We Went, We Saw, We Signed a Lease
Shawn and I took our “home finding trip” to New Jersey this week in search of our next (and temporary) home sweet home. With the house on the market here in Hudson, it wouldn’t be wise for us to jump right into another mortgage out east. So we’ve decided to rent an apartment as a temporary holding place for us while we wait for an offer, have the baby and learn our way around the area.
We started with 7 different showing appointments lined up for us in the Florham Park area of New Jersey. Shawn’s office will be located there and after seven years of commuting, we want his drive to be as short as possible. We checked out places in Chatham, Montclair, Union, Livingston and Morristown and by the end of our visits were torn between two options. Option 1 was gorgeous–it looked more like a W Hotel than an apartment complex. The lobby was stunning and the units themselves were brand new. The kitchens offered black granite counter tops and stainless steal appliances with a large in-unit washer and dryer and huge windows letting in loads of light.
Our second option wasn’t quite so glamorous but also offered large windows, and had very easy access to the unit. While Option A was located in an apartment complex (so the apartment itself was harder to get to), Option B had parking and a garage just outside the end unit with direct door access. It offers windows in every room of the unit (even the bathrooms!) and there’s a dog run just behind the building for Ben. The kitchen certainly wasn’t as nice however this space offered a den just for my office.
So what was the tipping point? I read online reviews. I learned Option A was in a very unsafe area (which you could definitely tell just by driving by); one reviewer said gunshots were heard outside and bullet casings were found. We also read cars piggy-back into the parking garage behind drivers and they have regular issues with cars being broken into. Not good. We called the property manager to discuss our concerns and they couldn’t really tell us anything otherwise. Option B was safe and clean and I’d feel perfectly fine walking outside at night by myself to let out Ben. I think safety is more important now than ever with the baby coming. So we chose Option B located in Chatham, just 6 miles from Shawn’s office.
Here’s a look at our next living space:
Sorry for the poor quality of the photos (these were taken with my iPhone). What you’re seeing is a two-bedroom apartment with a main bathroom and then a private bath off the largest bedroom. The guest bedroom has a walk-in closet and the larger bedroom has two side-by-side closets. As mentioned before, there’s a den situated next to the living room along with a separate dining room and walk-out balcony. There’s lots of closet space and you walk up a small flight of stairs to get into the unit once you walk in the front door. This place offers us everything we need for a temporary living situation (we’ve signed a six-month lease and are able to go month-to-month after that).
So that’s our new place! It’s nice to have this part of the move taken care of and now we actually have a New Jersey address which is huge in terms of getting our mail forwarded, my business situated, etc. We also can move in when we’re ready right at the end of next month so it’s available as soon as we are. I think it’s exactly what we need.
Work Sample: Valentine’s Day Self-Promotion to Clients
I don’t usually talk much about my work on my blog because I don’t really feel it’s right to promote my design business when this site is dedicated to topics like home renovating, travel, etc. I do have a project to share, though, that I think can be appreciated by anyone out there who’s into graphic or website design or even just Valentine’s Day.
For the first time ever I created custom Valentine’s Day cards for my clients. The idea is that the cards are graphic or web design related so as to promote what I do. I wrote the sayings myself and designed them with letterpress printing in mind. Each client will receive a package with three cards in it for their own use.
When sending out self-promotional pieces to clients, I try to stay away from Christmas, New Year’s and Thanksgiving. Why? This is the time of year when lots of clients focus on year-end initiatives and closing their books plus I just don’t want my promo to get lost in the holiday shuffle. In past years I’ve done a couple of Earth Day promos to emphasize the eco-friendly side of my business but with my move coming up to New Jersey, I thought I’d get on the band-wagon now than just put it off later and then likely miss it. So in keeping with being green my thought is that the clients can reuse the cards and share the love.
Here’s a sneak peek at my promo with some photos my printer (Angel Bomb in Minneapolis) sent me yesterday. I guess he posted them on his Instagram account and they were well received; someone even wanted to buy them! Now there’s an idea…
If you don’t mind my sharing, I’ll show off after photos of the cards fully finished, packaged and labeled for sending off to my lovely clients. Should be within the next couple of weeks!
Back in August I decided to do a Life Cleanse. I chose a few areas of my life that I wished were less cluttered; my thought was if I cleared my day-to-day life of any “muck” bogging me, my energy and my schedule down, in theory I should be able to be happier and more productive. From relationships to my wardrobe, I created seven phases and worked to tackle one phase per week. It’s hard to believe, but this little project of mine wrapped up at the beginning of September. After almost five months of conducting the cleanse, I thought I’d share a little progress report with you about how things are going.
During my first week on the Life Cleanse I worked to integrate more plants and less meat into my day-to-day diet. I started by clearing out my pantry and my refrigerator and removed the expired and unused food products. I read several books on more vegetarian and eco-friendly based eating and I also watched several documentaries about where it is our food comes from and how to eat more locally.
Progress Update: I’m happy to say that I’ve stuck with this as much as I did the first few weeks after I started. My original plan was to only eat meat about twice or so per week, less if I chose. As of now, I think we only eat meat at most twice per week and have supplemented beef, chicken and seafood with a lot of quinoa, edamame and tofu. I also still make this featured recipe regularly (even in the winter).
Phase 2 of my Life Cleanse was all about de-cluttering my house and my belongings. I took the same approach from week one (clearing out the pantry and fridge) and moved onto my closets, car, book collection, dishes. etc. I really tried to challenge myself about keeping things I really only used or needed. Items that were purged were donated to Goodwill or recycled. Nothing was trashed.
Progress Update: It’s kind of cheating, but with the move to New Jersey in play we’ve been clearing out items left and right. We have so little in our storage closets, have sold lots of furniture and have continued to remove unwanted items from our home. We even got around to tackling the basement which I didn’t even touch in phase two of my Life Cleanse. We’ve finally gotten our house to a point that the things you see out in the open (aside from items that hide away like dishes and such) are the only things we own.
Tired of dealing with unwanted mail and email SPAM, I took this week as an opportunity to remove my name from mass mailing lists (both paper and electronic). My goal was to clear the clutter of unwanted paper mail and to save myself time and disk space when it came to SPAM in my email inbox.
Progress Update: They say it takes several months to really see results when it comes to removing your name and address from mass marketing lists. After about five months now, I’m happy to report that the amount of junk mail we receive is little to none. There are a few that to this day I can’t figure out how to get rid of (like that “What On Earth” catalog that won’t go away!). We now receive zero credit card offers and only seldom find a catalog. As for my email inbox, I find that I have VERY few SPAM emails coming through. I think it’ll be impossible to get rid of all of them, but I’ve made a habit of immediately unsubscribing from them the moment I find one in my inbox. Overall I’m happy to report a serious decline in the amount of junk trying to make it’s way into our home and email inboxes.
Ah, relationships. The touchiest of all the phases I worked on. Let’s see… in the fourth week my intention was to evaluate all of my relationships; at work, at home, with friends, and with family members. I wasn’t looking to add any drama into my life so this phase wasn’t about putting people on the chopping block or having lots of heart-to-heart conversations with people. Instead, it was more about a mind-shift for me. I wanted to make sure that I was spending my time and energy on people that added positivity to my life and didn’t add negativity to it.
Progress Update: After going through this phase, I think it really made a difference in my life. I tried hard to think of ways that I could be a better friend–one of my main resolutions was to talk about issues that were bothering me and to be a positive person in other people’s lives, as I wanted them to be in mine. I quit spending time and energy on folks that didn’t seem to have time or energy for me. I also stopped interacting all together with people that were bringing me down. These concepts spanned from my personal relationships to my family to even my clients at work. I can honestly say I feel much better overall about the work I did both during and after this phase.
Phase 5 of my Life Cleanse was meant to give me better balance in my schedule. We both work hard, we travel a lot, and we love to socialize with friends. We also love our down-time too though and just didn’t feel like we were getting enough. I took some time to evaluate our schedule from the past couple of years (we have one of those 24-month calendars on our wall which made it really easy) and tried to find areas that we could cut back on in order to give us a better balance. This phase was a little harder to tackle as schedules are so subject to change from week to week.
Progress Update: Up until now with our moving craziness, we did pretty good I think. After our trip to Toronto in September, our vacation in South America in September/October and a birthday trip to Vancouver and Seattle in November we’ve stayed put for the holiday season. We didn’t want to start removing travel to further clear our schedule so we found the time to make sure trips stayed in the mix. Now with the move coming up followed by the baby, we won’t be going anywhere for a bit until tentatively November of this year (I’m going through withdraw already!).
As for other “stuff” we started trying to spend at least one day at home, without any plans, on the weekends. This helped us to find time for reading and relaxing while putzing around the house getting chores or errands done or whatever. This has been a big help in feeling less overwhelmed when it comes to keeping the house tidy during the week. We also tried to keep going out during the work-week to a minimum not only to save money, but to find time to relax as well. Overall I think this was a successful initiative up until now when we’re cleaning like crazy for showings, trying to see friends when we can before we move, and leaving time for R&R between making moving arrangements.
I think this was the most fun phase of all the Life Cleanse steps. After clearing out my closet during the second week, I took the time to define my style a bit more. I decided I wanted to streamline my wardrobe into looking more classic so I found some pieces that are high-quality (so as not to have to spend money replacing them soon) and that will last for a while.
Progress Update: I actually did go out and purchase everything on my list (if I didn’t already have it). I also played with new ways to style my hair (until my hair donation in October) and still experiment with fun ways to wear it. I also switch up my eye-shadow color from day-to-day and bought myself a Chi Hair Straightener to save TONS of time in the mornings straightening my hair.
Now, being pregnant, it’s hard to wear a lot of things I just bought… however, I’ve worked to find a few maternity items that still fit my style and that keep me from feeling too frumpy. You can check out my Pinterest board on that here which I just started a few days ago.
The last, and my most dreaded phase, of the cleanse was the money area. Knowing it was totally necessary (and not at all fun for me) I looked over our finance situation and thought of ways for us to do better.
Progress Update: We’ve actually started saving money! Thanks to Shawn’s efforts, he ensures we transfer funds every month into our what-was-once-unused savings account. While buying the Starbucks Classic Syrup did help me save money for a while on iced coffees at Starbucks, it didn’t last long. I’m happy to report that over Christmas though I got a Nespresso Pixie Espresso Maker and have loved it. Truthfully, I now only buy Starbucks coffee at meetings (I do miss the routine though). What else… being pregnant has stopped me from buying any clothes really (other than the 8 maternity pieces I allowed myself as staples to get me through) and I can’t bear the thought of buying nor wearing 4-5″ high heels right now. I’ve also moved my business out of my office in anticipation for the move so that’s a big cost savings from a work perspective. All in all, I’m proud of us–I think Shawn and I have done really good here.
Blah! That’s a long recap and if you’ve made it this far, thanks for still reading. Would I recommend doing the Life Cleanse? Absolutely. I truly believe that clearing out the muck in your life makes way for bigger and better things. I buttoned up areas of my life I thought weren’t as good as they could be and look what happened… a month later I was pregnant and a month and a half later we found out we were moving finally. If nothing else, I feel better about these things that’ve been bugging me for a while and that in itself is a reward.
Flatware, Drinkware and Dinnerware Shopping
It’s easy to keep track of how old our flatware, dinnerware and drinkware are since Shawn and I received all of them as wedding gifts. That means we’ve reached the five-year mark on our dishes and you can definitely tell time is starting to take its toll. Our white square dishes (originally from Target) have chipped, stained and some have even broken all together which brings us to less than a set of 12 large plates, small plates and bowls. Our silverware situation is a wreck–we registered and received 12 settings from Bed, Bath & Beyond years ago but somehow have lost individual pieces and have gained strange forks or spoons of which I have no idea how they ended up in our silverware drawer. As for glasses, we had received a set of four matching glasses here, picked up a different set of four matching glasses there, and now have a mismatched collection of glasses that don’t really compliment one another well (let alone hold the same amount of liquid).
With the move approaching, I thought this would be a good time to start browsing for our tabletop pieces. The items we have in our cupbards now will be packed and brought with us to endure any breakage or damage. Once we’re settled in the next house though, I plan to take a trip into NYC and do a little dinnerware shopping at Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel. Here’s what I have my eye on:
Madison Dinnerware from Crate & Barrel
Clark Flatware from Crate & Barrel
Couture Steak Knives from Crate & Barrel
Schott Zwiesel Barware (both highball and double old-fashioned) from Pottery Barn
I already received the flatware and steak knives I’ve had my eye on for Christmas, and truth be told, I did buy a few of the drinking glasses already so we could test them out before committing to a full set. So far, so good! As you probably noticed from the images above, I do like the idea of keeping the dish pieces simple and classic looking. I think a elegant and timeless look is better for the different occasions I plan to use the pieces for (both casual and formal dining) plus I love how white plates bring out the color of food.
Just another thing to look forward to yet after the move is completed–new dishware!
Nursery Plans
I mentioned in my last post that when we make the move to New Jersey, we’ll be living in an apartment until our house sells here in Hudson. Not knowing if we’ll be in a house or a temporary living situation when the baby is born makes it a little tricky to plan things but eventually, when we do move into our new home, the baby’s room will be the first to tackle.
Even though we don’t know for another two weeks if it’s a boy or a girl, I’ve actually pictured a very neutral room regardless. I like the idea of keeping an earthy, natural feel to the space and painting it a color that will age well. I’d like to avoid having to repaint it a few years down the road since it’s very likely we’ll have loads of other home projects to keep ourselves busy. Plus, I figure blue or pink toys, clothes and knick-knacks will start pouring in for gifts after we announce the gender. Those bits of color will really customize the room and make it feel like a boy or a girl’s space.
Below are the items I’ve put together for our neutral, sometime-this-year nursery:
1. Crib: We’ve registered for a crib from Target, however their website isn’t showing up with the model, name or price of the one we actually picked out about a month or so ago. To the best of my memory, it’s roughly this style with a light natural woodgrain. If you like this exact version though, you can find it here.
2. Paint: I adore the paint color in our current guest bedroom called Colonial Cobblestone. It’s a nice neutral gray tone with a hint of brown. This shade is obviously gender-neutral and will go well with white trim.
3. Toys: I’ll admit, I have a few toys picked out. How cute are these little teddy bears from Jellycat? The Bon Bon Bear is here and the Pudge Bear here.
4. Mobile: While it doesn’t light up, make noise or move on it’s own, this mobile is so cute and classic. Who wouldn’t want birds over their bed?
5. Artwork: Since I don’t know what the room looks like yet in our next house, I’m not sure as to the amount of space we’ll have for artwork vs. windows. I found a reasonably sized 11×14″ print that I figure we’ll be able to squeeze in somewhere.
6. Rug: Originally I thought a jute rug would look nice, but they do tend to be a bit more rough. We’ll need something plush for when the little one eventually starts crawling and playing on the floor. I haven’t done a lot of research yet, but I like the looks of this one from Pottery Barn Kids.
7. Table Lamp: Isn’t this owl lamp cute? I can just picture it on a bookshelf next to the little one’s library of stories someday.
8. Lighting: In keeping with all things neutral and classic, I found this semi-flush mount light on Overstock.com. While ideally I’d like to find something with brushed nickel instead of the chrome-look, I think it would work nicely in this room. Plus it’s sure to fit in well as the baby gets older and the room changes.
9. Dresser: We actually own a dresser currently we tried to sell when we thought we were Toronto-bound and headed for a loft for several years. The piece was passed down through my husband’s family so we’re excited about the idea of being able to keep it and find a good use for it. This is a close example I found on Pottery Barn’s website; we plan to bleach ours to match the woodgrain of the crib and change out the knobs so each drawer has a number counting to five.
10. Chair: Lastly, we’ll need somewhere to sit when we’re up in the middle of the night for feedings or eventually reading stories together. I heard that not all babies are a fan of rocking so we’re not sure as to whether or not we’ll be buying a glider yet. Still, I like this upholstered chair from IKEA and the dark gray fabric.
So that’s our little plan. Not sure how it’ll pan out since we don’t know the room size or shape yet, nor the floor color. I’m excited for it though and hope to get to the new house soon. I can’t wait to start putting rooms together again!
Still Here
Sorry for the gap between posts lately and thanks so much if you’re still hanging in there with me. I hope to find time to post more regularly as soon as things slow down a bit. For the time being, you could say we’re moving at full-speed when it comes to getting this move to New Jersey planned while keeping up with our day-to-day routines. To keep family, friends and readers in the loop I decided to put together this little update (perhaps it’ll shed a little light on why we’ve been such recluses lately!).
House Activity
Our house has been on the market for just over a week and a half now. Already we’ve had six showings, four of which were in the first three days. This helps us to think there’s some general interest out there. While we’re the new kid on the block when it comes to our listing, and we expect showing appointments to be common over the first couple of weeks, we’ve received excellent feedback so far. In fact, the only criticisms we’ve gotten is that our house is old. Ha!
In between those showings we’ve been working like mad to make sure the house stays tidy. Truth be told, it feels sort of like walking around the house on egg shells. Whether the house sells or not, our move is set to take place in 7 weeks; only a short while to go in terms of keeping our living space immaculate. I can honestly say we vacuum at least once every 48 hours, dirty dishes rest in our sink no longer than an hour or two before being hidden in the dishwasher, and fresh flowers have never appeared on my dining table so regularly (I do enjoy the that last part).
Sorting and Purging
Just about every evening, at least one box is sorted through and purged from our basement storage area. Back in August when I did my Life Cleanse project, I managed to clear out the majority of junk and items we no longer needed/wanted from our main living room areas. Going through the basement though is a room I never tackled and so we’re left cleaning it out now. So far, our Goodwill runs have totaled about 12-15 trips and I think it makes a visible difference in the house. I also found a great website, earth911.com, where you can find a place in your area to recycle just about everything. They’ve also got an awesome iPhone app which has gotten a lot of use so far too. Anything that can be recycled that we’re doing away with is before we make a Goodwill donation.
Dates
With the move so close our calendar is becoming more and more full by the day. We’ve already had our movers’ assessment and later in the month we’ll be going to New Jersey for our home-finding trip. We’re looking at going the third week in January and having some friends stay at the house to keep it tidy and dusted for showings while we’re away. Finally, February 25th is our actual move-out day with a few days’ drive ahead of us for getting into New Jersey. We hope to actually arrive (weather permitting on the way) on Monday the 27th.
In conjunction with moving dates, we’ve got some big baby dates on the calendar too. Our friends were kind enough to offer to throw us a baby shower before the move so that’ll take place on the 29th of the month. Just a couple of days prior, we’ll find out if we’re having a boy or girl.
Apartment Hunting
During our home-finding trip, we’ll be checking out both apartments and houses. Our current plan is to move directly into an apartment and to live there until the house sells. Once the house sells we’ll be buying a new house out there. Here’s a look at some of the apartment units we’ve been scoping out for our temporary living:
We’re looking for a two bedroom place; one room for us and one for my home-office. Should we be able to swing a unit with a den, the second bedroom will either be the baby’s room or a guest room. Other requirements; an in-unit washer and dryer (all those baby clothes aren’t going to be fun to wash to begin with, let alone if we have to schedule community laundry time) and they must allow pets (no dog is left behind!).
So that’s our current life in a nutshell. To decompress, I’ve been doing some prenatal yoga and have also been trying to keep up on my reading so I feel like I have a little down time. There’s no doubt these next couple of months are going to fly by!
We’re on the Market
What a crazy week. We’re just coming off of the holidays (I hope everyone had a good Christmas) and I’ve been battling with the flu. As a pregnant gal, a whole new set of challenges are presented since I can’t really take anything for it but enough complaining. The good news is last night we met with our realtor to sign some paperwork for our relocation company. Before I knew it we had the lock-box up and a sign in the yard. Our house is officially for sale and a few days earlier even than planned (I originally thought we’d be activating our listing on the 2nd of next month).
For now we just have the little, temporary sign until the larger one is installed next week. Our realtor said activity in our area is really good and he suspects it’s due to the lack of snow–keep your fingers crossed for us that those flurries stay away a while longer.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a running list of household chores to do in order to get this place spick ‘n span for possible buyers. Here’s what our must-do list looks like for items we need to have done before we’re back to work next week:
Not so bad considering this list covers pretty much everything for the entire home but we still feel like busy bees around here. We’ll be sure to take a break to ring in the new year and to visit with friends.
On another note, a quick question for you: Do you have any advice or tricks to offer on keeping your house tidy between showings?
I figure there has to be a few ideas for making the sparkle and shine last between each cleaning a little longer while still living here. Ideas?
It’s a Wrap
True to Type A form, each year I like to organize my gift wrapping by color-coding it, using textured paper, or unique ribbons. I tried finding last year’s gift wrap style, but it appears I never got around to posting it. In 2009 I challenged myself to wrap on a very small budget (you can find my solution for that here).
This year I opted for a more unorthodox color scheme using a middle-gray wrapping paper color. I thought this was very wintery and a nice break away from the typical red, green or blue I typically do. I decided I’d use ivory, white and black ribbon for tying along with tiffany-blue tissue paper for a little pop of color. I couldn’t find middle-gray gift bags, so I went with natural kraft bags for those oddly shaped gifts that couldn’t really be wrapped. To complete the look I found some white, glittery snowflake name tags at Target; very wintery and they matched my theme.
I know some people think gray is a dreary color but I think it’s so relaxing and serves as a great backdrop color underneath our Christmas tree.
Do you coordinate your wrapping paper every year? Or do you use whatever’s on-hand?
And The Moving Process Begins
Shawn and I had a very productive and tiring weekend. Friday night we had dinner and saw Harold and Kumar’s 3D Christmas (I’m not ashamed) with friends. Saturday I moved out of my design studio and into a home office. Sunday we had a Christmas shopping marathon and just about crossed everyone off our list. Finally, on Sunday evening, we had about four hours of well-deserved downtime. I’m sure all of you can relate to how hectic things can get this time of year.
As I mentioned, on Saturday we moved my business home. Shedding my studio was the first step in moving to New Jersey in February. I wanted to be out before the end of the year and it made the most sense to make the transition before the holidays roll around. After 3.5 years of running my design business out of my downtown space I’m now operating out of my home office (a reminder photo of the office space below):
It’s a great space and I still love the way we decorated it. However, transitioning from a three-room office suite to this little room is a big shift, though I know it’s temporary. Right now I’ve got half of my belongings on a shelf in our bonus room; I guess walking back and forth makes for good exercise, right? I do like that my commute is even shorter than my five-block distance from before and I don’t have to move my car every four hours. Here’s a look at what the office looks like now that I’m operating my business out of it:
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little misty-eyed when I closed my office door for the last time. Having a studio space downtown was a huge goal for me so I am sad to see it go. Here’s a few photos of my office in its prime (not sure if I ever shared photos on this blog):
I didn’t want to take any photos of the office after the all the rooms were emptied; something seemed a little sad about taking pictures and remembering it that way. Instead, I took some pics near the end of move-out day.
So that recaps the first in a series of steps when it comes to our moving process. Next up is getting the house on the market. Our plan is for a possible pre-list this month but actually putting an active listing out there January 2nd. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a smooth (and somewhat quick) sale!
2011 Christmas Cards
Every year Shawn and I send out homemade holiday cards. I like to add a personal touch to our Christmas cards by making them myself (plus I feel obligated to design my own being a graphic designer; outright buying them would feel like cheating).
Usually I put together cards with brads or that include a photo (see 2010′s card here) but we’ve got so much going on this year that I wanted to keep it simple. I decided to put my design skills to use by creating a 2010 Annual Report. I didn’t really want to type out a holiday newsletter so instead I created some infographics that recap our year in a “by the numbers” approach.
I started by illustrating our last name at the top with small symbols for Christmas; Santa silhouettes, stockings, wreaths, trees, etc.
I then tried to find the most interesting aspects of our lives from the past year to share like where we went on our vacations, how our home renovation progress came along, etc. By the time I was finished, I felt I had a fun and illustrated version of a Christmas newsletter that friends and family would hopefully like to read.
The invitations were printed on bright white linen paper and I paired them with red envelopes that matched the hue in the design. Now I can’t take all the credit for this idea. I had trouble coming up with one at first so I hopped on Pinterest for some ideas. I found a card someone had created and imitated their idea for the name formatting at the top and general color scheme (though, I changed the blue to green and went for a darker red instead in spirit of the season). I also liked the presentation of infographics though I arranged mine much differently and created my own.
Hopefully people will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed designing them.
