eleven

that's how many months it took us to sell our home. we went two rounds on the market . 6 months last year, took it off the market for 6 months, then back on last spring. finally, as we approached our 6th month this go round we got an offer that stuck.

i gotta tell ya. it is not fun trying to keep 2700 sq. ft. relatively clean with three small boys in the house! my first thought when we got the offer? "yes!! the constant cleaning and straightening up is over!"

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in my last post i mentioned having to suddenly leave our mini-lake vacation. when we left for the lake sunday we did so with the knowledge that our home was under contract and the home we had a contract on (which we re-negotiated the previous week) was well on the way to being ours. things changed with the house we were purchasing rather suddenly. you can read about it on our family blog. in short, the contract fell through and we had to pack up our things at the lake and head home to find another house.

and we did.

our new house is approximately 1,000 sq. ft. smaller than our current home. so, now, instead of cleaning and straightening i am sorting and purging.

i'm excited about downsizing. i'm excited about living more purposefully and intentionally. i'm excited about creating a space that is both functional and beautiful. ideas are swirling around my cluttered brain and many of them are starting to come together.

right now, i am getting rid of furniture left and right. we have some big pieces that just won't work in our new, smaller space.

the piece that has pained me most to part with is my blue armoire.

if you want to check out the before, it's here. but, please, i ask you, ignore the distressing. while it didn't look as bad in person as it does in the pictures i ended up going back and painting over a good bit of it, leaving just the edges distressed. 

i do love this armoire but we just can't take it. it's for sale on craig's list. but, we still need a place for our tv. and downsizing as much as we are we need as much storage as possible.  

so, while i am getting rid of large pieces i am having to replace them with smaller pieces and get a little creative with what we have.

i just painted this piece. it was going to go in my shop but now it's going in our new home.

it will go in a small sitting room and play double duty as our tv table and storage chest.

i'm also working on these two pieces.

these two guys are going to serve as our master bed side tables. mismatched pieces are great when pulled together by paint or other accessories.

and, as luck would have it i found some great mistinted paint at lowe's that i will use to do just that!

my photography skills suffer so i'll just tell you, this is a soothing grayish green with a hint of cream. because it's a mistint there is no name. i asked the gal at the lowe's paint counter if she knew what it was supposed to be, thinking that might help me identify the color. she looked at me like i had three eyes so i just moved on and call it creamy gray-green. what does it look like to you?

anywho, check back soon to see the finished pieces. they are sitting in my garage right now waiting on their second coat of deft, and i heart them!

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also, we close on the house in three weeks. three weeks!!!

so stay tuned! once we arrive we will be knocking out walls, closing up doorways, removing cabinets, putting up horizontal planks, doing board and batten treatments, turning a tiny kitchen into a functional space for a family of five, and painting, painting, painting.

it'll be a blast and i'll document it all here. hope you'll join me for the fun! i'm pretty sure i'll need some feedback!