Welcome, welcome, friends! I’m finally ready to deliver on my promise of a tour of our first (and only) apartment!

John and I moved to North Carolina four years ago this week, fresh out of college. My Mom and I had visited the Triangle a few weeks prior to scout out apartments, and ended up signing a one-year contract for this one. Honestly? If you had told me we would still be there almost four years later, I would have been quite skeptical — I was MISERABLE and horribly homesick when we first moved, and began making plans almost immediately to move back to New England once our lease was up. Obviously things have changed since then (thankfully!).

Since we didn’t know how long we’d be living here, we chose not to make too many substantial decorating decisions. We only painted one room (a bathroom, of all things), and avoided purchasing investment pieces that might have not worked in the next place we lived. Over four years we did collect several larger pieces (a mattress, a sofa) and many smaller ones (mostly artwork); each was chosen based on how much we loved it and how much longevity we thought it had.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Couch: Macy’s | Bookshelf: Ikea | Pillow and frames: Target | Berry basket: Anthropologie | Cat: Calvin’s Paws :)

The bulk of our apartment was essentially one large room encompassing living room, dining room, and kitchen. We loved the openness, as well as the high ceilings. The top watercolor of the Blue Ridge Mountains was a gift from one of John’s sisters, and the piece below it was actually a letterpress card from Meredith that we framed!

Chairs: DIY | X-bench: Target | White loveseat: Ikea | Trunk: Vintage

The trunk is one of my favorite pieces we own — it was transplanted from my Dad’s family’s cottage in Maine after the last burst of decluttering, and made it safely to NC via car and boat transportation!

Wire card holder: Pressed Cotton | Letterpress states poster: Beauchamping | Planner: Emily Ley | Desk: Vintage

They say you can tell a lot about a person (or family) by looking at their bookshelf, and though I think that’s true, I’m not sure what you might surmise from looking at ours, with its poetry next to politics and economics next to etiquette. Perhaps just an appreciation of all the colors of the rainbow? :)

Our dining area was just behind the brown couch. The table is by far one of my favorite pieces we own — it was my college graduation present from my parents, it’s white-washed solid mahogany, and it expands to seat 10-12!! Pretty perfect for an apartment, no? The Windsor chairs were rescued from my best friend’s parents as they downsized (conveniently at the same time as we were moving!). I’d love to have them professionally sprayed one day.

The chart is from NOAA of the region of Maine where my family has a cottage; we had it professionally framed. My parents have always had one hanging in our house, so I wanted to continue the tradition!

A question: Do y’all keep your table set at all times?? Despite these photos, we most definitely do not, and I had never heard of such a thing before I moved down South — but it seems to be fairly common here. Thoughts? P.S. Wedding china!

Abe Lincoln print: Mary Kate McDevitt

Our kitchen was nice and large, and we loved how open it was to the rest of the apartment — great for entertaining! My extensive cake stand collection lined up on top of our cabinets :)

Duvet and blanket: L.L. Bean | Shams: HomeGoods | Lamp: HomeGoods | Lampshade: Target | Bedside tables: Ikea

Our bedroom was super simple — just the basics. The shams, which perfectly matched the other bedding, were a serendipitous find at HomeGoods.

No-sew curtains: DIY

A few notes here: I know the bench by the window is hard to see, but it’s covered in leopard fabric and was my very first upholstery project, in high school. I’ve been on the leopard bandwagon for awhile. I like to file the woven basket under the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” category: John had a penchant for leaving his pajamas on the floor instead of folding them, so I figured we might as well just toss our pajamas in the basket instead. Worked like a charm!

To finish, I wanted to share this neat little book with you. It’s a devotional that was published in 1904, and has been in my family since that time — there are handwritten notes throughout detailing certain days on which relatives died and were born. John and I have been reading from it most nights, and have been pleasantly surprised by how fresh-sounding and relevant it is!

I hope you enjoyed the tour, friends! I didn’t get around to photographing the two bathrooms or the guest bedroom/office, but rest assured pretty much all you missed was a gigantic explosion of tinsel due to my Etsy exploits.

We’re starting to get things settled in the house, and I look forward to sharing our new space as it comes together!! In the meantime, I have one more thing to share with you from our apartment — our very favorite thing about it. Check back later this week!

I’m guest posting today on Snippet & Ink! S&I was one of the very first wedding blogs I ever read, and one I still read today, post-wedding. Kathryn’s style and character is impeccable, and I am honored to help fill in for her while she’s on maternity leave!

Head here to see my dream registry picks!

Even though we closed in mid-May, we actually just finished moving into our new house this weekend. (Since our apartment is pretty close, we’ve been taking over carloads whenever we visit, but this weekend we rented a truck and recruited some muscle for the big pieces!) One of my very favorite blogs is Young House Love, and I was so tickled to realize that we were both moving into new houses on pretty much the exact same timeline. Even though it makes me a bit anxious to look at these photos, I was inspired to share our right-now by their recent Day One post. Things can only improve from here! :)

The only thing we’ve done so far is paint the main room (“Simply White” by Benjamin Moore colormatched to Glidden) and the guest room (“Healing Aloe,” also by BM and also colormatched).

Master bedroom and bath

Loft upstairs

Guest room

Second bedroom

This isn’t a full tour; just a little peek at what we’re working with! Looking forward to sharing more progress with y’all soon :)

Friends! Apparently owning a home takes up a lot of your time! I know I left you hanging after my last post (thank you for all of your kind comments!!), and I wanted to make sure I completed our house search story before too much time has passed. You now know where we ended up — here’s how we got there.

When last we left off, we had just canceled our contract on the historic downtown home. As I pressed publish on that post, we were actually in the middle of negotiations on another downtown home. This second one kind of came out of nowhere for us, even though it had been on the market — and our radar — for a few months. It was outside of our budget but not outside the realm of possibility (dangerous territory). And it was perfect. Like, move-in-and-not-change-a-thing perfect. Finishes, wall colors, layout — I loved it all. Best of all, since it was new construction (well, within the last ten years), it had all the charm of a historic home without the headache. Witness:

Doesn’t it look exactly like this house??

Like the other downtown home, we thought this one was overpriced, too. And, since we had just been bitten by our last house not appraising, we were very hesitant to offer a price that we (and our realtor) felt would not appraise. So, we submitted an offer that was substantially below the asking price. Wouldn’t you know, a day later the seller’s realtor tells us they have a competing offer and invites us to submit our “highest and best” offer. We did, and our realtor called a few hours later to tell us we had been outbid.

Friends, I’ll be honest: this is the first point in our saga where I cried. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but we had just come off a roller coaster ride with the historic home, and were so eager for this house (on the opposite end of the spectrum) to fix everything and finally end our house search. This also felt like the first offer situation where it was our fault for not coming out on top: we could have bid more, even if we didn’t want to. We started to wonder whether we’d ever come out on the winning side of a contract, or if we’d be outbid for the rest of our lives. Dramatic? Yes.

As the weeks went by, we started to wonder about a few other things, though, until three thoughts began to crystallize for us.

No. 1: Were we looking for a house that simply did not exist? Were we at least subconsciously looking for a house that matched the type of houses we grew up in — big, private lots and old neighborhoods with mature trees — in an area where houses like that simply do not exist? The answer, I think, was yes. As you can imagine, if you’re looking for something that doesn’t exist, you’ll never find it.

No. 2: This didn’t have to be our forever home. Again, we never discussed this, but I think subconsciously we were both measuring houses against an unrealistic standard for a first home. This is likely based on our own experiences growing up: I’ve only ever lived in one house, and John, two. However, we didn’t need to have the pressure of finding the PERFECT house, or finding a house that would meet our needs for the rest of our life, in this particular search.

No. 3: We began to see being outbid as a blessing. At the time all of this was happening, we were completing the “Disciples Path” study with our small group. As part of it, we took a spiritual gifts assessment (you can take it here if you’d like!). John and I both came up with Giving as our dominant gift. Here’s the description:

“The God-given ability to give material wealth freely and joyfully, knowing that spiritual wealth will abound as God’s work is advanced. People with the gift of giving are not always affluent, but they are always generous with what they DO have. People with this gift usually manage their finances well, may have a special ability to make money, and tend to be frugal in their lifestyle. They use these skills to increase their support for God’s work and trust that God will provide for their needs.”

Yes. That is what we are, or what we aspire to be. We want our home to be a blessing to us and others, not something that impedes the work God is calling us to do.

So! Armed with these realizations, we returned to the search with a more generous frame of mind. We quickly found three houses we were interested in in two adjoining neighborhoods, and visited them with our realtor one Saturday morning. The second one we visited was our favorite. It was in a neighborhood that we always thought was cute, but had dismissed in the past because of the tiny size of the lots. However, when we looked with our “new” eyes, instead of just tiny lots, we saw houses purposefully close together to contribute to a sense of community, and happy young families everywhere we looked. The house itself had everything we were looking for — an open floor plan, a big kitchen, storage, charm from the outside, a space that could be used as an office, and a laundry room not in the basement :)

So, we placed an offer. And wouldn’t you know — a few hours later, the seller’s realtor told us there was another offer on the table. This time, though, instead of asking for our “highest and best” offer, the sellers sent both parties a letter rejecting our offers and stating terms they would find acceptable, and saying that they would favorably consider an offer with similar terms. Since we found their terms acceptable, we immediately submitted a new offer, and it was accepted!

Friends, I can’t even tell you how much more of a humane process this was than the “highest and best” situations with all their worrying and second-guessing and uncertainty. We were not surprised, then, to learn that the seller husband is a local pastor (in our denomination!). To add to the “coincidences,” we later found that we share the same sporting allegiances, and we even honeymooned in the same place!! Uncanny.

The due diligence period proceeded uneventfully, and on May 13, we became homeowners. It might not be our “forever” home, but we love it and are so excited to make it our own, and for the life that will happen between our four walls. Our hope is that it will be a blessing to us, and a place of radical hospitality and welcome. We are glad to have finished our home search, but especially to have finished it in such a satisfying way.

More to come soon!