Our One Year Blogiversary!

Well it has been one CRAZY year for our family. One year ago we began our blog to highlight our lifestyle of living in a small house. We had begun renovating our house years prior, actually starting day 1 of owning our house. I never thought that in one year following the start of the blog that we would have almost completed our Hadley house and then moved to a bigger house.

Project #1 upon starting our blog was to finish all of our prior projects. You know how sometimes your get a project about 90% there and then say "phew....close enough for me!"?  Well that was our crazy life between my busy work schedule, multiple animals, and a baby. So we set out to create a plan, and start finishing rooms one-by-one. Starting with the dining room, then moving to work on the living room.

The DIY Sputnik Chandelier we completed on New Years as our "date night" and we are happy to say it still hangs in the Bungalow shining down on the new owners!

 Modern sliding door| DIY coffee table| Mid-Century Chairs |  Leather strap shelf 

In each room we had some trim here, some paint there, some doors here, some baseboard there. By the time we got to starting the blog, we told ourselves, "time to finish everything before we start something new".

Little did we know that it was the perfect start to the end of our time in that home. We started working through one room at a time, which led to our first One Room Challenge leading the charge into the completion of our main entry way.

(Get the Hi| Low Buy | DIY here)

The project was sadly paralleled by my father falling ill and his eventual passing in mid April. His passing resulted in the first move of the year; moving our 93 year old Nana from her home to my brother's.

For our One Room Challenge, we had trim, closet doors, a feature wall, custom bench, DIY lights,  you name it, that room got it! That brought us in to the middle of May, at which point we continued to plug away and learned that we were going to be expecting our Son in January. It was at that point that the idea of bigger house was really unavoidable. We started our search and saw a couple houses in Hadley and were just not digging them.

Come the end of June, we drove by our future house with the For Sale sign out front and that started the chain of events that would lead us in to our new home; including a BOAT-LOAD of work to get to the finish line in the Bungalow.

When I say that driving by the house started that chain of events, I mean that day Susie said to call our realtor. So, like a good husband, I called the realtor.

Between navigating the purchase and sale, getting our Bungalow finished up and the move, it made for a jam-packed and quick paced summer. Unbeknownst to us there was another move in the future; my brother and his wife (and Nana) also moved just prior to us from their smaller home to something more appropriate in size for their growing family.

Once we navigated move #3 for the year and made it in to our new home, we hit the ground running and began to unpack and get projects going that we knew we needed to be moving quickly, such as knob and tube electrical remediation and removal of carpet and refinishing of original heart pine floors. Once we had that going, we had our final move to navigate; making our home multi-generational with Susie's Mom Lorna moving in with us.

 XOXO Feature Wall | Mid-Century Dresser with Leather Pulls | Pulley Light | Custom Vintage Car Art 

Since then we have completed our second One Room Challenge, hammering out our Son's nursery. Susie at 7 1/2 month's pregnant knocked the living room right outta the park with a fresh coat of paint and some amazing vintage furniture finds.

Cali Casual Living Room Plan | Living Room Progress Reveal

This next year coming up will be just as exciting. Our 1847  Colonial will be getting some much needed upgrading which will increase its efficiency, reduce its reliance on oil for heat and hot water, and through the use of renewable energy, we'll be reducing our reliance on the electrical grid.

We've also got big plans for the function of this new home that we can't wait to reveal with you, and TONS of wallpaper removal in our future, but for now we prepping for baby #2 to arrive and trying to get any extra shut eye while we still can.

This post will be our last before the holidays, and we will resume after Christmas, barring the early arrival of our son.

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