I'm never moving again.

Hey strangers! Remember me? :) To say life has been overwhelming lately would be an understatement. Tonight is the first night in quite some time I've been able to relax a bit. 

Moving is no joke people. I've heard it's up there with life's top stressors and now I totally get it. This is where I'd normally throw in a "first world problem" hashtag, but I'm not quite ready to joke just yet. 😅 Selling a house is very real stress, even though it's a stress most would consider ourselves lucky to have. 

Originally I didn't plan to announce our move until we closed on our house -- for many reasons. Most of those reasons have happened in the past few weeks. I won't go into much detail, but it's been one thing after another. Today we got some news that makes me want to laugh -- but a maniacal, I rarely sleep anymore and don't answer the phone cause I'm afraid it's more bad news and I've been packing for 12 hours a day for the past week kind of laugh. Ha!  More on that in a bit. 

SO. We moved all of our stuff out today!! We had some plans we made nearly a year ago that made it so we had to move out a little early. Our closing was scheduled for next week. But we planned to camp out on blow up beds and make the best of it before moving into an extended stay hotel in a few days. (The whole hotel instead of an apartment is another story! It's cheaper to stay in a hotel, at least in our situation.)

We used Two Men and a Truck here in Indy to move 13 years ago and were so pleased with them, they were the first ones we called this time. They came out, walked inside and outside the house and gave us an estimate. I appreciated that they actually counted our beds, furniture and TVs and were able to give us a really good idea of what our final cost would be. 

Because we will be in between houses for a couple months, we needed a storage option too. Thankfully they offer that -- they are taking care of both moves and the storage and it's eased my mind quite a bit. 

I'm a little surprised at how excited I was for this day. It could be because we've lived in a moving box jungle for weeks now. It's gotten really bad in the past week: 

Yesterday I was in throw-random-crap-in-boxes-mode -- you know what I'm saying if you've moved recently. It's the part where you start to panic and are afraid half your stuff will be left at your house. I legit labeled many boxes "RANDOM." I'll enjoy that later I'm sure! 

We had a crew of four guys (Rapheal, DJ, Brandon and Rondall) and they were AWESOME. Super professional the entire time and they worked their butts off. They provided two trucks and had a third one available on call if needed:

There were a few things that we really appreciated -- first of all that they put a mat down in the entry where they were rolling the dolly over and over: 

Then, how they protected the doors -- they wrapped and taped the side of the door, the glass door and our front door:

I was surprised they wrapped every single piece of furniture. Not just with plastic, but every one got padded with blankets as well: 

Even the upholstered chairs!:

So we had a storage bin full of Legos -- but I had lost the lid. (Who loses a storage container lid??) I was planning to just dump the Legos in a box and pack them up, but never got to it. I forgot about it till I saw them take it out to the truck -- they wrapped that thing so well not one Lego will emerge. It was little things like that that really impressed me. 

We all joked that their job is a real life version of Tetris -- they worked items just so, so that most of our house was in just one truck! I was shocked at what they were able to (safely) fit in there:

Those four guys worked their tails off for six hours!! We couldn't be more thrilled with how they handled our items. Then they left to unload and fill our storage rental as well -- that's a hard day. 

We loved the little things they did, like the Lego bin, and that they didn't roll the heavy dolly down our wood steps. They carried the it down, and then put it on the floor to roll out. I was pleasantly surprised at that. A friend of mine just had a horrible moving experience so I was grateful for these little touches. 

Our storage is temperature controlled so that gives me peace of mind as well. And we can add to it any time -- we have a few things like our treadmill that we didn't get apart in time so we'll make an appointment to take that over later. Overall we were thrilled! Two Men and a Truck locations are independently owned all over the country. If you'd like to check out a location near you, check out their site here. Our local Indianapolis location was top notch. (If you're nearby be sure to check them out on Facebook too.)

Want to hear the best part? Are you ready? ;) Not even two hours after they drove away with all of our stuff...beds, cooking utensils, chairs...pretty much everything...we got word that the buyer of the buyers of the buyers of buyers of our house (got that?) had to back out of their sale. So. That house (four removed? I've lost track) is back on the market and our closing could be pushed out one week to a month. Or more? Depends on when it sells. 

If it sells soon this is actually a blessing in disguise because we'll get to stay in our house longer and save money on our in-between living. If it doesn't sell soon...well, it gets sticky and not so fun, so we're not even going to talk about that, OK? :) I have a good feeling about it all -- I think it's going to work out for everyone involved. I just hate being in limbo. And not having chairs. 

We were going to buy a new bed for our son, so we'll probably do that sooner than later now, if we're going to be in the house for another month. Not sure the inflatable beds will cut it that long. 

Another good thing? I've been so stressed I've lost ten pounds in about a month. Probably more, but I wouldn't know because our scale is packed away in a storage facility across town. 👍

I'll keep you updated on the news of course! Please send good house sale vibes to the buyers down the line. Us four families would appreciate it. :) We'll survive -- the bests in my life have all come after some tests, this is just another one. AND we got word that cabinets will be going in at the new house next week, so I'm giddy at the progress. It's a beauty! 

I'll be back later this week! 

Disclosure: I worked with Two Men and a Truck on this post but already had them scheduled to do our job anyway -- I only share brands I know and love with you all. 

The finishes and lighting for our new house!

Hey all and welcome to a new week! This one is special for us -- it's our last week in our house...at least with all of our furniture. :) If you missed our news, go here! 

We move our stuff out next week -- our buyers had a 30-day close and have to be out before closing day. So we will be in temporary housing in between, for at least six weeks. I've been OK with the whole thing and am actually kind of looking forward to a much simpler, slower life for a couple months. But over the past few days it's really hitting me that we won't be living in this house for much longer. I'm SO excited about our new house, it takes some of the sting away. I just have a feeling it will all hit me at once when we're moved out. Not looking forward to that. :) 

Anyway, let's talk about some fun stuff OK? How about new house finishes! The first time I did this (with our current house) it was 14 years ago. I had been living in apartments for 10 plus years and had never made a whole lot of big design decisions. So it took multiple trips to the design center and hours of going back and forth before I was able to pick out what I wanted. It was STRESSFUL. You're picking out finishes that you'll have forever...or at least that's how it felt. Little did I know I would end up changing so much and sharing it with you all. 💗

This time? It was just pure excitement and fun. I didn't even do any research -- I just knew what I wanted. I picked out every finish/fixture for the house in about two hours and then the lighting took another hour. Loved it. 

I'm going with a slightly softer pallet in the new house and I couldn't be more excited about it. Here's a look at the floors and cabinet colors: 

The light gray will be the island and the white is the rest of the cabinets. I went back and forth on the doing the lowers in gray like our house, but I am happy with the all white -- I know that will stand the test of time. See how much lighter this is than our house? It just feels soothing to me. I love love LOVE the tone of those floors! 

The powder room will have the same floors, a light gray vanity with open storage on the bottom (probably a little darker than this gray) and a little bling I'll show you below: 

I went with a brushed brass for the kitchen handles and then the brass glass knobs for the powder room: 

I think the white, gray and soft brass are going to look amazing together! And the good thing is hardware is SO easy to spray paint if my tastes change down the road. I've done it many times. I'm looking forward to having some fun with the decor in the powder room. I'm thinking wallpaper or a stencil perhaps? Powder rooms are one of the spaces I think you can do whatever you want in. 

I'm really excited about the laundry room. The floors will be faux marble ceramic tiles and there are a couple upper cabinets that will be white. We'll have a countertop for folding and I chose a dark laminate that looks like soapstone: 

The few cabinets in there will also have the glass knobs. 

For the basement bath and our son's bath, I went with a darker wood vanity (it has some gray undertones) and a really cool white/gray tile: 

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I LOVE that tile and think it's going to be really sharp in those rooms. Of course I have a plan to add his current bathroom wall tile into that room as well! :) 

I chose this wavy white subway tile for the kitchen backsplash:

I didn't want to go with a color that may be trendy because I learned in our current house that taking down tile is pretty much the worse job ever. EVER. Never again. I think the wavy look will add some dimension and interest. 

I'm obsessed with the five-panel doors that I picked: 

I've been asked a few times if the doors in the new house will be black -- not yet! I got a quote to have them painted by the builder but decided to nix it to save some money. I want to see how the house feels first -- I think they will look SO good in black but I'll have to live in the house before deciding. 

In order to save we will have carpet in more of the house than we have now -- quite a bit more actually. I had to laugh because I picked the same exact carpet we used in our basement years ago (bottom left corner): 

The kitchen counters will be very similar to our current ones -- this is called Cotton White and they are just a tad lighter than our River White counters: 

The island top will be wood -- I had to keep my wood island! :) 

At first I was going to do marble on the master counters (the other bathrooms are marble) but it wasn't too much of an upgrade to do granite instead. I'm kind of obsessed with what I picked:

It was too busy for the kitchen for me, but on the smaller master sinks it's going to be so beautiful. 

Thankfully most of our picks were included with the price of the house -- I only upgraded on some of the countertops. 

We had an allowance for lighting and I really wanted to stay within that amount. I splurged on a few lights that will be in the kitchen and family room and I'm so excited I can't even tell you. I've wanted these for years and years and they will be over the kitchen island: 

And this will hang in our family room: 

I went bare bones with the others -- 80 percent of our house will have the "boob" lights. And some won't have anything until I find what I like and install them myself. It was my compromise for getting  a few lights I've been dreaming of for years. 

Even though this house will be beautiful to start, there are so many projects I can't wait to tackle. These are the bones of the house, the fun stuff is adding my personal touches -- the heart! (Soooo cheesy, I know. But true.) I can literally see all of these finishes in my head and I can't wait to see it come together. 

I'll keep that in mind when we're living in about 700 square feet for a couple months. :) Three people and three animals -- it's a good thing we like each other! 

P.S. I don't have the names/sources of most of these but can find them out! Let me know!