Moving on

We've been a little busy lately.

We sold our house this past week, and signed the final paperwork just the other day to buy our new home.

Phew.

It's been a lot.

A lot of emotions. A lot of stress. A lot of work. A lot of excitement. It's just been a lot.

But everything is now finalized and settling down and I can stop having dreams of washing windows and scrubbing floors. Because it's sold.

And I certainly know one thing is for sure--our house will never look this tidy again--I can promise you that.

*Some pics are different sizes depending on how they downloaded--some being from the professional and others from my own camera 

Check it out! My bench cushion and pillow that I made (the one that was shockingly pinned thousands and thousands of times on Pinterest) actually made the cut for the MLS listing pics! yes!!

So after hours of packing, de-cluttering and cleaning (thank you family for all of your help!), we put our house up on the market...and within only one hour of it being up, our real-estate agent had emails flowing in from other agents asking to show it to their clients that very day.
 

So with that, we packed up and moved into mom and dad's house so that we could allow all of the showings to take place without little people (and ourselves) making a mess every time that we walked through our front door....and we waited. We waited for news and updates from our agent, and checked as our neighbours sent us emails telling us that we didn't even need to have an open house since they were watching couples outside of our house literally signing offers on the trunks of their cars.

 People apparently fell in love with the same things that we fell in love with when we first bought this house. The original hardwood floors, the beautiful original wood trim details, the french doors, the big backyard, the location, the character and our ginormous walk-in closets (which I'll miss dearly). Now, mind you, this house looked nothing like it does now when we first bought it. It originally had a green bathtub, ugly flooring throughout, a terrible bathroom (and only one bathroom actually), a scary concrete basement, pink walls and a mud pit for a backyard...but we saw the potential in it and spent years working hard to make it our own.  

Then by Tuesday night when we sat down to review the offers that had come in, we sat across our dining room table staring at 8 (EIGHT!) signed offers. It was incredible.

So when I drove up and saw the for sale sign on our lawn the other day I couldn't help but get a little teary. Because it's our home. It's our first home. It's where we've rocked crying babies endlessly throughout the night. It's where we've cheered as tiny feet took their first steps. It's where we've sat on our front porch late at night, drinks in hand, dreaming of and planning our future. It's where we've laughed at funny toddlers, and cried when parenthood got the best of us. It's where we've celebrated holidays and eaten pancakes every Saturday morning around the dining room table. It's where we've let tears fall when life was hard and it's where we've smiled when life was great. It's a street across from my sister and her family, so it's where our children have grown to love each other and consider each other siblings instead of cousins. It's our home. And it will be hard to leave. Really hard.

But as life moves on, life brings us to new places and means that we have new needs...so as our family has grown, our house has progressively gotten smaller. Our house that used to fit just Terry and I so perfectly, (with extra rooms even!) has been steadily filling up with little people--and all of their things. So we're moving on. Moving to something new. Something different. Something bigger. Something that will take a while for it to feel like it's ours...but one day it really will feel like home once again. I'm sure of that.

And with a new backyard like this?...well, we couldn't resist.

I'm still trying to convice Terry that we'll need to get one of those ride-on lawn mowers...just for kicks.

So with some big plans for eventually gutting bathrooms, laying down hardwood upstairs and painting some walls, we'll make it our own and I know that this will one day feel like it's ours (we just have to now convince Jen and Jeff to follow us). Mind you, it's only a few minutes away from them, so the cousin love will undoubtedly continue...it will just be in a different location now--poolside, with a sippy cup full of cold juice on a hot day.

Now excuse me while I go sit and stare at my whole house that needs to be packed up. This should be fun.

Happy weekend everyone,
Erica xo