Holy cow did you guys have questions about the whole selling/moving/buying process since yesterday’s little announcement! So we decided an FAQ post would answer as many as we could. We originally planned to share it tomorrow but you guys are still sending questions our way so furiously that we decided to share this guy today and our regularly scheduled DIY post will go up in the morning. So heeeeeeeere we go! #warningitslong
Q: Will you sell your current house by owner like you did with your first house?
Since it worked out so well for us last time, we’d love to! So other than possibly paying a few hundred dollars to have it listed on MLS again, we’re planning to market it and show it ourselves (we’ve actually already had three showings, so our fingers are crossed). We don’t even have a For Sale sign out front yet since we have been doing private showings to realtors and interested locals who are contacting us directly, so it’s kinda weird. Haha!
Q: Did you consider renting out your current house instead of selling it? We did! But we talked to a few realtors who said that a few homes in our neighborhood that were for rent were having a hard time holding tenants since the lots were so big (renters in our area typically want very small yards so there’s less for them to mow/maintain). So we shifted our focus to selling since things in our neighborhood seem to be picking up in that department (many homes are selling fast nearby, so we’re hoping ours follows suit).
Q: When will you move in?
We have to sell our current house first and think showing it with furniture will help that process (plus we don’t want to move all of our furniture to the new house and then have the sale fall through). So our best guess would be that we’ll (hopefully) move into our new house in June, although it really all depends on when we sell and when our closing date is. But we’re already working on the new house as well as finishing things up around here, so along with all the staging/showing/selling posts about our current house, there will definitely be new house projects, plans, and pictures working their way into the mix. Ahhh, it gets me so excited to type that!
Q: Wait, are you selling your current house fully furnished!? Sorry! I made a comment about wanting to keep our furniture here in order to sell it faster on yesterday’s post and it sounded like we were selling it furnished but I quickly updated it in the hopes of squashing that self-started rumor. Haha! We’re not selling it furnished, we just want furniture in the house when it’s for sale (since empty houses traditionally sell slower and for less money) – but although we’re bringing our furniture with us a lot of things will be in different places in the new house since the layout is so different, which should be fun to play around with!
Q: How many square feet is it? How can it be the same square footage as your current house when it looks so much bigger?! It’s almost exactly the same square footage of our current house, which we love (it’s around 2,500 square feet). It’s just that our current house has an 1,000 square foot addition hiding in the back that you can’t see at all from the front, so that’s why it looks almost as small as our first house (which was half the size). Meanwhile the new house doesn’t have anything hiding in the back and instead has a second floor that’s in plain sight from the street, which makes it look a lot bigger.
Q: Your new house is so pretty on the outside you won’t have a thing to do to upgrade it! That’s the funny thing about cropped photos. Below is a panned out shot that shows that there’s definitely work to be done. So we think the outside will keep us nice and busy too…
Q: Tell me more about what made you love this house in this neighborhood. Would you have taken any house in that area, or did it have to be the right one? We definitely wouldn’t have just taken anything in our budget because we always want a house that works for our family (right house in the wrong neighborhood is sort of the same womp-womp as the right neighborhood but the wrong house). So the sweet spot was finding both. And when we pulled down the street and saw this baby at the end of the cul-de-sac (zero through traffic! a spot for Clara to ride a bike! a bug-hunting mecca for Burger!) we were completely smitten. And when the layout inside didn’t disappoint, we practically lunged for the offer papers. She might not look like much right now, but we think she’s going to clean up real nice :)
Q: How did you keep this a secret?! This was BY FAR the hardest part for us! There were so many moments I wanted to over-share every detail with you guys as we went! This house sort of came out of nowhere, very quickly. We were very casually looking since we anticipated not needing something ’til this summer (or later). Then we saw it we had that moment of “we either go for it or be okay with losing it!” And we realized we weren’t okay with losing it. We actually closed on it in the fall (now can you see how hard this secret was to keep?!?!?) but we had a million balls in the air (a book tour in progress, a bunch of projects for our current house that we wanted to finish before we announced/sold, and a few immediate upgrades to deal with in the new house like a leaking roof, a bad furnace, an alarm install and an opossum in the crawl space (all of which we can’t wait to post about in detail for you guys).
We actually debated spilling the beans about things a lot sooner but we worried it would make us feel torn in half (wanting to stay focused on finishing and selling our current house, but knowing many of you would’ve mentally “moved on” to the new house). We also had to think about things like safety (we just weren’t comfortable telling the entire internet that we had a new house that would be unoccupied for a big chunk of time). So we made the call that waiting, as challenging as it was, was best for our family, this blog, and our new house’s safety. And that way we could focus and knock out what we needed to do here before shifting into “new house mode” when we were ready. Boy does it feel good to be in that mode now. I ran around the house singing this song.
Q: Last time you closed on your current house on the same day that the new owners closed on your old house, but this time it you bought the new house before selling your current house. What went into that decision? Once we were 100% sure that this was The House, we knew putting in a bid with a contingency that we had to sell our current house would weaken our offer. And we didn’t want to lose that house! There was actually another offer on it, so we knew we needed to have a strong and compelling offer to get it and we didn’t want to offer over asking price, so we decided that going into it without a contingency to sell our house would make for a compelling offer. We were so glad that the bank finally recognized us both as full time self employed people (we’ve been doing this blog thing full time together for nearly 3 years), which was a very different situation then when we bought our first and current house (more on that here) – and it was amazing to get the “you guys got it!” call.
Obviously carrying two mortgages for any period of time isn’t fun. But we triple-checked our savings before bidding to make sure we could handle it and found other ways to save. For instance, if we’re able to sell our current house by owner like we did for our first house, we stand to save ourselves more than all the extra mortgage payments that we’ve been making combined (since we won’t have to pay a seller’s agent commission). Plus, those overlapping mortgage payments are helping us pay down our loan (yay equity!), so it’s not like money going out without a return (like renting or writing a seller’s agent check).
Q: I need more details! We know, and we’re itching to give them. But please understand that we won’t be discussing certain identifying details on our blog (like what neighborhood it’s in or specific info about our closing) because we want to keep some semblance of privacy intact, so we’re resisting the urge to over-share in that regard this time! We know that you guys understand that we need to keep some personal details private and we appreciate all of you who respect that. We’d be naive to think someone couldn’t dig up the info if they really wanted to (real estate is public record), but we’re not going to hand anyone anything on a silver platter over here. Haha! Thankfully our current address was leaked even before we moved into this house back in 2010 and we haven’t had a single issue and our alarm system gives us amazing peace of mind (let’s just say it talks to us and has eyes for us). And then there’s our ferocious guard dog…
Q: When was it built? How many bedrooms and bathrooms does it have? It was built 32 years ago and it has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms (so there’s actually one less tub for me to clean). The main bathroom on the first floor is a half bath, which I’m already dreaming of redoing… once we strip all the wallpaper!
Q: How much do you think you’ll make selling your current house thanks to all the improvements you put into it? That would make a fun post! Just like this post that we shared when we sold our first house, we’re definitely excited to see how it all pans out and spill all the details about how much we put into this house in home improvements vs. how much those upgrades affected the sale price. Based on the interest in our current house (we’ve had three showings!) realtors seem to think that our listing price is good so we’re hopeful there might even be a smidge of profit in there this time!
Q: Is it sad to leave Clara’s big girl room without her moving in? From the moment we moved in back in 2010, we always intended for that room to be a playroom (even though it somehow turned into a junk room for 2 years, oops!) so it has been awesome to finally enjoy that space and use it the way we always intended. Even if Clara isn’t quite ready to sleep in there yet, she has logged lots of play-time in there and if she had moved in there we’d have an empty nursery, so either way we knew she couldn’t sleep in both spaces so one would be a playroom while the other serves as her bedroom. The nice thing is that everything comes with us except for the walls, so since we didn’t do anything structural in there (like add a built-in accent wall or bunk-bed system) or cover the walls with anything fancy that stays behind (ex: cool wallpaper or a big wall mural) it can all end up at the new house with us.
Q: What about all the things that you did to this house that you can’t take with you? Like the penny tile and the new fireplace and the pergola? We love love love those things, and will definitely be sad to leave them, but we did them ourselves – which means we can always tackle them again (and alter them in new ways) for the new house if we want them there. We’re just suckers for showing a house some love, so we would never want to live anywhere and “hold back” on doing things just because we can’t take them with us (for us, doing them is half the fun sometimes). So it’s nice to spend the time that we have with those beauties while we live in the house, and know that they’ll live on. I’m deeply comforted by the fact that we can always drive by and wave at the pergola. Yeah, that’s definitely going to happen.
Q: I’d love to see a post talking about which of your recent projects you did for resale value and why you chose them. Nearly everything we’ve done recently has been on our to-do list for over a year. So they weren’t things we added to our roster for resale – they were just things we knew we’d love to tackle, many of them from the day that we moved in. So it was less about which projects we chose to do for resale (none really) and more about which projects from our to-do list that we decided to move ahead with. For example, converting a storage room into a useful playroom and upping the curb appeal wouldn’t hurt, but double siding the fireplace (which would involve a mason and a contractor since it’s load bearing) felt like more of an “if we were staying longer we’d love to do it” item. So there were a few things that we didn’t think made financial sense to do right now but we did pretty much everything else on our to-do list that we hoped to do. We’ll share a final rundown of Listy McListerson with everything checked off, and at the bottom we’re planning to put all the “would have been nice” items that we skipped – but secretly hope the new owners end up doing so we can house crash them. Haha!
Q: Will you guys miss the convenience of a ranch and having everything on one floor? We think it’ll be fun to try out a completely new house layout since our first and second house were pretty similar to each other. And I’m sure there will be tons of things that we miss about having a ranch, but we’re excited to see how a two-story house works for our family. We love that the laundry room is on the second floor with all of the bedrooms, which was one thing we really liked about ranches (not taking piles of laundry up and down stairs).
We also secretly hope that the upstairs will help us with separating work from family stuff, so we think we’ll institute a no-laptops-upstairs rule. Since we’re only twenty steps from our office when we step out of bed in our current house, it’ll be nice to be a whole floor away from it in our new house. And it’ll be awesome not to have to clean the whole house when people come over (if they’ll just be on the main level, we can shut the bedroom doors upstairs and ignore the mess like we did when we grew up in two story houses, haha).
Whew! So that should do it! Hope that helped guys. And we can’t wait to share a floor plan and all the crazy wallpaper-and-blue-trim-laden before pics with you guys while we finish things off at our current house and get this baby sold. Fingers crossed…
Karen says
Thanks for all the details! When selling your current home, how did you decide on an asking price? Did you do it yourself or enlist the help of a realtor?
YoungHouseLove says
We look at comps for sure (on MLS) just to see what other places are going for and what they have to offer. We learned with our first house that the right price is really important. If it’s a gorgeous house at the wrong price, it’s not going to draw things in like something priced for the market :)
xo
s
Anya says
So one other question about your new house: Do you have a basement? Lots of houses here in PA have basements, but I realized that your current house and previous house haven’t had basements that have inside stairs (you have to go outside to get in).. is this common for the Richmond area? It’s always interesting to me to see how styles of homes change depending on the area of the country.
Congrats on your new house — she’s beautiful!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Anya! Many ranches in Ricmond seem to have separate entry basements but actual attached inside-entry basements seem to be somewhat rare here! I know a few people who have them but most of our friends and family don’t (and our new house doesn’t have a basement, but has attic storage and garage space).
xo
s
Katie says
EEK! So where would you go during a tornado…the bathroom on the main level I’m assuming. Does VA have many tornadoes? I by no means mean this as a criticism of the new house, just curious. I live in St. Louis and when we were house hunting we found a gorgeous home in a neighborhood I LOVE but it didn’t have a basement. Springs in MO can be filled with tornadoes so we passed. I was too scared of being basementless and my hubby knew he would forever regret not having one due to how I tend to flip the crazy switch as soon as the sirens go off. :)
YoungHouseLove says
I don’t think Richmond typically gets tornados (we’ve been here 7 years and have never heard sirens go off or anything like that – sounds terrifying though!). Our first and second house’s basement are separate entry so they probably wouldn’t be safe to run to outside :)
xo
s
Whitney says
So excited for you all! I am a little bummed to never see the double sided fireplace (I have been dying for you to tackle that)… I think you need to leave some plans for the next owners, ya know, just a little hint to them :) And then house crash just like you said!
YoungHouseLove says
Maybe we’ll just tuck a little to-do list in the junk drawer for them to find. Haha!
xo
s
ashley @ sunnysideshlee.com says
I was just thinking about that! That’s one project I was looking forward to seeing to completion! :)
ashley @ sunnysideshlee.com says
Have I told you guys how much I adore you lately? Yes, so excited for you in the new house and it looks like you have a TON of upgrades to do in and outside. I love that your garage is attached too – how fun!
And a cul-de-sac will be awesome for Clara growing up! Hopefully there are other kids in the area for her to play with? Have a great weekend!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much Ashley! We’re so excited about the other kiddos nearby, and Clara has already discovered this little dip in the cul de sac right out front where puddles form (picture her soaked from her head to her toes while grinning ear to ear).
xo
s
tiffany says
Me: “aweeee”
Hubby: “what?”
Me: “my friends bought a new house!”
Hubby: “who?”
Me: “you don’t know them… they are my blog ‘friends'”
Hubby: *rolls eyes*
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! Totally counts! You guys are our friends, so by the principle of reflexive blogging we’re your friends too :)
xo
s
Crystal @ 29 Rue House says
Ahhh just spent way to long at work reading comments. It never once crossed my mind that your delayed announcement was about making money.
Anyway, thanks so much for the Q&A! Can’t wait to find out more and seriously I think you guys must have the patience of the century. I commend you for being able to see this house through to end and not letting your next dream home slip away in the meantime.
In the meantime, I’m happy to continue reading about what your doing in your current place!
Austin says
So, so, so happy for you guys! While I adore your current house, I was sad that there were less major renovations to do at this point, so I am beyond STOKED to know that tons of fresh projects are coming my way!!! Congratulations!
Joy Cooper says
Congratulations! Your new house is very similar to my, 2 story brick traditional here in Atlanta. I am very interested to see what you do, there don’t seem to be many online ideas for this style house and there are some things that are really stumping me. For instance how to dress 2 very large bay windows with beautiful views, too many doors, keeping a flow with many smaller rooms.
Can’t wait!
Chasity says
I am so stinking excited for you guys! Seriously, the only thing that could have me more excited right now is if Sherry were pregnant. This is totally the next best thing! I’ve only been following your blog for about 5 months so it will be so fun for me to get to see EVERYTHING that you do to this house! Thanks for sharing these things with us.
Vanessa says
I didn’t comment yesterday but felt like I had to today. I just hope you do not let the 3 or 4 negative people get to you. I read your blog everyday and do not at all feel “strung along” or anything ridiculous like that with the new house reveal. I think people forget that yes this is your business and you have a process. You have every right to tell us what you want and when you want. I think people forget that this is your life and home and you do not need to let us know EVERYTHING. You do not need to justify your decisions to us. I am ok with you doing these touch up posts on your current house. We still received the information and enjoyed the content- no matter why you did them. I think those people who are so upset need to put their personal business out there and let us get upset with them when we do not agree with every single move they make. I am sure they would not like it. I just do not understand negative and I hate being negative myself. I just wanted you to know we all do not feel like those few who felt the need to be snarky yesterday. Good Luck and cannot wait to see the progress on your new house.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Vanessa!
xo
s
Karen M. says
Congratulations to you on the purchase of your new home!
Can’t wait to see the changes you make.
YHL….RULES!
Jasmin says
I just started reading Young House Love last week and I can’t seem to get enough of it!It is my new “go to” blog. Being newly married, trying for a baby, and having just bought a fixer-upper, it is very hard to find a diy blog that meshes all of those things together. You are young enough so that I feel like I can relate, and you decorate on a realistic budget while still making your house(s) look amazing. I just want you to know that you give me hope for my new house and that you are a pleasure to read. You now have a loyal fan.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Jasmin! You’re so sweet. And all the best with everything! Sounds like such an exciting time :)
xo
s
anne says
hey guys,
My little guy just poured a whole bottle of maple syrup on the table while I read this post! ha! I’m gonna throw some pancakes on there and have some breakfast. Don’t want to waste it.
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! Oh no! It does sound pretty yummy though. Freestyle plate-less breakfast…
xo
s
Thais Bessa says
Can’t wait to see more pictures from the inside!
We are also moving right now (in our case because to be near better schools) and I was making a list about the things we love more in the current house and would be “losing” in the new house (like the kitchen will be smaller) and things that will be an improvement in the new house (ex: much bigger garden). I don’t even have a blog, I just like making lists and that particular one was helpful to digest the whole process of saying good-bye to a house that has been very important.
Do you guys think about a post like that, comparing what you will gain and what you will “lose” by moving houses?
YoungHouseLove says
I love that idea! We wrote a post about all the things we loved and never wanted to forget about our first house, just to trap them all on the blog so we’d never forget them! So I think we’d love to write that again (all about the things we’ll miss the most, and don’t want to forget) and I think what we have to gain from the new house is so exciting too, so I’d love to touch on that beyond listing the things we’ve already mentioned like a quieter street, getting into our dream neighborhood, the excitement of having two floors, etc).
xo
s
Deanna says
I’m anxious to see the new “Stella” napkin inspiration for this new house!
Nikki says
Hey Guys, since we are old friends now (you used my flange on a lighting project, ha) I wanted to congratulate you on your new home, so exciting! So laundry room on the second floor…good deal, huge potential for flooding from burst washing machine hoses, read up on it, wet, drippy scary stuff. We have a new-ish product that can help you out with that. Email me if you would like to hear more, maybe we can set up a deal for your readers! Congrats again!
Nikki
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Nikki! We’ll be sure to read up on that! Don’t want any leaks to rain on our parade :)
xo
s
Andrea A says
WOWZA! I am so impressed that you have kept the new house purchase quite for so long! You got ‘skilz’ there! :-)
Also, while I understand some of your readers feel duped/tricked/lied to, I don’t. Just because you have made the decision to share a part of your lives with us all it doesn’t mean that you have to share EVERYTHING. The fact that you do share so much — sometimes super personal such as Clara’s birth story and your breastfeeding journey — it makes us feel as if though we really know you. I hope that those readers that are not happy for you can understand that you made a decision based on what is best for you and your family.
You rock and I can’t wait to see where the new house adventure takes us!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Andrea :)
xo
s
Rana says
Congratulations guys! That is a fantastic news and looking forward to our (yes, our) new adventure ahead! As a daily reader (sometimes even on the holidays via mobile) for the past four and a half years, I do consider you as my friends (even though you don’t know m), and my first reaction was “WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?!!!”, and then I just wanted to call my husband to ANNOUNCE THE NEWS!! He knows you are my friends so go excited too – Weird, huh? ?
I am so impressed you managed to stay focused and accomplish so many projects during this period! I myself couldn’t keep focused on our flat when I’ve found out I was pregnant and knew we were planning to start looking for a house in a year or so!
I was still envisaging plenty of garden, roof, patio pergola, spring clean, organisation, double fireplace, floors, most importantly, Clara’s 3rd birthday party posts, and so on to keep you busy the whole summer :) So this was a total surprise! ?
And please please please ignore all the negative comments – you are true inspiration and every afternoon I am/will be looking forward to your new posts – here in London it is usually after 2.30pm!
Here is to our new adventures together! xx
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Rana!
xo
s
Robin says
This isn’t so much house-related, but dog-related. I’ve not noticed a fence in any of your yards this far, do you take Burger out on a leash every time, or does he generally just stay nearby? We bought a new house last year and the first thing we did was put up a fence for our dog, so I’m just curious!
YoungHouseLove says
We actually have a fenced area where our side patio is at our current house (some of it was there, and some of it we added when we built the patio) so that has been really helpful. The new place doesn’t have any fenced areas, so we’re not sure how we’ll deal with that, although it’s definitely something to start thinking about. Ahh! So many things new house things swirling around in my brain! Haha!
xo
s
A says
I am SO glad you are making a no laptops upstairs rule. I know I don’t really “know” you guys, but it worries me how much you work and I think it’s because I’m the same exact way! We live in a ranch and it is incredibly difficult to put work away at night and just relax. We are hoping our next house has a bit more separation between living/sleeping spaces to help with that.
Also, I started noticing a few weeks ago that you were doing similar projects to what we are doing as we get our house ready to list. This is the first time we’ve sol so I’m glad to see we were going in the right project direction :)
I’m so ready for your post on how to stage with a toddler!
Jessica T says
Congrats guys! So excited to get some new ideas to incorporate into our home.
I’m dying to see what you guys end up doing with those stairs! There are so many cute ideas in design magazines lately and I’m sure you’ll add your own creative twist for us to drool over!
All the best!
Evelina says
ok secret: I was superduper sad when I saw that you guys had closed on another house (6 months ago!!! Cray.) But after this Q&A post, I am sooooo excited for the new house. Cantwaitcantwaitcantwait for new house posts! *jumpclapjumpclapclap*
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Evelina!
xo
s
Lilly says
So excited for you and the new place! Thanks for linking back to where you sold your first house. Definitely want to look into FSBO when the time comes now. One question on “making a profit” on the sale of your homes. You mention that cost of projects factor in to your final profit on the house. Is that more information for people who are working on their homes for fun or in addition to their other jobs? I’m assuming that all of your prjects costs are tax deductible as a business expense since doing them is what helps you write which is your profession. I get a little thrill from tax credits/deductions, so forgive me if I am being a super creep asking you about how you manage your business/finances, but it might be an interesting topic for people who have a passion for working on their houses that also love sharing their projects on an LLC blog. Thanks for always being honest writers while also being an example that you can have really compelling two way conversations with readers while still maintaining needed family privacy!
YoungHouseLove says
Nope, nothing is tax deductible since we own the house as personal property (if we claimed it as a business expense) we’d owe a HUGE chunk of money to the government when we sold. So we just save up for projects like anyone else and then get ’em done when we can :)
xo
s
Leila says
EEEEEEE I’m so excited to be with you guys “from the beginning” on a new house, since I only found your blog a couple of months ago! Looking forward to it!!!!
Anna in Ohio says
How do you guys feel about the possibility that the new owners could move in and completely gut everything you’ve done? It would be so hard for me to get so emotionally involved in my house renovations, and then think about somebody coming in and just ripping out my brand new, DIY-ed fireplace (for example). Does it bother you?
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man I’d cry if the pergola went! Haha! But actually maybe because we’ve seen listing photos of our first house (it was recently on the market) and they left almost everything the same (the kitchen & bathroom were just as we remembered them!), it made us feel good that hopefully whoever buys this house will be buying it because they like how it looks now… but of course you never know! And heck, it’s their house. I would hate for the previous owner to tell me how to decorate, so they should make it their own. Just don’t touch my pergola! Haha!
xo
s
Erin says
Just wanted to say congrats on your new house! I grew up in Richmond so I’ve enjoyed following your blog. Your new house really reminds me of the house I grew up in (Countryside neighborhood off River Rd). Can’t wait to see what you guys do next!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much Erin!
xo
s
Rachel says
Thanks for giving more information! I am so excited to see the complete “before” new home tour.
Cindy_FearlessDIY says
Wow! It’s been a couple of days since I got to visit (sick little one – flu bug – yuck) and the first post I read was the power-washer-post (loved it, BTW). I was totally confused by the references to ‘the new house’ so I knew I was missing something big. Haha! So awesome that you guys are both now considered full-time-self-employed-peeps by the banks! That is a pretty awesome designation!
Thank you so much for sharing the details of this process with us! I’m about to launch my own DIY blog (it’s been in the works for quite awhile now, even before I found YHL).
I’ve been paying attention to how you guys balance privacy with sharing. I’ll be honest, this is the part of the whole process that scares me the most. So much so that I have held off on even posting anything. I see blogs that let it ALL hang out (that doesn’t feel right to me) and I see blogs that are so shuttered they don’t quite seem natural (which also doesn’t feel right, either).
Anyway, all that babbling was meant to say this: thanks for sharing so much with us! You still manage to make your readers feel like we’re part of the family while still protecting your privacy. Great job!
Alrighty, then. How was that for a completely off-topic ramble? ;-)
Good luck selling your current house! Can’t wait to see the interior of your new house!
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Cindy! It’s definitely a tricky road to navigate sometimes, so we just try to “go with our gut” still while using our brains when we can manage it. Haha!
xo
s
tom says
Do you guys keep track of how much you spend on improvement projects overall?
I know you provide project cost overviews at the end of some posts, but I’m wondering if you could share all of the stuff you’ve done to your current house.
The reasoning is that clearly you have done a lot. Some projects were expensive, some were not. It would just be interesting to see that, for you guys, in order to go from the before to the after, here is what we had to spend.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes! We wrote a post just like that (what we put into the first house vs what extra we got back at sale) so we’d love to do that for this house too :)
xo
s
underwood-dc says
I am so happy for you guys! I will miss the ranch house though. :-) I was just reflecting on how many items in my house were based on inspiration from your house. They all worked because my house is a little ranch that I sometimes referred to as your first house’s twin. I painted my front door red, painted my living room a creamy tan and got a pottery barn rug that I think was based on one of your mood boards, got the CB2 pendant light that you had, got the slipper chair from Target… Geez I almost sound like a stalker. Ha ha! But all those things worked because I love your decor style and your first house looked so much like mine so if it worked in your house it would work in mine. That’s how I found your blog way back then — looking for ideas for a 1950s ranch. Anyway, enough of my little diatribe. Best of luck in your new house. I can’t wait to see what you do!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much! That’s so sweet! Your house sounds so pretty and I can totally picture which PB rug you got, at least in head I’m imagining it’s that awesome blue and white clover-looking one. Haha!
xo,
s
Erin says
So excited about the new house!! We are in the process of trying to purchase a Short Sale. It’s my 2nd home purchase, but the first for our now little family of 3. Our current home is a 1927 bungalow. Since reading your blog back during the days of your first house, I seriously considered purchasing a ranch this time around, especially one with good “bones” that needed some work. However, we just fell in love with another slightly newer and larger bungalow in the perfect neighborhood. We’re a sucker for sidewalks, and it’s on a dead-end street (Perfect for those first bike rides). If it works out with this short sale, we’ll have to do some cosmetic stuff, but nothing major for a while. I think too many people update for what’s in style that year, but consider the age of the house. That’s why I love how you kept the tile in the guest bath. It may of been because you’re moving, but I think it looks great!
Melissa says
Congrats on the new house! Since you mentioned about knowing you’d need a new house to re-do since its your business, do you think you’ll have to keep moving and moving to retain the “job” or do you think you’ll venture out into more a design business and work with client and their homes vs. moving every two years?
YoungHouseLove says
Great question! We were actually in our first house for 4.5 years and will be here at least 2.5 years, so it’s thankfully not an every two years thing. But the cool thing is that our first house needed a lot of work for how small it was (fully gutted bath & kitchen) and then this house was more like a blank slate to build upon (not too many gut jobs at all, for example all three bathrooms just got small updates and we kept the original kitchen cabinets). So it went a lot faster than we expected! The new house… woof! It has a crazy amount of hardcore gutting that needs to be done (for example, both full bathrooms are full of cracked and stained tile) so we’ve realized that the most “advanced” level of a needs-love house is the new house. Haha! I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the last house that we do and blog about, just because it could take us a really long time! We have big plans for her :)
xo
s
jbhat says
What an awesome FAQ wrap-up. Here’s another question. If the first house was Skipper, and your current house is Barbie….who could this one be? Somehow Ken or GI Joe don’t seem quite right… : )
Love love love this news…and am thrilled that you will be in your dream neighborhood with lots of new projects to work on.
xo
jbhat
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! Three different people called it The Home Alone house, which was so hilarious that it just might stick…
xo
s
Carmen says
I’m sad for your current house but I’m very exited to see how the new one becomes the new Petersik’s home!!
Congratulations!!! I wish you the best!!!
Amanda says
And now I totally have the itch to track down the perfect house of my dreams and move into it pronto. Thanks, guys!
Just kidding (kind of), but in all seriousness I’m so excited for you and I’m obsessed with the potential your new house seems to have!
Andrea says
Just wanted to be another reader to chime in and say that I think your decision making process in all of this was very wise (not that it matters what I think! Haha). I am strangely rather attached to your current house, but SO SO excited for the new one! Especially to see how your style evolves again — how you’ll keep your “fun-ness” in the midst of perhaps some more traditional choices. I feel like my style kind of evolved similarly to yours so I’m curious as to what you’ll do next! Any hints?! :-)
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Andrea! We honestly still have “our current house” hats on for the most part, but we’re just starting to let new house stuff swirl around in our brains too and it’s so EXCITING! I have no clue where we’ll end up when it comes to our style evolution though! Should be fun to see…
xo
s
Gabbi @ Retro Ranch Reno says
I’m am just so friggin’ excited for you guys!! You have so much awesomeness coming your way!
And the minute I heard you had a critter, I thought of an episode of “Call of the Wildman”. I’m not sure if you ever saw that show, but oh.my.gosh….the turtle man catches all kinds of things. You guys should have hired him to vacate your vermin. ;)
Megan Poletti says
I admire your secret-keeping skills. Also, I am like….. STUPIDLY excited to see all the new DIYs you’re gonna be posting. I didn’t start reading this blog until you were already in your second house, so it’ll be so fun to see this all from the beginning!
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks Megan!
xo
s
JenB says
I know this is a CRAZY time to ask this, but would you ever consider buying a home built in the early 1900s? A truly historic home? Anything before the 50s-60s kind of scares the heck out of me. Like you, I love my 50s rancher. But I love to look at houses in the historic district of my town and love to see how folks remodel them. I think I’d be too scared to do it myself.
Your new house is going to be fun to watch!! I’m so excited. Move in, already!! Hehe–
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man, we’ve always been in love with super old homes, and would have loved to own one! Sadly, in our area they’re very hard to come by in the areas that have schools that we’d love Clara to attend (although ones above our budget might exist and perhaps we just didn’t see them since it wasn’t within our search parameters). I think if you have a thorough inspection it would hopefully turn up anything that’s really scary. And maybe pay an expert to examine the knob and tube stuff, before the sale if possible (I hear that stuff’s really frustrating sometimes). Anyone else have advice for JenB about a historic home?
xo
s
Kara says
Just hit me like a ton of bricks — THAT’S why they painted the playroom tan.
Kara says
Not that I thought it was wrong! It just surprised me since usually you go for whimsy with kid stuff.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh no worries Kara! We actually love rooms full of bright accessories/bedding/curtains/art with soft walls (our living room, dining room, and office follow that same method) so once we picked out that bright blanket for the daybed, we knew a bold colored wall might be too much for us. Haha! And then we went and painted the kitchen bright blue, which definitely wasn’t neutral, but we couldn’t help ourselves… it was just what we loved best :)
xo,
s
Jane says
Hi Guys,
I am new to following your blog and LOVE everything that you do! To catch up I have been going back through all your old posts and seeing all the changes. I love how creative you both are, and the ideas you come up with! And since I am just reading about all the wonderful things you have done to your current house, I am a little sad to see that you are moving. (The penny tile, stenciled office and fireplace are at the top of my list of favs) But at the same time, I feel your excitement about the new house. I am looking forward to all the projects you are going to tackle and can’t wait to see all the fun things you will come up with.
Good luck and can’t wait for the adventure to begin! I will be glued to my computer waiting for all the details.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw, thanks so much Jane :)
xo
s
Maggie Budiono says
Hi J & S (and C n B),
First of all : CONGRATS !!!! I can’t wait to read all about your moving post, and decorating the new house all-out (and the experience of going up and down the stairs, which I hate now [used to live in a 2 storey house]).
I was surprised to read a few negative comments from your readers! Never thought that readers can be so emotionally involved like that.
After all this blog is all about you and nothing else.
And I like it as much as when i found your blog for the first time.
You are still my most favorite blog writers! Love U guys
*greetings from Indonesia*
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much Maggie! Love you right back!
xo
s
Casey says
So exciting!!!!
I now am suddenly finding myself perusing the Craigslist real estate section…. Uh oh, real estate jealousy!!!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, uh oh! That can be dangerous!
xo
s
Rebecca says
I think this is great. The journey of home buying is different for everyone, journey on!
Heidi G says
Congrats on the new house! I’m interested to see how Clara adjusts to living in a two-story house. Our first house was a ranch, and my oldest was almost 3 when we bought our current two-story house. When we first moved in, he would get out of bed each night and fall asleep at the top of the stairs. He was used to hearing us in the ranch (his bedroom was near the great room), and he had a hard time falling asleep without being able to hear us. It took us a few months to get him to stay in his room!
YoungHouseLove says
Interesting! So far she’s almost treats them as a playground. We’ve gone up and down them many times just for the adventure of it.
-John
Laura says
1. I can’t believe someone actually put a house on the market with all that wallpaper and blue trim!
2. Super excited to see what you guys do with it all. You must save some wallpaper if you can! Add it to some frames as little reminders.
A huge expense in dealing with older homes in our area is the fact that they are not insulated as well as newer homes now. We run the AC 9-10 months out of the year. And with temps in the high 100s during the summer, good foam spray insulation in the roofs and all outer walls is essential in keeping the electric bills reasonable. Even things like yard size and type of landscaping are a huge deal to us here.
I see you focus on a lot of the cosmetic issues of the house, but do you ever factor in the other types of issues like windows, roof barriers, and insulation that can impact your bills? Or maybe VA is comfortable enough year round you don’t really see the impact?
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, we always factor things in like windows and roofing and insulation and furnaces and all of those other money-sucks! It really depends on the asking price (if they sell it so low those things aren’t in the price we don’t mind getting them after since we get to make choices (like roof color and window type) which is sometimes nicer than someone making them for you. But if the price is too high for those things not to already have been done, we just keep on walking :)
xo
s
Kelsey says
Hooray, hooray, HOORAY! So excited for you guys and, selfishly, for all of us who’ll get to see the projects unfold. The new place is absolutely GORGEOUS!
Kendra says
This may have been asked, but I haven’t read through all of the comments. Do the previous owners of your NEW new house know that they sold to the Petersik’s of YHL? Is that somethinig that you disclose in your offer when you purchase a new house? I would be so excited for someone like you to purchase our house because we could always look back in to see how our previous house was evolving. It would ‘keep the love alive’! Just wondering…
YoungHouseLove says
That’s a good question – wish I knew the answer! Since we both worked through agents, we never had contact with the previous owners and it’s not really something you can easily work into a contract. :) Our understanding is that the owners has “aged out” of the house and their children were handling the sale, so I think they were just eager to get it sold.
-John
Sydnie says
You bought it in the fall? Wow, you all are great secret-keepers! Good luck with selling your current place, I’m sure it will be quick and easy since its such a great-looking house.
I can’t wait to see how you guys tackle all that amazing wallpaper. That will be a post for the ages…
Patti says
I seriously cannot wait until you get into it with this new house. Even from the little thumbnails you can see the potential (and the work!) On another note I just have to tell you, I think you guys are so first class the way you disarm the critics with your kindness. I think I need to follow this lesson. Rock on YHLovers!