New Seasons

This is our little home on Eldridge that has served so well the past 3+ years. Brice bought the house as a foreclosure before we were engaged, gutted it, and made it more than a "structure" (as his mom called it) that was previously a disaster and falling apart. I came along and with new paint colors, decor, and landscaping (being married to someone who does lawncare has its perks), we turned it into our home we grew to love, where we've hosted + entertained more people than should've fit inside and created memories of our first three years of marriage in. I think there's something so beautiful in that entire process, and I think that's why I'm so attached to this home. It's where we had our beginning. Just us. It's small, it's cozy, and it just "fit". I feel possessive over it; like whoever buys it next needs to be someone I know will cherish it, because I would hate to watch it not get taken care of and go back to the way it was. Is it weird to feel that way about a house?

I digress. Back to to the new seasons + news..

Brice + I bought a house!! It's a '70s, orange shag carpet abode outside of Mackinaw, IL and we couldn't be more eager to get our hands on it and start renovating. We're planning on using December and January to finish up our house projects on our current Eldridge home that need done before putting it on the market to sell. We plan on moving into our new home by the end of January/early February. So--if you know anyone who wants a super cute, cozy, updated cape cod home in Washington, give them our info. ;)

It all happened pretty quickly. We have been looking at homes on and off over the past few months casually and nothing really jumped out at us. We would find a home we liked, but there was always a downside that we knew we wouldn't be able to fix or change. Nothing really "fit". We had been looking to stay in Washington/Eureka area, so the only homes we were looking at were in that location. We knew as soon as we started a family we would outgrow our current house fairly quickly, and the house we're in now is at it's peak value. There's other projects we'd like to do here, but we wouldn't get our money out of them in long run and we know we won't be here permanently.

Brice sent me a home that was in Mackinaw one day at work, and I flipped through the pictures and fell in love with it before realizing the location. The home wasn't in Eureka school district, which is where we were hoping to end up once we started a family. We talked it over and after researching the school district more, I came to a peace about the possibility. We decided that it couldn't hurt to go and check it out, even if we decide the location isn't for us. After looking through the house with our realtor, we left feeling overwhelmed. We absolutely loved the house and had endless ideas for projects to make it fit "us", but knew it was bigger than what we needed at the moment and we needed to think + pray about it for awhile instead of rush into it.

A few perks of the Woodfield home is that it's a few minutes out of town which gives us the feeling of being in the country. It's at the end of cul de sac so it feels private, but we're still part of a neighborhood which I love. There's a small community pond/lake with a swimming area and beach which would be perfect for kids in a few years. Behind our house, there's a large deck overlooking 100+ acres of timber (you can imagine Brice's excitement here). Inside there are *two* gorgeous floor to ceiling brick fireplaces, one on each side of the house: family room and the study. Brice knows that decorating for Christmas is my favorite time of year, and now I have not one--but two--mantels to decorate! I think my favorite part of the house is that it's spacious, but still feels cozy. Usually my biggest turn off from bigger homes is that they just feel large, empty, cold, and far from cozy and homey.

Fast forward two days, and in chatting with our realtor we discovered another family was interested. She told us that if we want it, we need to get an offer in or might be gone. This shocked us because the house has sat on the market for 2 years without a buyer because of all the updates it needs. We talked through all the pros and cons of the house that night and came up with a massive list of pros, and the only con we came up with was the school district. The more we thought about it, we knew we might not be in the house extremely long-term, and wouldn't mind moving districts if we had to when our kids were in elementary school. If we ended up loving living there and didn't want to move again in 5-8 years, we knew we could be happy staying there long term, too. We both agreed that if we found out the house sold to another family we would both regret not taking the risk and putting in an offer. We put in an offer, the homeowners counter-offered, we counter-offered back, and our counter-offer was accepted on November 9th. We close on the house December 22nd! Merry Christmas to us!

We're so excited to get started on projects, but even more excited to have a place to grow our family together. Our next few months year will look like a lot of house projects and unfinished spaces which I'm not gonna lie, kind of stresses me out, but I know it'll be an adventure. Here's to new life seasons with new memories to be made. Together.