Well, we did it. We traded in the oversized suburban American Dream home for a right-sized townhouse with a deck that feels like a treehouse, a man cave finished basement and remodeled bathrooms. We sold a good amount of our large furniture, including some favorite pieces we just wouldn't have room for and some of my trash to treasure pieces that I planned to paint and sell but never got around to. I've been selling things on Facebook Marketplace for weeks. We thought we had gotten rid of enough stuff to fit nicely into the new place. Or at least, I thought so. My husband had been telling me for weeks we had too much stuff and I wasn't facing the truth. I ignored him, comfortable in my spatial understanding of the two homes.
I was ridiculously, hilariously, wrong. Dammit.
We also somehow ended up moving on the hottest day of the year so far, over 100 degrees, and I wish that was the biggest problem of the day. The good news is nobody went down from heatstroke.
What we thought would take four guys and one truck eight hours total to move us ended up taking additional crews, another truck, and 12 hours.
Not only do we have too much stuff, we don't have the right kind of stuff for the room configurations in this new house. Exhibit A:
What we have that sits in this window is my great grandmother's fragile lyre game table, which looks lovely with my mother-in-law's ceramic Chinese bowl sitting upon it.
What we need is some kind of credenza which holds electronic and network components.
This is a repeating dilemma throughout the house, ad nauseum.
We will get there. It will probably take many more listings on Facebook Marketplace and a bunch of trips to IKEA. I will have to figure out how to decorate a house that is based on grays and chrome and modern fixtures when I've spent my entire life decorating in creams and beige as the neutral background and natural stained wood and shabby chic as my inspirations.
I love the new place. I just need to figure out how to make it work. But I'm exhausted. Maybe I'll just let it go and spend the rest of my summer watching old episodes of Fixer Upper. If Joanna Gaines can blend gray and natural wood and get modern farmhouse, maybe I can, too.
If you want to paint your walls to make the furniture fit (less expensive than new furniture!), try Perfect Greige and/or Versatile grey from Shrewin Williams. (Both on the same split strip). I painted my whole new house these two colors save 1 room and the brown furniture still looks good.
Posted by: Stacie | July 01, 2018 at 04:11 PM
Thank you! The flooring is also gray, a darker tile made to look like aged gray-washed wood. I think I can learn tricks like yours, my bigger problem is there is not a single builtin storage outside of the kitchen in the entire place. And thank you again for all the boxes! We will pass them on!
Posted by: Jenny | July 01, 2018 at 07:43 PM