It is a time of HUGE change for my little family.
I’ll elaborate more on this next week, so stay tuned for all of that, but I will say that we’re making some BIG life changes.
Like MASSIVE life changes.
First of all – I’m cutting my hair. TODAY. This decision has been a year in the making, but I’m finally doing it, and I am SOOOO SCARED. Like beyond scared. :/ Which is actually ridiculous and really dumb because it is just hair. But as with all things, when you let something define you, it is scary to let it go.
That being said… I may hate it and wind up putting my extensions back in… but I’m trying it. Only time will tell. 🙂
And secondly we’re totally switching up our home. <<< That is what this post is all about.
Almost immediately after having Caroline, my husband and I started to feel as if we were outgrowing our home. Somehow the addition of just one new, little, teeny, tiny person made us feel as if the walls were closing in on us. I don’t know why – but it did.
The boys would play loudly before bed (as boys do), she’d wake up, no one was sleeping through the night, we were working round the clock… in short, it was madness. And the obvious answer to us (I laugh at this looking back) was to sell our home and move into something bigger.
We had talked about when this moment would come. We just didn’t think it would be so soon. When we bought our house in 2014, we thought it was massive. Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined that 5 years later we would have 3 kids. We literally never thought we’d fill all the bedrooms in our home.
Boy were we wrong.
5 years and 3 kids later, every room was full. We had one extra bedroom for guests. And on paper – we should have had more than enough room. But what we didn’t have: a playroom for the kids, or an office for us.
My husband is a realtor, so I like to joke that our house is always for sale. That being said, we looked at house after house. While there were plenty of great options, I wasn’t ready to pull the plug. We got our house in 2014 – when the market was still relatively soft – and in my opinion, we have one of the best views in the city. I couldn’t give it up quite yet.
So then we looked at putting an addition on. The costs didn’t really make sense for what we needed. Then we looked at building. That also didn’t really make sense. We decided that building our dream home was probably in the 5-10 year plan – but not for right now. So back to the drawing board we went.
We sat down and said, “What do we really need? And what will get us there?”
My number one priority was to make a dedicated play area for the kids. David’s room had turned into the land of lost toys, and I just felt bad for him. It was a total disaster. Second priority – I wanted a dining room that made sense. As it was… our formal dining room was behind a random wall next to the kitchen, and it stared out at our neighbors’ house. It was super weird. We also had an eat in kitchen with a bulky table that we never used.
None of it made any sense.
The next step was to say “How do we get this home to be what we want?”
This is where my creativity came in. I reasoned… we didn’t need the bulky eat in kitchen table. So we consigned that. We also didn’t need the formal dining room table or chairs from my husband’s first marriage – circa 2003. Got rid of those — BYEEE!!!
Finally, with all the clunky furniture out – everything started to come together.
We decided we’d turn our eat in kitchen into our one and only dining room, which would make entertaining SO much more fun and easy. Now our dining room table would have sweeping views of the city — rather than of our neighbors’ house. Then… we’d turn what was once the formal dining room (the room that stares at our neighbors’ house) into the kids’ play room. In the end, everyone won. All we had to do was spend a small amount of money on some new furniture to spruce everything up.
I am SO thrilled with how our home makeover is coming together. The play room is going to be adorable… and our dining room off the kitchen is going to be a place I am thrilled to entertain in.
While I know that a move or a build is undoubtedly in our future, this refresh is just what we needed. We’ll be waiting on all the furniture through the end of February – and I promise I will do a full reveal when it is all finished. For now, this mood board of products will give you a good idea of what we’re going for. Minimalist, modern, clean lines, mixed metals, and a neutral color palette.
Enjoy and feel free to send any questions you may have my way! Be sure to check out our Bedroom Refresh!
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