Hi everyone, it’s Amy and I have some kind of big news to share. The last month has been a bit of a whirlwind, if you follow us on Instagram that you probably have heard some of this but if you missed it, we have moved and are in the process of building a new house. Last fall we started the process to build a home in a neighborhood we’ve had our eye on for about, well, about 10 years now.
I’ll start by saying that obviously moving right after the holiday wasn’t really our plan, but life has a funny way of working out, doesn’t it? Moving in the “Artic Blast” that hit the east coast last week? Definitely also not the plan either, but let me backtrack a bit. We purchased our home (above) almost 4 years ago, after a sudden relocation back to Northern Virginia due to my health issues. At the time our home options were limited to just a few neighborhoods so my children could return to their previous schools, which had very few homes for sale at the time. We eventually wound up purchasing our home privately from neighbors after having rented briefly down the street.
Over the last four years, as you have probably seen on the blog, we updated the home, did some fun DIY projects, and made it our own {my post on all the projects we did is HERE}. Then, last year after one of those rough seasons of life that make you ponder everything, my husband and I started talking seriously about what we wanted for our future as far as our home, the location, and where our kids would (ideally) spend their last years at home before heading to college. We felt our current home was too large and too far from their schools, not to mention it wasn’t really appreciating in value, especially if/when we made the pricier updates we felt it needed, like a bathroom remodel. Also, if you read my Day in the Life post, you saw that I was spending up to two hours a day driving between schools and activities for my kids. The (public) high school we are zoned for is about 20 minutes from our home so with our sons in a variety of sports (and no late bus) it required a lot of driving back and forth and would for many years to come.
We also started talking about how we wanted to downsize, have fewer rooms in our house we didn’t use (like a formal dining room or formal living room, as nice as they were to decorate), and to have a master bedroom on the main level as we get (cough!) older. We’d considered building in a large neighborhood we liked near our kids’ schools several times before, but this time we decided that if it was where we wanted to be, it was now or never. Our kids were thrilled with the idea as well, since most of their friends live in the area we wanted to move to.
We briefly had our home on the market late last spring but removed it after the unexpected loss of my father-in-law and no serious offers despite frequent showings, which was strange, but I see now the timing wasn’t in God’s plan. After we regrouped for a few months, we knew we still wanted to pursue building so we relisted our home early last Fall and saw much more success. We accepted a contingent contract after a few weeks on the market, which allowed us plenty of time to make building decisions as we waited for our first purchaser’s home to sell.
I’ll do a follow-up post all about the new home we are building, plus I am sure I will have plenty to post about it this spring, but looking back, I am grateful that we had the chance to make all the building decisions early in the Fall before things got kind of crazy :). At the end of November we received another offer on our home (right as the first contingency was expiring), one that was too good to refuse, the catch being that we had to close in just over 30 days which was just after the new year. To say the least that made for an interesting holiday! I posted my holiday home tour HERE, and then promptly undecorated much of my house the next day.
Looking back, I admit December is a bit of a blur but we successfully managed to pull off my daughter’s Nutcracker, two of my children’s birthdays, have a great Christmas, find a temporary rental and a move all in the last 30 days…and we even got to visit with Christy’s family who graciously overlooked the boxes piled throughout in our home while with us! We closed on our former home last week, and this spring will be living in a rental home about 15 minutes away until our new home is ready.
I could blog all about how much I have learned from this experience about waiting, but going into it my husband and I committed to our move, if it happened, it would be God’s timing and not in ours. As always, waiting is hard but when He opens the floodgates, it all just works out. The stories I could tell about how all the pieces fell together, it’s not lost on me that none of it would have happened without Him masterminding the plan.
{I saw this on IG from Cyndy and thought it pretty much summed up our last year!}
I won’t be sharing too many decorating projects while we are in this rental home these next few months (it’s not really a typical rental situation) plus I am much more interested in talking/writing/posting about our new home anyway! Truthfully, since we’ve been so absorbed in moving for the last 5 weeks, I have barely had time to think about the home we have under construction (or will once they break ground) I am excited to get back to it and will share all about it in another post in a few days.
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(the site of our future home)
Also since it is January and we’re all in organization mode, one thing that moving teaches you is just how much stuff you have. Since we put most of our “stuff” in storage, my husband pointed out the other day if we could live without it for 6 months maybe we really didn’t need it that much after all. Food for thought! I’ll be on a massive purging/organizing kick for the next few months if you want to follow along, and stay tuned for a part 2 post soon (UPDATE: That post is HERE!) which will be all about our new home!
XO,