After 4 months of apartment life in West Michigan, we bought a house! During a pandemic! We’ve been in this weird transitional phase for a third of the year and we couldn’t be more excited to settle our family into a spacious home in Norton Shores. Big thanks to our real estate agent and good friend, Ashley Wade of Greenridge Realty, for helping us find the perfect home.

We received the keys on Friday and have been painting and working on the house like crazy ever since. We officially move into the house this Saturday, so we’re aiming to get as much painting and cleaning done as humanly possible before then.

Look out for TONS of house updates in the next several months as we’re turning this 1990s sprawling ranch into a DIY dream. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, so it should be fun to see the entire thing unfold.

For now, here’s an empty house tour:

Since I’ve already dropped the news that our offer was accepted and we’ll be closing on our new house in mid-August, I’m throwing all of my eggs in the interior design and home renovation basket and sharing some of my latest inspiration with you. Although the things we plan to do with this new house will take time, elbow grease, financial investment, and the recruitment of help from others (what up mom & dad!), I do plan to share a lot of this journey on the blog and promise to be as honest and transparent about it as humanly possible.

So let’s start off with some recent inspiration. Today I’m rounding up some of my current favorite home decor pieces from Target. I’m crushing on boho vibes lately, if you can’t tell.

1. Landscape Framed Canvas – $15

2. Carved Wood Decorative Wall Mirror – $60

3. Square Diamond Throw Pillow – $20

4. Large Seagrass Pendant Light – $220

5. Dot Woven Throw Blanket – $40

6. Linnet Rattan Counterstool – $100 

7. Crawley Rug by Safavieh – $202

8. Brass Taper Two-Candle Holder – $21

9. 13″ Decorative Square Based Tapered Basket – $17

10. 10″ Ceramic Vase – $18

11. Jada Woven Pouf – $70

We have some pretty big news to share….

We are moving to Michigan!

This is incredibly bittersweet for so many reasons. The first being that we absolutely LOVE Nashville, and have made a home here. Steve and I met in Nashville and fantasized about the idea of moving here together. 5 years ago, just a few months after we got married, we made that dream come true. We went from a small 1-bedroom apartment in Belle Meade, to a rental house in East Nashville, to buying a 1950s farmhouse in Madison. We made friends that turned into family, grew in our marriage, brought London home from the hospital here, and have made hundreds of other memories while living in Tennessee.

If there’s one thing I want people to know about this move, it’s this: We are so incredibly happy to be moving closer to our families, but the decision to leave Nashville wasn’t an easy one.

Our time here has been amazing, and the factor that made this decision a bit easier (besides the fact that we cannot wait for London to grow up closer to family) is that we will have the opportunity to come back and forth often. Nashville will always have a place in our hearts and will always be London’s first home.

So much has changed in the past month. In the beginning of March, our city was hit hard by the deadly tornadoes that ripped through Middle Tennessee. Then just a short week later, COVID-19 caused city lockdowns and we have been self-quarantined ever since. This means that we’re no longer able to give Nashville the proper farewell we’ve been planning since we listed our house for sale. We’re dealing with feelings of grief from not being able to embrace our close friends before we head north. Hopefully, once all this craziness subsides, we’ll come back down as a family soon and celebrate the way we originally intended to.

We are so excited to be closer to both our families (mine in Michigan and Steve’s in Ontario, Canada). We are ready to push through these uncertain times, do our part to flatten the curve, and come out stronger on the other end. As soon as those international borders open back up, we’ll be ready for Steve’s family to come visit us and see London again. Until that happens, we’ll be packing, cleaning, and getting ready to settle into our new lives and our next chapter in West Michigan with our baby girl.