Why we Sold our perfect home

Our seventh home. Thats where the name came from you know...House Seven. It was here where I finally figured out what I really kind of knew all along. My passion is in interiors and even though  from as far back as I can remember I would spend hours sifting through home decor magazines and reading interior design blogs it wasn't until we moved here did I realize my gift. I mean I was obsessed with my great aunts floral sofa when I was all of six years old but it took me another 30 years or so to really get it! Yikes.

But now its here and I'm more passionate about it than ever. Thankfully this house made it happen for me. It was the canvas that I guess I had needed to really allow my creative side to flourish and it was here that my husband and I realized that we love to work on interior projects together. Its been pretty wonderful living in this house and watching the progress and how its evolved from where it began. So what do you do when you're super happy with your home and you've dedicated hours upon hours remodeling it and all your sweat, blood, tears and money working to make it perfect? 

I guess if you're us, you just go ahead and sell it! And thats what we did. We sold it.

Why? Why are you doing this? Why do you want to? Did you have to? What would make you sell such a lovely home?

Peace. It was all about peace. Peace for our family.
And it was about the feeling of having less. Less things. Less bills. Less everything to make more of something. That something is our lives and we wanted to free ourselves of the stuff to make more room for the memories we could create by not having so much stuff to take care of.
Am I making any sense at all?

So let me tell you a little story of how this all came about.
One day I was at Walmart. I was already grumpy that I was there and after parking my car I noticed a boy who may of been about eighteen putting shopping carts away. Right away I made a snap judgment about him, it wasn't kind and I'm not proud of it. But as I was leaving the store and getting in to my car I heard someone say "Thank you Ma'am, have a nice day." I turned around to see and it was him, standing there smiling at me and with the kindest eyes. I'M A JERK! I'M A COMPLETE JERK!
I drove home thinking about what a jerk I was to judge him without a thought. I was also thinking about how his shoes looked very worn and that he was probably working there to make a better life for himself. I'm such a jerk.
Thats when I started thinking about our own situation. Why did we have so much and not appreciate it? Why did we need all this stuff and for what? To keep up with everyone else around us because it wasn't helping us. All of it wasn't making life any easier. We were working our tails off to have stuff. In that moment all I wanted to do was to change. Change my thinking. Change our situation. Change our lives.
Why not make a change that would help us to eventually free up our time and money and use it to help people when and where we could and not waste more time working to only gain more items that would only cause us to do more work? It was God moving in me. I could feel it.

After much conversation and tears and lots of prayer we got serious and listed our home with the most amazing agent and it sold in a week! We closed on the house thirty days later and then we paid off every single last bill we had. Every single one! The feeling is beyond freeing.

The next thing I did was sell almost every piece of furniture we owned. I kept most of what the girls have because I wanted to make sure that where ever we ended up it would still feel like their home. But most everything else was sold because I have to follow my first rule when it comes to design and I don't believe in trying to make items you purchase for one home try to work in another. Because I didn't know where we were going I felt like it was the perfect time to start fresh and start thinking about a completely new design for the next house. But I did know we were headed to an apartment for a least a little bit of time and I could only take what would fit. I have to say that going from a five bedroom home full of stuff to only what will comfortably fit in a small three bedroom apartment feels pretty darn amazing.
So now what?
We promised that we wouldn't compromise what we were looking for in our new home so we decided that instead of rushing in to anything we would wait. We honestly just couldn't find anything that was meeting all of our criteria and even though it hadn't been that long it was becoming a bit discouraging. That was until one night while looking through the endless amount of houses that I had seen so many times before when I saw it. The next day we made an offer and I am happy to say we are moving to our new home in August! It is exactly where we wanted to be and moving there feels like home already.

It's so exciting and scary all at the same time. We still have some time before we move so I'm using it to concentrate on the new design because the first project is the kitchen. How I love a good kitchen reno!!
But more than that we are free. Free of the stuff, free of the bills and free of the pressure. I have the freedom to stay home with my girls and work on my business at my own pace. We have more time, and more money to help others when and where we can now. We have that peace we so desperately needed and all it took was selling our beautiful home and replacing it with this beautiful life.
God is good and he has blessed us with a new home that I am so excited to share with all of you. I just hope you will continue on this journey with me because I'm so excited for whats in store!

Christeli Mattress

When we moved from the house in to the apartment just a few weeks back I sold pretty much everything we had except the items that we would continue to use or need.
I've always said that if you can start each new home with a clean slate then you have the advantage of only bringing in items that will truly work perfectly there. I also don't have one sentimental bone in my body so this isn't hard for me to do and thankfully my husband is on board.

But there was something that we, or should I say, she needed before we moved in and it was a new mattress and I mean badly! Like the one she has been using since she was in a crib was also mine at one point in my life and it had reached its end.  

Thankfully I am in a position that allows me to work with different companies and their products. I had heard of Chriteli mattresses through a friend a little while back and even though we had chosen a few different memory foam mattresses recently for our own room and guest room, I really wanted to know what they were all about considering they have been around since 1931. 

I chose a full size for her bed and of course it arrived shortly there after perfectly boxed up and easily accessible.
You can tell as soon as the mattress opens it is extremely well made and because I already own two different memory foam mattresses I noticed how this one seems to have more of the feel of a conventional mattress. The stitching is impeccable and there is a thickness to the mattress that makes it feel less like your typical memory foam and more like a traditional mattress. The tufted top and firmness of the mattress feel heavy duty and you know its going to last.
I love how firm it is! Way firmer than any other memory foam I have slept on but yet it forms to your body while you sleep and provides the needed support. I love a soft mattress but I'm also realizing that a soft mattress doesn't love me over time and I wanted to make sure she would continue to have the support she would need in a mattress as she grows.

Combined Laundry Room and Kitchen

We have only been in our little apartment for a few weeks but the one thing that has become quite clear in this short amount of time is that our laundry room needs to either be in or very close to our kitchen in the new house. But why would I want to do that, you ask? Because it works! Like it works so perfectly I can't even tell you!
Our old house had the laundry room on the second floor near the bedrooms and that was okay but honestly I didn't spend much time up there. I am, like most moms, in the kitchen...all. day. long. and if I'm going to be on top of the biggest chore I have, well then it needs to be accessible to me all. day. long.
The first thing I do every morning now is wake up, start my coffee, take out the load I put in the night before, throw it in the dryer and start the next wash. Then I go about my day but I always make sure that I'm starting a load of wash right before bed to keep the routine going. I don't use a laundry bin anymore because A. we have no place to put it and B. in my opinion all that does is create more laundry in the long run...its like prolonging the inevitable and then you have so much to do it feels like an overwhelming task. No thanks.

So now I just keep a regular size laundry basket on top of the dryer and I do two loads a day. Usually a whites (all we have are white towels) and I alternate my dark and color washes. I also don't wait for super full loads anymore. I used to wait and than I would pack so much in the wash it would take a day and half to dry and fold it all. For two weeks now I haven't had more dirty laundry than what can fit in this basket at one time....its glorious!
As soon as we come home from the pool, its straight in to the wash for all of the towels and suits. No more out of sight out of mind laundry for me. This is why I am so obsessed with this kitchen/laundry room set up. Its so easy to keep the pace when its right there in front of you.
Well this has me on Pinterest and blogs searching for the right set up and one that would work the best for me. I am the launderer after all...
Here are just a few that I have found that I think could work quite well.

Fathers Day and Framebridge

With all of the craziness happening around our house lately the last thing on my mind was Fathers Day! Yikes...thats a terrible thing to say!
Well, its the truth and so when Framebridge reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in creating a gift with them for my sweet husband and honestly the best father around, I jumped at the chance.
I wanted to do something fun that he would love. We've come to the conclusion over the past year that with my constant Instagramming of our kids and home there really aren't very many pictures of him. We needed to fix that!

I decided to create a gallery wall featuring our family with him at the center of it all. He is after all what makes this clock tick and he deserves some recognition and not just one day out of the year. I wanted this gift to be something he could appreciate all the time.

Framebridge is by far the easiest site I have ever used to create framed prints. It only took a few minutes to create all of these gorgeous photos of him and the kids and it probably only took that long  because I just couldn't decide which photos to choose or ones that he was actually in....this is bad I know. I sent the order out and within just a few days they all arrived on my doorstep. If you have not used Framebridge yet than I will tell you that the packaging is amazing!! There is no way, no how your frames will be damaged with how much effort is put in to the packing of your items and they always arrive with a super kind note... I love those little touches.

My favorite part of this entire project was this photo strip. I dragged my entire family to the movie theater just to make one of these(they have a booth in the lobby) and the kids could not wrap their little brains around the fact that we weren't going there to see a movie and Brian was less than thrilled about it (chuckle) but Im pretty sure he will love it when he finds out why.  All I did was mail it in to them using the prepaid envelope they sent me and they mailed it right back with in just a few days! I've been raving about this service to all my friends. I really think its pretty darn amazing and easy.

So thats it. I'm done with his Fathers Day gift and I'm pretty darn happy with it.

You can easily make your own but order by tomorrow June 3rd to be able to use the mail in option and by June 12th! You've got time people....go do this!! 

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

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