Guess what? We sold our house!
An impromptu upset to intentionally down-size
Hi friends, it’s Laura here and I’m writing with a few updates to share because in the last three weeks, Taylor and I…
Spontaneously decided to put our house on the market
Packed up everything but furniture and crammed it all into a 5x10’ storage unit
Staged our house with a single late-night run to Home Goods and the help of our incredibly flexible agent/aunt (thank you again, Annette!)
Commissioned gorgeous professional photos, video, and a 3D virtual home tour
Posted the listing and hosted six showings in four days AND
Accepted an offer on our home - HOORAY!!
In light of this big impromptu life development, I thought we would create a dedicated forum to provide some context and updates to folks! Life is hot chaos (always?) and it’s hard to stay in touch as much as we’d like, so we invite you to follow along here as we embark on a new adventure and discover where it takes us.
This site will function like a blog, and if you are interested, you can also subscribe (at the end of this post or by visiting the About page) to have new updates sent directly to your inbox. We promise to share stories and photos, updates on what we’re learning and loving, and notes on what inspires us. Plus lots of making + baking, per usual.
So how did we get here
Like many others, Taylor and I spent the pandemic-to-date reflecting on and reevaluating our physical environment: how do we use our space? are we both able to work from home, or flex the purpose of rooms? will it drive us crazy to spend all our time together in a single structure? do we have what we need at home?
Now, a few years out from initial quarantine, the beautiful realization that emerged from this questioning was that yes, we have all that we need (and significantly more) and we actually thrive in the closeness of small spaces.
Some of our most cherished memories from this strange stretch of time have in fact been sparked by the intimacy, creativity, and adaptability required by simplifying, scaling back, and slowing down. That has been a welcome realization amidst a difficult and ambiguous time, and an insight that we want to hold on to.
Feeling grounded in closeness
Over the past few years, we have embraced the opportunity to reassess our space and pay attention to how we move with and around one another at home. Our mid-sized house (2,030 sq. ft) is made up of two large bedrooms, an office, den, living room, dining room, kitchen, and two small patios and we have plenty of room for sprawl, but still routinely find ourselves drawn into physical proximity to one another. We consider this a reassuring insight and an early-marriage affirmation as well: working remotely from separate rooms for eight hours a day without interaction, then coming downstairs to make dinner and both saying, “I missed you! How was your day?”
Quarantine also encouraged us to cultivate a greater use and appreciation for outdoor spaces, both at home and in our surroundings. We settled into a new rhythm of nightly dinners on the patio (regardless of the weather), evening walks around the neighborhood, and date-night picnics on the nearby bluffs overlooking the river. Gardening projects in our yard and quiet boat trips at the lake gave us all the space we needed to breathe, re-center, and feel content.
A vision for tiny living
With everything we need (and more) at hand in simple ways, we started to think differently about the value and costs of our mortgage. What stressors does our giant mortgage add that the extra space doesn’t counter-balance for us? What if we could craft the space around us according to our specific needs and not just an assumed trajectory of growth aligned with social measures of success?
What if we decided to downsize, instead of filling our space with more things? If closeness and nature can truly be enough for us…what if we tried going tiny?
Taylor has long dreamed of building tiny homes and has been compiling modular and minimalist designs for over ten years. We sought out a cozy Wisconsin Off-Grid tiny cabin a few years back, and fell in love with another tiny-living loft in Portugal during travels last fall. While tiny living is not something I ever seriously considered full-time before, our Covid realizations in many ways brought us (back) to this idea. To be clear, we really really really love the home that we’ve made ours for the last five years.
Perhaps the only thing that could entice us away from our dream house is the opportunity to explore a new adventure together. And maybe now is the time.
Last month, our beloved next door neighbors put their house on the market, and watching them sell it quickly made us think about the potentials of this moment for us as well. The market is still hot, we have the time and flexibility to move, and this could be a good opportunity for us to make good on our investment and take steps towards simplifying and downsizing.
So we called our realtor/aunt (who very bravely said, “let’s do it!”) and then hustled our butts to clean, pack, donate, store, or stage all of our worldly possessions. Less than 12 hours after listing, we received an all-cash, solely inspection-contingent offer to buy.
What comes next
Things have moved more quickly than we ever imagined. We accepted an offer with minimal negotiation and will close and be out of our place by September 22nd (eek!). Some follow-up questions that you might have:
Umm where are you going to move/live? TBD! We figured we’d have at least 30 days before closing to look at short-term options, but then got an all-cash offer (which I still can’t quite wrap my mind around!) and have <3 weeks to vacate. Luckily, multiple friends and family have offered to let us crash with them until we find something and we just ordered a POD to store our furniture in for now.
So are you building a tiny house? Yes, just not at this very moment. We’ll look for a rental in the cities while we draw up designs and make plans for a custom tiny house. Want to learn more about what tiny homes look like today? We recommend checking out some of the “tiny living” shows on Netflix, Hulu, etc.
Will you keep baking? Absolutely. I’m taking a brief hiatus from For Goodness Bakes MN pop-up sales and custom orders until we figure out where we will land next, but so far our only apartment requirements are a Tesla charger and a kitchen that’s conducive for baking. Because #bakersgonnabake, ya know?
Rude, why am I just hearing about these plans now?!? The dreams have been percolating for years, but Taylor and I literally decided to move on all of this in the last month, while also hosting AZ family and out-of-state friends at our house, attending multiple weddings, and keeping up with the busyness of end-of-summer gatherings. Really just leaning into the chaotic energy of 2022.
Ultimately, we created this newsletter as a way to keep friends and family in the loop, and hope that you will enjoy following along as we embark on this new adventure. Subscribe below (it’s free and you can unsubscribe any time) if you’d like to receive new posts sent directly to your email inbox, otherwise keep an eye out for updates!
Much love, L+T
Congratulations on your next great adventure!!!
Wow! How gutsy can you get! I look forward to following you in your new adventure!!