Before I begin, I want to thank my very good friend Megan Hampel for coming over and photographing us in our first home before we packed it up. It was so special to spend some time really reminisicing on the memories we made here, and now we have beautiful images to help us always remember our favorite spaces here. Truly reminds me what a gift photographs are, and how very meaningful this job can be. Thank you, Megan, for a gift we will cherish for the rest of our lives. 

So… we sold our house. There, I said it. We sold our amazing, adorable, 1300 sq. foot house in the cutest neighborhood in town. The house we lived in when we got married, and the house that we poured our blood, sweat and tears into while we made it a home. John and I have lived here together for 4.5 years (he has owned it for 6, and I moved in about a year and a half after he bought it). We’ve created so many memories inside the walls of this house, and it is such a strange reality to think that it isn’t ours anymore. While we’re absolutely elated that it sold so quickly and easily (and over asking price!), it’s been a bittersweet journey.

The first thing people are saying when they hear that we’ve sold our house is “Where are you moving to?” And that’s where it gets tricky. You see, selling our house wasn’t even the plan if I’m being honest. Back in April, John and I had been casually looking at the market for a few months – trying to figure out the neighborhoods and the prices and the options we had – and when I say casually, I mean VERY CASUALLY. After all, we were happy in our home, and it suited us. We felt safe in our neighborhood, and it was easy to get to everything. All our friends lived nearby. Our house was completely updated. Nothing was missing.

Then one Sunday, John and I passed by an Open House in one of our potential neighborhoods. Having nothing else to do, we decided to go, and we quickly and unexpectedly fell in love with a house that we envisioned as our “forever home.” We could see ourselves creating our dream kitchen there, bringing our babies home there, chasing kids in the hallways, hosting parties, and demanding teenagers to hang out downstairs in the den and give us old folks some peace and quiet. We saw our kids graduating high school, the two of us becoming older, watching the cars pass by, and maybe letting our parents live with us should they ever need to. All in that house.

It needed a lot of updates, a lot of love (and money), but we could see the potential – we could see what our futures could look like within those walls. So after a few weeks of hemming and hawwing, we put in an offer. We negotiated with the seller on the price, and got it somewhere we felt good about, and finally signed the papers that we were officially under contract. We were so excited – a dream come true! We were buying a house that had everything on our wishlist – but first, we had to sell ours. So we put it on the market and BAM. Two days later, we signed the papers on an offer that was over our asking price. Our house was offically sold!

Next came our inspection on the “new” house. The fixer-upper, full-of-potential-and-possibility house. We knew it had problems, but when the inspection was over, we were bombarded with things that needed repair. This house we loved so much, that we saw so much in…well, it had issues. Lots of issues. Foundation issues. Water issues. Roof issues. Fireplace issues. Almost every single thing failed inspection, and John and I felt so lost, not knowing what to do. It broke our hearts, thinking about what path to take, but ultimately, we decided to retract our offer and hope to find another house quickly. And while we knew we didn’t have to move forward with selling our house, we felt it was the right thing to do.

The past few weeks have been filled to the brim with packing up our first house. Gosh, I never knew how much stuff we had! Hah! It’s been a very stressful couple of months with the ups and downs of selling and (trying to) buy houses – and if I’m being real, I have to say that we’ve really struggled with it. I think especially since we haven’t found a new house yet, that we feel really discouraged. I think it’d be one thing to leave a house we love for a new exciting house, but since we have no new house, it just makes it all very scary.

So while we look for our new house, we’ll be living with my parents! Thank goodness they like us haha! We’ll be here for about 4 weeks, and then will be moving into a townhouse nearby after that (unless we find a new house before then…fingers crossed?). It’s a cute little townhouse that my parents own. My grandmother has been renting it the past few years and she is ready to move out, so we’ll be renting it once she moves! I am so grateful that the timing of that worked out so well, since I do think that having our own space will make us feel a lot better. Right now we’re living in my old bedroom and without most of our things, and once we get into the townhouse we can temporarily settle in until we find something. Which means no pressure for us, which is GOOD! (Can you tell that I’m trying my hardest to see the silver lining?)

So yeah! That’s what’s happening in our personal lives! As a planner (and control-freak), this is hard for me, personally. To not know what the future holds. To not know how long we’ll be in this limbo stage. But then I remember that there are so many more things that could be happening to us. We have our health, our pets, our friends, our family, and our options…and no matter where we lay our heads at night, home is certainly where the heart is.

Onto our next adventure!

P.S. If you hear of a house hitting the market in Little Rock, we’re looking in the following neighborhoods: Foxcroft, River Ridge, Kingwood, Cammack Village, Prospect Terrace, Robinwood, Heights and Hillcrest! Looking for something about 2500+ sq. ft!