Follow your Brains.

Making such a big move with a 4 person family definitely has a lot of moving pieces. A lot of them are physical; the house, all of our possessions, the actual moving process, etc. Then there are the financial pieces; my employment, the mortgage, selling our belongings and figuring out how to fund the move itself. Finally, there are all the pieces that are emotional. There is a lot of excitement in our family to move. We are looking forward to all the new opportunities and adventures that await us. We are also very sad to be leaving a community that we've cultivated for so long. There's a lot of stuff still up in the air, which can be really anxiety inducing. Then there's the stuff that's just plain hard and painful, like slogging through the mortgage process, purging all of our stuff and worrying about how this will effect our kids. Won't somebody please think about the children!?  When it comes to Bucky, our 4 year old, he kind of gets it and is pure excite...

Planning for a move a year in advance has had a lot of benefits. We have had a chance to figure out exactly where we want to live. We have found a house that is perfect for us, but needed some work and we've had the time to get all of that lined up. Tying up loose ends at my work has been great. You can read more about the steps I've been able to take in my LinkdIn article: Training Your Successor . And we've been able to plan out a lot of stuff regarding what we're taking and what we're getting rid of and what we need to do before we go. We'll definitely bring these things. One thing that we've really been trying to do is spend as much time with our friends as we can, as we can't take them with us. This has given us a lot of good times with friends, doing game nights, dinner parties, living room karaoke and hot tub soaks. This has created some really special memories with some really special people.  This particular evening ended up ...

With all the structural work being done, it has been exciting to see the house taking shape into our future home. However, in order to make sure that it's a home we are happy living in, just making choices about where the kitchen will be and what walls we don't like isn't enough. Now there are all sorts of other choices to make. What kind of flooring do we want in the rooms where there isn't already hardwood?  What kind of bathtub in the master bath? Countertops? Kitchen color scheme? Vanities?  The list goes on and on. I moved out of my parent's house at the sweet age of 17 and in all that time, as a renter, I've just lived with whatever was there. Even given the choice to paint before moving into our current house, I chose to just embrace the quirky wallpaper borders in each room. It's not that I haven't ever wished something was different, I've just never had a "dream house" image in my mind. I guess Pee Wee's Playhouse seems...

Sure, it's nice to walk into a new house and see all the lovely features and imagine where you're going to put what kind of sofa. The benefit of working on a house that needs renovations is the joy found in destroying all the stuff you don't like about it. While we didn't have a chance to personally demolish anything in our new house- AO let us hack at a wall in her 2nd floor for awhile and take stuff to the dump. Afterwards James jumped up and down and squealed "I did something manly! I did something manly!" Having just a taste of the work that went into taking down a small wall makes it even more impressive to see what kind of demo has been going on in our house in Michigan!   "Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall!" is an oft heard joke among those in the demolition community. The first picture that we received about the work being started may still be my favorite. The unfortunate wall that bisected the beautiful wood beams and iso...

*disclaimer* this post has waaaay less pictures and jokes than it should. All efforts will be made to rectify this for future posts. Going to Michigan to check out the house and surrounding area was great fun, but there was plenty to do once we got back for all parties involved. With the house that we're pursuing not being "move-in ready", we have had to be creative with how we went about getting all the pieces in place so that we can purchase the house along with all the hard work and resources that needs to go into it to make it ready. Creativity can't be just making a plan and sticking to it, so between AO, our friend John and his business partners in Michigan, James and myself, many conversations and email threads have been taking place to hammer out just how we can make sure that all parties are getting what they need out of this project. When looking at a project with such HUGE scope to it, we needed to be able to think in terms of what our budget would b...

After visiting the house for the first time, with all the sleep deprived joy and horror that it entailed- it was time to hang out in Michigan during the winter.  We'd visited Michigan a few times, but always during the summer.  I fell in love with the thunder storms, lightening bugs and lush greenery.  James always said that we weren't allowed to move there until I had visited during the harsh winter- so this trip was a great opportunity to check that box. Fireflies are basically magic, duh. So we set about exploring the awesome things about Michigan, like furniture stores! Seriously though, Grand Rapids, MI was at one point considered "The Furniture Capital of the World"!  Sure, there are IKEAs everywhere, but there's a place called Design Quest, a Danish furniture store that was full of amazing pieces that were definitely outside of any budget we will have in the near future. But how freaking Hygge would our living room be with this set?! We al...

So we've seen plenty of lovely features in the house- but there are more than enough projects in this house.  Lets take a look at some of the issues:  From the burnt orange drop ceiling to the complete lack of it- we're looking up to the second floor where the bathroom should be.  Here is the same place from the 2nd floor looking down.  We may keep this aspect because it made it super easy to talk to someone on the other floor!  The secret stairs are so cool as an idea, but in reality they aren't in good condition, there's no lighting and you might die if you try to traverse them. Also, this is apparently where the laundry dryer was vented to.   The master bedroom has a mix of terrible carpet, drop ceiling and tarp.  The water damage from the 3rd floor shower is extensive. Definitely a haunted shower.  James' office also has some light water damage from the 3rd floor kitchen sink. Yeah, there's a...