When we started 2017, we knew that it would be a year full of travel to the five weddings we were planning to attend throughout the year. We also planned to tackle a few renovations throughout our little townhouse in Alexandria, with the intention of starting to look for a new home in early 2018. As 2017 comes to a close, it’s kind of crazy to process how much change we experienced over the last year that neither of us anticipated last January.
The biggest change, which I’ve posted about many times on instagram but never here, was our new house! We knew towards the end of 2016 that we had already outgrown our home on the north end of Del Ray. When we first bought the house we craved walkability and proximity to bars and restaurants. We thought that despite the house being 1,000 square feet, the three bedroom configuration would allow us to at least have “a kid-and-a-half” there, letting us stay there for a solid 5 years. Ha!
We were so naive. After adding two large dogs to the mix and their crates, we filled up just one of those bedrooms with dogs. The second bedroom became our storage room since the house had very little storage otherwise. The dogs could kind of run in the backyard, but not really. Every night we stressed that the dogs wrestling or barking a little was annoying our neighbors. The reality of eventually adding a tiny, crying-at-3-am human to the mix started to sink in, and we craved our own four walls and a yard. We started checking out different neighborhoods and attending open houses in February with the intention of getting a plan together, renovating our house and preparing to buy something early 2018.
House browsing is a dangerous game. In April we noticed that a small-ish house had been sitting on the market for a while, and the price had just dropped. We began to wonder, what if our next house wasn’t a 10-15 year house but a 5 year house? What if we bought a starter home 2.0 instead of a middle or forever home? We impulsively put an offer on the house and requested that the seller pay closing costs. Our offer was accepted and we closed on our new house in May, two years and one day after we purchased our first home.
While we waited to close on the new house, we began a mad dash to renovate our town house so that we could get as much money out of it as possible. I’m working on a more detailed post on what we did to get our house ready to sell, but it was a TON of work. It was a little easier once we closed on our new house and could move most of our stuff over there, but attempting to finish a renovation while getting a new house ready was exhausting.
The move wasn’t the only major change for us in 2017. Prior to making our decision to move, I got a promotion at work from design assistant to project manager, meaning that I am now responsible for selling, designing, and overseeing construction of all my own residential renovations. I was so excited and fortunate to get that opportunity and I really love what I do. BUT like all opportunities for growth, there was lots of learning and extra work involved. And while I love improving my own house, it’s not always fun to coordinate plumbers and electricians and tile installers and granite installers on your own time when you spend your work days doing the same thing.
In the spring Kyle got recruited to interview for a new job, so he was going through an interview process while all this house stuff was going down. He started his new job in June, which meant we were both feeling some growing pains in our new roles after feeling comfortable in our work for a while. It was challenging for us to say the least.
Right as we were in the thick of the new home purchase and townhouse renovation, we went to Cancun for 5 days to celebrate the wedding of two of our close friends. In May we traveled to another wedding, closed on our new house, and then Kyle went on a bachelor party over Memorial Day weekend. In June our townhouse hit the market. We also traveled to our third wedding of the year, and then I went to Montreal for a bachelorette party the following weekend.
We closed on our townhouse at the end of June and immediately felt a huge sense of relief. Thankfully our travel scheduled also tapered a bit and we could settle into our new house and jobs more comfortably. In September we traveled to Sonoma for another amazing wedding, which was totally surreal given that the whole area burned shortly after we left. We celebrated the fifth and final wedding of the year in Charlottesville in October. November and December have been quiet relative to the rest of the year.
I’m not sure what the next year will hold for us. After a year of so much change, I feel at once tempted to sit in cruise control for a while and also blow everything up again. We definitely want to tackle renovations to our house sooner than we did at our previous home, and I have a much better idea of how I want this house to feel than I did when we first moved here. I want to focus on building my personal brand, both in the interest of my current work and to build something for myself that will be valuable regardless of where I eventually decide to take my career. I’m hoping that will mean more posts here. It seems like I’ve been writing that for three years now, but I feel better about having more content to post these days. Otherwise, I honestly don’t know what I want from the next 12 months. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s to be open to new opportunities and willing to pursue what feels right, so that’s the attitude I’m bringing into the new year. Cheers to 2018!