I can’t believe I’m writing this! As of today, we have a new place to call home! It still doesn’t feel real. We’ve been excited for the past few weeks now for this next chapter in our lives and I can’t believe that we have the keys and we’re packing up our things! It feels like Christmas morning and my birthday and our wedding day all combined!
For those of you that have followed our story for the past year, you know that we moved in with family in the spring of 2017 to jumpstart our house savings. We didn’t know when we would buy a home, but we hoped to begin house shopping in the Fall of 2018. Well, here we are in October 2018… and after browsing the listings and assessing how much a mortgage plus interest would be for a home that would still have a long commute for Justin… we made a decision. This weekend we will be moving into an APARTMENT! Yep. You read that right! We’re going back to apartment living near Justin’s work and we could not be more thrilled!!!
Honestly I feel like we are going on vacation! Or a second honeymoon!! We are both on cloud nine and I could cry from happiness!! I’ve been having dreams about the apartment almost every night… dreams about us moving in, decorating, having friends over, sitting on the couch watching a movie, having game night, just the simplest things…! It’s all bringing me so much joy thinking about it and picking out our furniture was a little challenging but so worth all the effort! This was our FIRST time buying furniture!!! We’ve been married for 2.5 years and we hadn’t yet gone furniture shopping as a couple! I honestly can’t tell you how much fulfillment this brings me after waiting what has seemed like our entire lives to have this season together!
Here is a list of the things we are most excited about in this next chapter!!!
- Justin is going to have a 7 MINUTE commute!! He has been commuting close to 3 hours roundtrip every day (the traffic has gotten significantly worse since we moved to this area) so needless to say we are both THRILLED about him being home an extra FIFTEEN HOURS a week!! It honestly feels like such a luxury!!! More time together, to relax, to nap, to work out or explore the area, go on dates, etc.! I am thrilled!!!
- We will be living in a highly walkable area!! It’s like a mini city! We’ll be living above all kinds of shops and restaurants and we will be about a 10 minute walk from Mosaic District, which has so many good places to eat and shop and have coffee and work!
- Speaking of coffee… there are virtually no coffee shops where we have been living (seriously) and I’ll be surrounded by so many at our new home!! I don’t even know where to begin with picking where to work first!
- We are literally across the street from a metro station that has a 20 minute ride into the heart of DC. Twenty minutes! It typically takes an hour by car to get into the city so I haven’t gone as often as I’d like, but now… I am imagining going all the time! Someone hold me to this!! I already have a list of 100 places I want to work, eat, have a cup of coffee or just explore and walk around in the city… I can’t wait to check them all off!!
- Our apartment is on the top floor! We have an amazing view, stunning natural light, AND there’s an elevator!! And a concierge desk! (What?!?) After living in an older garden style apartment building on the top floor and walking up 5 stories to our front door the elevator honestly feels a little too good to be true! Lol! This whole thing does!!
- Our community is SUPER dog-friendly. There’s a dog park downstairs and I’ve already spotted a few pups from my browsing on Instagram (yes, they have their own Instagram accounts) and I even walked up to one I recognized while we were touring the building and totally fan-girled over meeting Captain Jack. Seriously so many dogs and we are HUGE dog people so we love it!!!
- There are quiet hours late at night and early in the morning… which might sound annoying to some but to me, it’s the mark of a really nice apartment complex. Our old apartment had parties across the hall which we could never really hear BUT the sights, sounds, and smells from the hallway were… interesting to say the least. This new building is operated by the #1 property management company in the country and we’re already having SUCH an amazing experience (complete with gifts in every room when we walked into our unit for the first time after signing)! I can’t wait to be living there and to officially be a part of the community!
- Our apartment has hardwood floors! It has a very pretty, warm, and inviting feel!
- It also has a Nest (!!!) and built-in Bluetooth speakers in the walls! So that’s casual!
- We have a deep sink with a chef’s faucet in the kitchen!! And SO much cabinet space!!! After sharing cabinets for the past year and a half, I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when I have more than just a few shelves to use!
- We get to unpack and see all of our gorgeous dinnerware, silverware, and stemware again… honestly expecting that to be an emotional experience when we unbox our Crate & Barrel wine glasses after not seeing them for 18 months. CUE THE TEARS.
- Above everything, we are just so excited to have our own space again!
We are so thankful for this past year and a half of living with family! It gave us a head start on our house savings like we never would have had without my dad’s very generous gesture to house us for this time at a much lower rent than an apartment would have been. It was a sacrifice in some ways but also such a beautiful gift. We will always look back on this time with smiles on our faces and warmth in our hearts. It was so sweet getting this extra time with my dad, Mia, and Bob Michelle and I already know I am going to miss them so much… but the promise of our future together outweighs any sadness we feel saying goodbye to sharing a living space. It is bittersweet to be moving, but the Lord made it clear these past few weeks that the time had come. It’s been amazing seeing his hand lead us and provide for us in all the right ways to point us to this new place!
I could share more about how emotional September was for me… I think I should share a little bit of that. Obviously, we missed having our own space since moving out of our apartment last year. The time went by so fast, but I was constantly thinking about whether we could find a house and feel comfortable putting all of the money we had saved up into that one property. If you’ll believe it… the market has not been doing us any favors. To make an extremely long, well-researched story short… the housing market is experiencing a shortage nationwide, and demand has been much higher than supply, making the prices higher than they “should” be, all in a very congested area outside of a major metropolitan city, meaning traffic is bad and “super commutes” are the norm. There’s nothing wrong with having a long commute, but after we would plug the numbers for homes we loved yet were still 1+ hour away from Justin’s work… it just didn’t feel like it made sense for this season. While it’s just the two of us we want to enjoy our time together. We’ve (obviously) had less time alone living with family, which has been completely okay for us and I honestly think has strengthened our marriage and respect for each other… but I know (and hope) this season of just the two of us will eventually come to an end when and if the Lord blesses us with children. I would hate to have not gotten as much time together as possible before that day comes… hence why September was so emotional for me.
I felt like time was slipping through my fingers like grains of sand I couldn’t catch. I thought of the 7 years I waited to marry and live with Justin, and then of the 10 months I had with him in our first apartment where I honestly felt like I was living a fairytale. I would look at the calendar and beg for time to stop because I knew we would be moving in with family after the lease came to an end. I love knowing that we are getting that time back… that time I wanted to hold so tightly to my chest and not let go of. Movie nights on the couch, having our friends and family over, going out for dates at Tysons Corner on a whim, taking the metro into the city, and just being alone. Just being with each other. You can’t put a price tag on that… and the stirring in our hearts was that it was time to invest in that again.
So, here we are. Beaming with excitement and jumping for joy heading into this next season. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve looked at each other and said, “I just can’t wait!” Now we get to ENJOY each other’s company and reap the rewards of all the hard work we’ve been doing this past year and a half. I still can’t believe we got to buy FURNITURE!!! I’m not used to this at all!! It feels like a dream! I can’t wait to see everything in our new place with the rugs, table, chairs, couch, etc. and then decorate my heart out!
If there’s one thing our story shows so powerfully… it’s that patience TRULY makes the heart grow fonder… and so much more grateful. We have an amazing marriage and I know that is not always the case for newlyweds or people who get married as young as we did. But we’ve waited for this… we treasure each other so deeply… we are each other’s greatest gift. I am so thankful that the Lord answered our prayers to lead us where he would have us go. He’s brought us to a place of thankfulness, humility, discipline, self-control, responsibility, and selflessness. I am praying that these virtues stay with us no matter what our circumstances. This season taught us some powerful life lessons that I will never take for granted.
Here’s to the next year – our next chapter in the book of our story. To God be the glory!
