We’re home!!

We officially moved into our new house mid-March and we’ve been busy settling in. It’s been quite overwhelming at times and we’re just now getting to a point when it doesn’t always feel like we need to be doing something.

Much of our time over the last few weeks has been dealing with all the extra stuff we had from our previous house in VA. As much as we had pared down our things before moving to CA, we still had way too much to fit into this much smaller house. When the movers were unloading box after box of all our old things, it was overwhelming with how much stuff we had. We all thought we were pretty good at minimalism before, but we felt much more like hoarders once our stuff arrived. I just kept telling the movers to put things in the garage because there was no place for it inside the house. Our garage ended up being so full of extra furniture and boxes that it was hard to even move around in it.

My plan was to try to get the house somewhat in order and then go through the furniture and boxes in the garage. Basically everything had to have both a purpose and a place to stay in order to keep it. We don’t have room to hold on to extra things “just in case” we might want or need something later. We spent the last year living in a rental that was overflowing with too much stuff and it always felt chaotic and stressful to me. I had a hard time putting things away (because there was no place to really put something) and I wasn’t very motivated to clean because it was so much harder to clean around everything. And afterwards, it didn’t feel like it made much difference anyway. Everything always felt cluttered and it frustrated and discouraged me. I already knew that I function better with less stuff, but it was a stark reminder that chaos just leads to more chaos. I understand better now how people can just get overwhelmed in their homes, feel trapped in their stuff, and not even know where to start to get things under control. It really is so much easier to keep things clean and organized when there is less stuff to clean and organize.

So for the past year, I’ve been looking forward to having a tidy home again with a minimal amount of stuff to deal with. But after unpacking all our boxes, I realized I had too much stuff! I had held on to way too many pillows, candles, pots, baskets and other home decor items. I could have opened a store with it all! So I decided to pick out my favorites and get rid of the rest. We sold pieces of furniture (like Peyton’s loft bed, dressers, and our leather couch) on Facebook Marketplace, had a garage sale for all the household and decor items we no longer wanted, and then immediately packed up the rest and drove it to a thrift shop to donate. It felt so good to get it out of the house and garage!

Now my house feels more peaceful to me and I have most things organized and put away where I want them. At times, I still shift things a little or move items around in the kitchen to make the drawers or countertops more functional, but overall, things have settled into place and it feels good.

We also put Ikea Aurdal closet systems in all four of our closets and this has helped make them much more functional, as well as make it so dressers aren’t necessary in the kids’ rooms. Since space is so limited, every bit we have needs to work extra hard and I felt like closet systems were the best way to do that. So far, we’ve been very happy with them.

At the same time that we were moving in and unpacking, our house was also getting finished up, so we had workers coming in and out the entire time. It was not the smoothest or easiest transition, but we survived! I can’t wait to show you all the transformations this house has gone through. I’ve been so grateful for our crew of men that have worked hard to turn this place into what I envisioned it could be. They are talented, detailed, and hard working. It’s one thing to be able to design/imagine something, but I’ve been so impressed by these men that can actually bring that vision to life.

I’ve also enjoyed the opportunity to learn and grow through the challenges of designing and renovating an entire house. In the past, we’ve renovated one room or bathroom at a time, which allowed me to solely focus on that space individually, but doing it all at once was a much greater challenge for me. It’s been a long time dream to renovate a beach house (we’re one mile to the coast), so this has been a fulfilling process for me. And I’m truly grateful for this experience. Okay, stay tuned and I’ll be back soon with some after pictures!