch. After 30 minutes of being foiled by a stripped screw in the frame, we decided the window was staying put. So, I insisted on taking the front door off and giving that approach another try.
It was somewhat obvious to me that the right start was the reverse of the moving-out process, so this time we led with the bottom end of the couch from it's standing-on-one-side position. It just barely squeezed through the doorway, and the entry wasn't quite big enough to get the top end through. We laid the couch down, and for a moment we didn't think there was any room to pivot it into the living room. Finally, it occurred to us that we could tip it a little, because, thinking of the side view of the couch as a right triangle, the altitude from the right angle to the diagonal is obviously shorter than both legs of the triangle (the height and depth of the couch). Duh. Suddenly the couch pivoted nicely through the doorway and into the living room.
In retrospect, I don't think the geometry I just rambled through above even consciously entered our minds. We were simply out of other options. For future reference, though, that's a pretty useful bit of Euclidean (and maybe Pythagorean) logic for anyone moving a couch.
So what are the morals of the story?
- U-Haul is evil. Well, okay, maybe they aren't all evil, but the one on Bayshore is on Saturday morning. I've since heard other people say they intentionally tell people to rent U-Haul trucks from Daly City or another suburb.
- Architects are evil. Well, okay, maybe not evil, but at least a bit sneaky about how they plan entries and stairways. I'll bet there are guidelines somewhere for exactly what angles and clearances are needed to move standard couches, over-sized couches, etc., and some guys out there are designing and building right at the minimum specs just to mess with people.
- Even given moral #2, the couch will almost always fit through the door, even if you think it won't. Just tilt it.
- Don't ever ask me and Tony to move your stuff, because you will have to repaint your door frames and touch up some furniture afterward.
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energetic
pensive
tired
anxious
