If you haven’t read part 1 of our moving journey, be sure to click here and read that first!
Thank you so much for being so excited for us about our upcoming move. It really warms my heart that you’re eager to see the new place and how I transform it.
How We Decided on the New House
Once we came down off the roller coaster of offering on a house, mentally processing the idea of moving and then losing it, we kept looking at the market, but nothing else caught our eye.
My husband was now totally on board with moving and started browsing the market on his own.
One weekend while we were out of town, he shoved his phone in my face (in a nice way) and told me to look at this house. I said, “yeah, yeah, I’ve seen that house before and it’s not great.” Green walls, columns in the bedroom, outdated everything. It just looked like a lot of work, and none of it appealed to me.
So he didn’t say another word about it, and we went about our day.
On the way home the next day, I was scrolling on my phone and decided to take another look at the house he’d been trying to show me.
Lo and behold, they had updated the photos, and it didn’t look quite so horrible. There’s a lesson in the power of good real estate photos when you’re trying to sell your home, right?!
Checking Off the Boxes
I mentally ran through our “must-haves and wants in a new house” list, and it checked off most of them.
Bigger kitchen, check.
Dedicated office space, check.
Walk-in storage space, check, check.
NOT a corner fireplace, check, check, check!
And so on.
We looked at the house 30 minutes after we got back in town, in the dark, and liked what we saw. But we were hesitant after the last offer fell through, so we just mulled it over for a few days.
I started imagining all kinds of scenarios for how it could work for us, or why it might actually be the perfect house for us. Four days later, we called our realtor to talk through next steps. And…
We Bought a House!!!! {Now We Have to Sell Ours.}
The very next day, five days after I brushed off my husband when he tried to show me that house, we put in an offer.
And we got it!
We ended up buying that house while putting our current one on the market at the same time, believing it would sell before we needed to close on the new place. Houses in our price range were selling so fast that we figured it wouldn’t be an issue, even though it was a gamble and super stressful!
We listed our house on a Thursday and received an offer 14 days later. It felt like an eternity, with almost 1-3 showings a day while it was on the market. But looking back, it went by really quickly.
Our closing date is the beginning of December, and I’m frantically decorating this house for Christmas one last time so I can share it as part of my Christmas content this year.
I could have skipped this year, but I really wanted to decorate this house one last time. Then we’ll box everything up and move between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I plan to put up one tree in the new house this year and decorate it with our family ornaments for the kids and Christmas morning. Then next year I’ll have a whole year of living there and tons of ideas for going all out with my Christmas decor. I can’t wait!!
Keep a Wish List
This whole moving-and-making-quick-decisions-about-a-house experience really drove home (see what I did there?) the importance of keeping a wants and must-haves list.
I highly recommend keeping a list on your phone or somewhere you can easily access, with your wants and must-haves for a new home. I’ve kept a running list in my notes app for years with wishes and needs for a new house, in case we moved or built one.
You know when something keeps bugging you about your home? Write it on the list. Some of mine were: a powder room for guests, at least 9-foot ceilings on the main level, and windows flanking the bed in the primary bedroom. And lots more.
Some of my wishes are purely because I’m a home blogger and need certain sight lines and design options for my photos. Of course we would never buy a home just for the blog, but it’s worth considering when the blog helps pay for the house. Ha!
The Perks of the New Home
The first home we offered on (I mentioned it in our Moving Part 1 post) was move-in ready. As in, I wouldn’t even need to paint the walls.
Sure, I figured it wouldn’t give me much content for my blog, but I didn’t care. Haha! I just loved the idea of it being ready to go. I’d only need to decorate, and it would be so cute!
But the house we bought instead has fantastic bones and needs some cosmetic help. Thankfully, the real wood floors were refinished this year and are a lovely color. The roof, fence and A/C units are new, which is awesome. Most of the big stuff is in good shape.
The walls even have a fresh coat of paint, but they’re all a shade of lime green or yellow. The light fixtures are original to the house, so think lots of shiny brass and white. The tile in the bathrooms and laundry room is original too, with LOTS of room for improvement. We’ve even got some hunter green countertops.
I’m not comfortable sharing full pictures of the new house until we close and move in, but I’ve created the graphic above to give you an idea of what we’re working with. I like to call it my lemon & lime house, since it’s full of greens and yellows. Lots of brass and white light fixtures, too!
It’s going to be so fun to share the journey of choosing new colors, fixtures and countertops. There will be a LOT of phase 1 renovations, with major overhauls several years down the road.
My plan is to save up for gutting the bathrooms and kitchen. I have soooooo many ideas swirling around in my head. I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself and to spend my time packing up our current home instead. But it’s hard not to start throwing together vision boards for the space. I’ll be patient, though.
At the same time, it feels overwhelming to walk into a totally new space with no room “done” the way I want it. I’m not sure where I want to start, but I’ll take you through the whole thing and even ask for your opinions on what you’d like to see updated first. (I’ll probably ask on Instagram and Instagram Stories, so follow me there if you’d like to vote and see all the behind-the-scenes action!)
If you’re still reading, THANK YOU! I’m so excited to take you along on this journey with me!
With love, Laura
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