Life Update: We’re Moving Across The Country! Here’s Where To…

Before we bought our home, I never understood how people could spend years gutting and renovating their home only to sell it months after finishing it. It never made sense to me. Why would you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into creating your dream home only to sell it before you had a chance to enjoy it?

But somewhere between 2016 (when we bought our first house) and today, I started to understand that mindset. For some, you renovate your home to create your forever home. For others, you renovate your home for the joy of seeing what it can become. Chris and I fit into the latter category. We bought our home to escape apartment living, to have our own space, and to pursue our love of interior design. We loved dreaming of what our home could be and we fully embraced putting the work in to see that vision come to fruition. But the joy that this home has brought us hasn’t stopped us from dreaming about our future.

Years ago Chris and I dreamt about moving to a place that would allow us to live out a different passion of ours – the outdoors. Our greatest moments, the moments we feel most at peace, are when we are outdoors surrounded by beauty that we can’t even comprehend. We thought about where that could be for nearly 3 years and it wasn’t until last year when Maine popped into our heads. Shortly after, we booked a month long stay in Maine and we drove 3 days across the country to get there with our pup Teddy in the back seat. It was our first experience in Maine and it was a test to see if we would want to live there.

Our love for the state was nearly instant. Within a couple days we were confident that we could picture our lives there. With the ocean and the mountains side by side, abundant historical buildings, and quaint coastal towns that I can only describe as a Hallmark Christmas movie backdrop, it felt like home.

In fact, on the evening that we returned home from our month long stay, Chris and I were unpacking our bags in our bedroom. I said, “It feels kinda warm in here doesn’t it?” To which Chris replied, “It does. I wish we could open our windows like we did in Maine, but it’s too hot outside here.” And without pause, I said, “Ya true, right now it’s 50 degrees at ho…” I stopped mid sentence and realized what I was about to say. Chris looked at me with a smirk on his face and said, “At home?”

At home. Back in Maine. I muttered those words without any thought, like it was second nature. It only took a month of visiting that place for us to feel like we belonged. So when I said “at home” (in reference to Maine) while standing in our actual home (in Nebraska)…I knew that carried some weight. Maine felt like home.

And so, we’ve spent the last year planning a move to Maine and wrapping up our current home renovations. In April we started doing virtual tours of homes in Maine via FaceTime with our incredible realtor and in June we found a home we love in MidCoast Maine! After 2 1/2 months of house hunting, we quickly realized that with how the market is there, we never had enough time to fly out to see a house before it sold. So when this particular house popped up that we loved, we did a virtual tour and submitted an offer sight unseen. After 3 nerve-racking days they accepted our offer! Which makes it official, we are moving to Maine! Our excitement for this adventure is evident by the daily conversations we have about what we want to do there. We talk about the hiking trails and harbor views multiple times a day. And with that excitement, we have made a conscious decision to approach life in a new way in Maine.

Of the past 8 years, nearly 100% of that time we spent knee deep in a renovation. That pace of life is simply not sustainable, nor healthy, so Chris and I decided to pursue a lifestyle that’s very unfamiliar to us – a slower life. Of course we’ll still do renovations in our new home, we love designing and dreaming of the potential too much to cut that out of our lives completely! But we’ll move forward with boundaries on the amount of work we will do ourselves and set limits on how frequently we do projects. We’re excited to create a beautiful place in our next home, but we don’t want to miss out on the beautiful life outside of our home either. The best way for us to do that is by leaving space in our lives to fully embrace what we love so much about Maine.

All that to say, stick around because there are plenty of exciting things to come soon including a look at our new home!

---