… in Michigan!

Where to begin?

It’s a very bittersweet decision for us to leave New York City this year and move back to Michigan. We moved to New York end of January 2020 and enjoyed a few short weeks until the world shut down due to COVID. Since then, while it wasn’t “typical” New York for a long time, we’ve enjoyed countless amazing meals, made some great friends, and created incredible memories that we’ll always look back on (plus, it was actually a silver lining to have almost a year of no tourists or crazy wait lists)! I can honestly say I have no regrets about moving – even when we did – and have absolutely loved our time here in New York.

After the mass exodus from the city (once people realized working from home was not a 2-week thing), we were able to lock in an amazing new apartment much closer to restaurants, bars, and walkable sights. However, once “COVID pricing” disappeared for good, we were left with a big decision to make: renew our apartment (for a much, much higher rent) or leave New York. Knowing Michigan was ultimately where we would end up given all of our family is there, coupled with the increasingly crazy housing market, it made sense that now is the right time!

The process

In many ways we were pretty lucky throughout the entire home-buying process. From having an amazing family friend realtor, to a fast home search (where we were fortunate to have our first offer accepted), even to the sellers – we definitely feel grateful for everything having gone smoothly!

Because we live out of state, about 98% of our search was purely online. We looked for months – first, just to get ideas and better understand the market, and then started seriously looking at this beginning of the year. Luckily, many homes had 3D tours which actually provided a pretty realistic representation of what the house was like without touring in person.

In fact, I had only stepped foot into 2 houses during our entire search, and the first house was the one we ended up putting an offer on! (Speaking from personal experience, if you’re pretty confident with what you want, don’t be afraid to follow your gut even if the process looks different than expected!)

When are we moving?

One of the biggest advantages to our offer was including 60-day occupancy (after closing). The sellers needed time to move, and we knew we weren’t moving until later in the summer anyway. We also knew we weren’t quite ready to leave the city yet, so we renewed our lease through early August! It seems so far yet also just around the corner. In the meantime, Kevin and I have started a bucket list of everything we’d like to do/visit/eat before moving from New York. . . it’s been making our last few months really fun but also sad knowing in the back of our minds we’re leaving soon!

What’s next?

While we won’t be moving in for a few months, I’ve already begun dreaming up projects and mood boards for the main rooms in the house! Stay tuned for more details on what we have planned first (including tips on budgeting, design, and how to act as your own project manager)!! . . . Needless to say, being able to design my own house has been a long-time dream of mine and I can’t wait to finally move in there and make it our home!

I hope you’ll join us on what is sure to be a long, exciting, frustrating, and rewarding journey of DIYs, hosting gatherings, and making memories!