Well, I have super exciting news today- we’re moving! My family has bought a house in Florida and we close on it January 15th! After a year of saving for a down payment and years of dreaming of this day, I am so excited and grateful! I’m sure you’ll have lots of questions, so let’s dive in!

we’re moving!

First up, I have a video tour of the house and I’m sharing all the details! This is going to be the beginning of a new You Tube series called “Ashley Goes to Florida!” I’ll be doing longer, more in depth videos. The ones with full room renovations will be super fun! I’m really excited!

Next, I’m going to type up a few of what will probably be some FAQ’s. I thought while I went into details, I’d share pictures of the house too!

why are you moving?

Three years ago we vacationed in Florida and fell in love with the climate in the winter. In January of 2018, we moved there and rented a house for 6 months and enjoyed it immensely. Since then, we’ve dreamed of going back. We’ve found a house in the same neighbor that we lived in a few years ago!

what are you bringing with you?

Since we’re renting our Logan house out as an Air BNB, we’ll be leaving our furniture behind. Renting a U haul is SO expensive (at least $3000) so we figure that we’ll bring what’ll fit in the bed of our truck and furnish the Florida house from scratch. It’ll be fun to have a blank slate to start with!

how can you afford two houses?

I love talking about finances, because this is the type of thing I wonder too! First off, our Logan home is incredibly affordable. Second, we choose the least expensive house in our dream neighborhood in Florida. Real estate in Florida is super reasonable. With two houses, our mortgages are the same price as most people’s one mortgage.

We’ll be renting out one home when it isn’t occupied and hoping to cover the costs with that house. So while it is a stretch, it isn’t totally crazy. Also, the down payment for a second house can be 5-10% for most mortgage companies. Which is A LOT less than 20%!

This has been our dream to do for years and I feel so grateful for it. At the beginning of 2019, I made the goal that this would be the year we bought a Florida house. All year we’ve been saving up for a down payment and finally had enough at the beginning of December when we put an offer on this house.

how will you decorate the Florida House?

It’ll be similar to my house right now, but more coastal themed. Think palm leaves, flamingoes, and pineapples. Lots of pink and mint colors. I feel like in Florida you can go more crazy with the colors! I might even be able to paint the outside of the house pink too! Fingers crossed that I can convince my husband ;).

In a few days I’ll share the mood boards I’ve been making of the design of the house. I’ve been trying to figure out the design for key areas of the house so we can be somewhat comfortable while we set-up house. Stay tuned because I’m really happy with the direction those are heading in! 

how big is your new house?

Well, it’s tiny! Super tiny- 880 square feet. Our current Logan house is 1800 square feet (which many consider small) and it is half that! There’s two bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a living room, kitchen, and the laundry room is in the garage. It’ll be a transition having so much less space. But we have what we need so that’s all that matters!

what are you doing about schooling for your son?

My son Don is 4 and currently in preschool. We’ll transfer him to a new school in Florida. Next year, for Kindergarten, I think it’s much more important that he’s in one school for the full year. That has been a major consideration for me. We’re planning on spending the whole next school year in Florida.

are you bringing your dogs?

Yep! Derek and Lucy (my King Charles Cavalier Spaniels) will come with us! They are our family so they’ll definitely be making the move. They do pretty good with travel, even if they make it more difficult. We made sure to get a house with a back yard and a fence so they’ll have a place to play. I think they’ll love to have more outdoor time!

so you’re driving to Florida?

Yep! We start driving next Monday, January 6th. We like to drive for a maximum of 8 hours a day so we can take lots of breaks with our son and dogs. My husband has scheduled fun stuff for us to do on the way- my son is currently really into dinosaurs so we’ll be stopping at lots of Dino museums.

I’ll also be stopping by a lighting conference in Dallas where my favorite light company Kichler will have a showroom. I’m excited to see their new lights and maybe pick out a few for the new house! 

is there anything you’re nervous for?

Well, since we’ve done this move before (in 2018 when we rented in Florida), we know how much work it’ll be to set up a house. So I’m nervous about that. 

One of my favorite quotes is “comfort is the enemy of growth.” I’m going to be super uncomfortable (and have been) figuring this out and trying to get it to work. I guess there’ll be a lot of growth in my future! We’ve been packing stuff up and trying to buy a house from long distance and it’s been hard. But we think it’ll be worth it.

why did you wait so long to announce this?

I really did wait forever! Sorry. The reason is that our inspector took a few weeks to get us our report on the house. We just got the final inspection on Monday! Since we haven’t seen it, that report coming through really gave us the information needed to make a wise decision on this house.

We close on January 15 so things could still fall through. I sure hope they won’t because we’ll be in Florida with all of our stuff. Fingers crossed for a smooth closing!

thank you!

Let me end this blog post by saying thank you! Thanks for checking in here and cheering me on. I hope this move will be exciting for you too- having a whole fresh house to decorate will be so fun to show! Your support means the world and I really hope that this’ll be exciting to follow along with too.

If I missed anything just let me know in the comments and I’m happy to to answer them!If you love it, pin it!