It’s safe to say it’s been the craziest roller coaster of a year ever for me and Javier. In January we found out we were pregnant, in February we listed our Nashville house and in March finalized that sale, in April we put an offer on a new house in Louisville and listed our current Louisville house for sale, in May we signed the papers finalizing both the sale of our first L’ville house and the purchase of the new one, and last week we moved. Talk about changes. Oh, and in that time I left Humming House and I am now nearing the end of my second trimester. Shit’s crazy.

We knew when we bought our first Louisville house that it wasn’t the home we envisioned for a family. It was perfect for two humans and three dogs, so it was right for us at the time. We didn’t realize how quickly we’d be adding to the family, so when we found out about Penelope we decided to see if we could get into our “forever” home, or at least the 10-15 year home, before her (ever-nearing!) arrival.

Our new house is in the same neighborhood, five blocks away from the old house. We LOVE this neighborhood and I am *thrilled* that we were able to stay. I love being close to Kingsley, Bardstown Road, Seneca and Cherokee Parks, the post office, Kroger…and by close I mean I can bike to all of those locations. Javier is now 5 minutes closer to work, bringing his commute from 12 minutes down to 7. The main difference between this house and the last house is the living space. The finished square footage is the same; we don’t want or need a bigger house. The new house brings our living space from the basement up to the main floor. Our old house had large finished basement where we had the couches and TV, but it was dark and cold and difficult to envision as a playroom for Penelope. The new house transfers the living space from the basement to the first floor, and the bedrooms go from the first floor to the second. The dogs still have a small room in the basement for themselves, but mostly the basement is reserved for laundry and storage.

The old basement living room – great for dogs, not the best for family time

Speaking of storage – the new house also has a garage. This is essential; now we have a safe place to store all of Javier’s tools. Before, we had them organized on shelves in the basement. This worked fine, except that I never wanted kids down there by themselves because the tools were usually within reach. So…basically this is a much more kid-friendly home.

One other perk to the new home is the glorious backyard. It’s about twice the size of our last Louisville backyard (and still only about half the size of our Nashville yard! we were so spoiled). The dogs LOVE it. It also has a nice deck for the grill with built-in seating…again, great for kids (and backyard hangs).

We have a ton of projects on the list for the new house…which means more blogging about home improvement, gardening, and before/after photos as the summer continues (and…for several years). We’ve already started ripping out the carpet upstairs…but I’ll save all of that for another post!