Moving from Our First Home

This post has been such a long time coming, even before we moved almost three weeks ago. That time has gone so fast. It's so crazy that I haven't stepped inside my home for three weeks. Our home, the place that's meant the world to us for so long, isn't ours anymore.

I'm not sure what translates through photos and posts, but in 2012 we purchased our first home. We closed about two months before our wedding, and we did about 6 weeks of construction and renovation. It hadn't been touched since the 1960s when it was built. It was finished just in time for me to move in two weeks before our wedding. We loved that house. We discovered our love for entertaining and I got to decorate and flourish. We built our marriage and eventually our family there. I've written so much about it over the years, but that house gave me the confidence and safety to thrive. So why would we eve want to leave?

Beau in our new living room on a random house visit

Part of living in an older home is a lack of storage. Even before Beau was born, just putting his things in the house made it hard. The house was a two bedroom, two bath. One bathroom connected the two bedrooms, and the other was on the other side of the house. Before my pregnancy with Beau, Ben used the closet in the guest room. Both closets were on the smaller side, but they worked for us. Adding a baby into the mix pushed Ben and all of his things into the only other closet in the house, the hallway coat closet directly by the front door. Yikes! Over time, it became clear to us that it was time to list our house. We had loved every minute there, but slowly it had begun feeling like it wasn't a good fit for us anymore.

the house plan we worked on 

The plan was to build. We were going to move forward with deeding over part of the family land into our name, and building our forever home. As y'all might know, I'm really into decorating and so this was a dream for me. I've known my dream kitchen layout for years. We poured over photos and schemed on figuring out where we would live during the building process. I felt strongly about wanting to bring Beau home to our first house, and give ourselves a little bit of time to settle into parenthood, but then it was time to move. 

Our front porch brick pavers

We worked on the house plans over and over and my brother in law finally put all of my requests into a sketch that was a vague outline of what we wanted. We went to Europe and our first night back I told Ben it was time, that I thought we should prepare to list our house. This was a Thursday night. We got back at 6pm and at 3 am Friday morning (#jetlag) Ben said he wanted to list our house that Saturday. What? No. I vetoed that. But we talked about the next weekend. On Wednesday morning I woke up sick to my stomach. We couldn't build that house. The Lord stopped me in my tracks and told me we shouldn't do it. I called Ben and told him all of my concerns and he agreed and said he had been feeling the same way but was afraid to crush my dreams. In short, I didn't think it was wise to plan for a forever home at age 25. Every time I say that out loud I laugh because it's so obvious, haha. We don't know how many children we'll have, we don't know what our income will be in five years. Our vision has always been to have two large, shareable bedrooms hoping that we'll have children of both genders.. but what if I get pregnant with triplet girls tomorrow and Beau has a room the same size as them? That probably won't happen.. but you get me. We want to serve others with our home, always. Our dream for a build is to have a property beautiful enough that it could host small weddings and rehearsal dinners to serve friends and family members. We could stretch ourselves financially right now, or we could wait five years and afford it healthily (hopefully & prayerfully!) But, we both felt strongly that we still needed to move. That Wednesday afternoon I searched in the realtor computer system scouring over the properties, searching for a right fit. I told Ben of an area I had in mind, a newer neighborhood close enough to all of our family in town but closer to Ben's work and our church. Now I see that this might have been a no brainer. :) Ben agreed we should check it out, and that night I sobbed in a model home because it felt so right.

touring that Wednesday night 

We could have customized a build and yes, that would have been great, but it wasn't what we wanted to do. We chose to buy a spec home that would be completed the next month so that we wouldn't have to wait for a build to happen. Are there a few things I would change about this house? Of course. But a few cosmetic details weren't worth it to us. The next morning we dropped off earnest money and made an appointment to sign a contingent offer on our new house. Thursday and Friday Beau and I were both sick and I experienced two of the hardest days, getting our house ready to list. As per usual, my two best friends came over and practically did the whole thing. A week after arriving back from Europe, our house listing went live.

starting to make the new house a home

We had showings back to back Saturday and that night we got our first above asking offer. The next day we got several more. Praise be to God! It was in His timing that we were moving and He showed us that. We chose an offer to accept and go with, because we were drawn to the buyer and wanted her to have our home, even if it wasn't the highest offer financially. It may sound crazy to some, but we wanted that home to go to the right person. We were getting our beautiful next step, and we felt really drawn to the buyer having our home as her beautiful next step. A month and a half later we closed on our new home and moved. We had new furniture to buy, and I stopped by the new house constantly just to see it. Now that seems silly because we live here. You remember my dream kitchen layout that I talked about before? Our current layout is a smaller scale of that same layout, and I'm already loving it. We already feel so much more prepared to make decisions for a more long term build, something we still plan to do in the future.

holding our keys for the first time

Logically, moving from an older house to a new build has been a dream. We have a true master suite with a huge master closet, an office for Ben, a guest room, and of course a sweet nursery for Beau. We're in a really sweet neighborhood full of jolly folk. Still have family about 10 minutes away. We're 100% confident in our decision, even though it happened so quickly. I don't live life in secret, something I'm sure y'all know by now, and keeping this a secret was HARD! I just didn't feel at peace sharing our plans until both properties had closed. Speaking of transparency, this process has been emotionally difficult, although very different than how I expected. I imagined sobbing hysterically as we left the old house, but I chose to intentionally not go back in when it was empty. I want to remember it full and happy and with my people, not empty. I might regret it one day but I don't right now. I can't say that the new house feels like home quite yet, but we're getting there. Most everything is unpacked and almost everything is hung on the walls.. but I think we just need time. A huge factor is probably our lack of a couch, haha! We ordered a sectional that will be delivered Halloween weekend. I wish I could tell you that moving was easy, but it's felt like I haven't been able to breathe easily since we returned from our trip. There's always been something big pulling at my attention during every nap time or spare moment. I'm hoping that is about to start winding down again. So that's it. We built one house up into a place of love and security and we're starting over. It's hard but it's so, so good. We're blessed to have this beautiful new home and I can't wait to serve and love others here!

Ps I left a clue.. my friend Sarah wrote a guest post on making a new build into a home just a few days before we closed and moved! I needed her advice! :)

Our First Home's Beginning 
A Christmas Tour of our First Home 
All of my posts about home