Most of my assessments start with me saying "once I get started, things are going to appear to get worse before they get better". This is based on personal experience with clients, and the current state of my own home. Let me back up so you can better understand.
In January of 2010, I packed a suitcase and moved to Nashville. Not everything I owned fit into a suitcase, mind you. Actually, I was the owner of a beautiful 1800 square foot property that my parents and I flipped back in 2005. In the five years that I lived there, I filled it with many lovely things. Lots of
large lovely things. When you live alone with three bedrooms, two baths, two attics and a garage, you have the freedom to buy what you want and store what you don't want. The ample space is a luxury and a curse at the same time.
So there I was, in a new city with a new job, yet no real place to call my own. A friend let me stay with her until I sold my home and found a place of my own. It was the end of April when I accepted the offer on my house, which was perfect timing considering I had found a place to put down my own offer. Things didn't go as I had hoped, though.
Story of my life.
Just a few days before the whole closing-moving process was to begin, Nashville flooded. We aren't talking about pulling out a poncho & some rain boots - more like a raft. The new place had water seeping through the floorboards from the crawl space, my POD (with all my aforementioned lovely things) was lost for a week, and I was still living out of that stupid suitcase.
It was back to the drawing board, and the first go had been hard enough due to my Champagne taste & Bud Light budget. I needed to find a place under 200K that had some storage space, wasn't going to be a serious fixer upper and managed to have some character.
Two months later I found a lovely renovated gem in East Nashville - a 950 square foot 60's ranch with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a relatively open living space, attic, unfinished basement and off street parking. Oh, and a front porch view of the city's skyline. Sold.
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| This is casa de Solution Girl on moving day - July 2010. |
Not sure if you noticed that I said 950 square feet. Yes, folks. That's almost 1000 square feet less than my previous home. I like to think that my lapse in judgement was due, in large, to the fact that I was living out of that blasted suitcase for seven months. It was really easy for me to forget the magnitude of everything I owned with it sitting in storage, and everything I did remember was not quite as large in my head as it was on moving day.
Fast forward a little over three years, and anyone can attest to the fact that I did a damn good job of decorating using furniture bought for a house twice its size. I had to be creative with my use of space, become more open to giving away & selling stuff, and get really good at making wise purchase decisions. Unfortunately, I look around and feel as though this home is my old home's sloppy seconds. My can tell my furniture is feeling sad and I'm sad for it. So, let the re-design process ensue....
I have already started projects in the bedroom, bath & office, which are still works in progress. The living room has changed a bit, but I haven't settled on my design board for that space just yet so I'm holding off a little while longer. I'm also changing up my organizational system when I redo the rooms. Attic & basement will see some organizational tweaks, as well. I'm accepting what seems to be a constant state of chaos, knowing the end result is going to be fantastic.
Instead of just telling you about it, though, I've decided that casa de Solution Girl will open it's doors via my blog - nothing is off limits, which is going to be entertaining for you considering I somehow managed to step in the paint bucket again last night. But hey, at least I'm good at finding solutions for paint removal. Yes, even on shoes.
