What I'm Looking Forward To This Spring

Thoughts on settling into our new home and looking forward to renovations, traveling, watching more White Lotus, and lots of stillness in between!

We’ve been in our new home for over a year now, which feels wild to say, and even though we haven’t done a fraction of the renovations we were hoping to do immediately upon moving in, we are in a really sweet spot right now where life feels really good. It’s not that every day looks glamorous (not even close!)) or feels like rainbows and daisies, but everything just feels settled, happy, and like we are all right where we are supposed to be.

There was a period of time that our move was something our children were sad about. We’d drive by our old house and they’d say, “We loved that house! Why did we have to move!?” While this didn’t make me regret moving (not in the least!) because I knew they would soon understand that we made the move to have a more comfortable home for our family. Hearing them say things like this did, however, break my heart to learn they felt that way. After all, I loved that house too and we didn’t really plan at all to move …until we randomly saw our new home listed on the market and knew it had the “it factor” needed to be a forever home for us. In Charleston, you have to act quickly and often unexpectedly!

All that to say, we’ve long surpassed that period and our children have settled so well into our new neighborhood. (A whopping mile, if that, away from the old one!) Their afternoons are spent going from one friend’s house to the next, exploring paths through the marsh, catching minnows in mason jars, and riding their bikes until there’s no light left in the sky. We are really thankful that they now never want to leave the house we call home.

We’ve been here in this settled place for quite a while now… and it feels nice. But there are things coming up this spring and early summer that feel exciting. However, for once in my life, I don’t feel like I’m eagerly anticipating them. Instead, I want time to feel slow and steady. And once we get to these exciting things, it will be fantastic. But I’m not hurrying time. Not one bit!

Here are some random things that fit into this category —

Finalizing renovation plans.

Instead of jumping into renovations when we moved in, which we thought would be the case, we instead decided to kick back and enjoy our home and see how we live in it, with no rush at all to start any projects outside of paint and lighting changes.

Questions this year has allowed us to answer are things like:

Which door do our kids like to use for coming in and out?

Do we need a trash can drawer in the kitchen island, or is the one by the sink enough?

Do we like the location of the powder bath?

Would a sliding door be better to go out onto the back porch or is a french door the best option?

How does the home hold up to changing temperatures during an entire calendar year? Any signs of humidity in the house or drafty areas when it’s cold?

What areas of our home need more closet space?

…and so forth! These are just random examples of questions we have been able to answer over the last year of living well in our home. In fact, had we started renovations when we first moved in, I think we would have ended up not being fully pleased with our decisions.

So over the last year, we’ve been working with the same architect who designed our last home to do the renovations on this one. We have really taken our time with this, going back and forth on the plan drawings countless times. But we want it to be perfect! Fun fact, this is also the same architect group who originally designed our new home 20+ years ago!

Finding out what’s happening on White Lotus.

The best show ever! Brandon and I have been hooked on all three seasons. I love how Mike White leaves you hanging—not knowing what is going on until the very end. I have truly no clue what to expect, but I am guessing it has something to do with those darn monkeys.

Spring in Charleston.

The perfect season to just “be.” The time of year that all Charlestonians want to be home and pause life because the weather couldn’t be more perfect. Our azaleas just started blooming, the wisteria is out in full force, and then will come my favorite season of blooms—confederate jasmine, roses, and then hydrangeas!

Traveling to Europe with our children.

I’m really excited to spend some time in France this summer. We’ve spent a lot of time finalizing all of the plans, so it has definitely been a big topic of discussion lately. For the longest time, it has been a dream of mine to spend a week in the french countryside with my family. We are also doing a week in St. Tropez and stopping in Paris, as well. A dream!!! Brandon and I haven’t ever done European travel— we got engaged when I was 22 years old and truly had no travel budget at all, much less for Europe. Shortly after we were married, my mom became extremely sick with complications of Ulcerative Colitis and spent years in and out of the hospital—I was in there with her almost every other week, sleeping in those terrible recliners. On several occasions, the complications became such a tangled, scary web that we didn’t know if she would make it. So I simply could not have left her side. And then we had babies!! Babies that really really struggle with separation anxiety. We’ve managed to leave for 5 nights a few times, but that has been the longest we’ve been away from them, so that means we’ve limited travel to fairly nearby places, with the farthest location being the Caribbean islands.

Needless to say, we cannot go to Europe without them!! Well we could (and it would be much more “vacation-like” if so) but we don’t want to. So all five of us are making the trip and because of that, we’ve been able to make it a longer adventure! I am sure it is going to be very stressful navigating airports, rental cars, and all the ins and outs of foreign travel, but I’m just so excited for the memories we will create.

Knowing me, I will start regretting the trip terribly a few days before—a feeling that will continue into the first day of the trip, but then I will get so excited the moment we wake up in our first destination. (That’s always how it goes!)

The launch of a collection I’ve been working on for over a year.

I’ve been working with a really exciting brand since last spring on a small but mighty four piece collection. We’ve done a couple photo shoots already—one last fall and one just recently in Charleston. Excited to share more details soon as we approach the spring launch!

Starting a garden.

Now that our life is feeling pretty calm and settled, I am dying to start a new hobby and I want it to be outside where I can get my hands dirty! I’ve wanted a garden for a long time, but the timing never felt right. I told Brandon that this is what I’d love for Mother’s Day… him getting me set up in some way to start this new hobby. I don’t know if it will be raised beds or as small as a little container garden, but I want to grow a few things like radishes, tomatoes, basil and mint, and a variety of lettuces when the temperature becomes optimal again. (I didn’t realize I had just missed the planting window of lettuces and radishes - ugh!)

Getting a fresh start.

I’ve felt myself being in a period of change and I’ve been pretty quiet lately so that I can truly listen to my intuition on this. I feel like my personal style is changing ever so slightly and maybe my home decor style, too. I’m also feeling so much more drawn to the idea that “less is more.” I have been going through all of our china cabinets and closets, pulling out things that no longer serve us. Of course there will be items to donate and then items to sell, too. If you’re in Charleston, look out for that. I plan to start a sub-group on Instagram where I list things for local pickup. A lot of furniture, too! Going into this renovation will unfortunately mean packing up our belongings in boxes… yet again. We’ve done a lot of moves in the last 10 years, but this last one truly felt never-ending. I’m determined to have less to box up this time.

On that note, I definitely plan to document our renovation on here—this will be the place!

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That’s all for today. Let me know in a comment what else you’d like me to write about and I’ll get to it!