Despite the fact that our weekend wasn’t the most eventful, I still have something exciting to share with you guys today! It’s actually some news we’ve been keeping under wraps for quite a while and I’m looking forward to finally filling you guys in.
Saturday
We kicked off our Saturday morning with lots of fort making followed by a drive over to the biggest fort our family is currently building…
A new house!
This has been in the works for well over a year and we are beyond grateful and excited to be building a home we hope will be our “forever home.” Through the building process we learned that maaany people say they’re building their “forever home” and it rarely works out that way but we put so much thought and planning into this home to make it a place we think will grow with us through various stages of life. I know life is crazy unpredictable but we love North Carolina, our friends, our community, our jobs and the boys’ schools so we’re going all in on this one.
There is so much I could say about the house and the whole building process but since I’m not sure how interested you guys are in home content, I’ll just leave it at that unless you have questions and would like me to share more about how everything is going. We’ve poured countless hours into building this home and attended a million house-related meetings over the past year so there is a lot to say. I know that while I devour home content and love interior design blogs, it’s not for everyone, so just let me know!
(Selecting our countertops back in July!)
Having never built a home before, it’s been one giant learning curve but we love our builder and Ryan and I feel very fortunate to be able to do this together. Right now we are hoping to be able to move in this summer but we know we shouldn’t hold our breath on a set timeline since things are so fluid. This home has been a huge part of our life and involved a lot of appointments and meetings and I’m glad it’s all out there now! If you have any questions about the house, I can always put together a Q&A post about everything, so just let me know. I just didn’t want to overshare if there’s little interest.
After a quick drive by the house to check on everything, we drove into the city for another morning at Discovery Place Science.
(On me: Jeans: Old Navy / Sweater: Old Navy / Teddy Jacket: Angashion via Amazon / Combat Boots: Sam Edelman / Beanie: American Eagle // On Rhett: Outfit: Little Bipsy <– my affiliate link will give both of us $10 off our next $35 order! / Shoes: New Balance — gifted)
Can you tell this is a go-to activity for us on cold winter days? The boys love it so much and they’re all at such great ages for exploring the various areas. Plus, the fact that the uptown location has a mini aquarium inside is a big-time hit with our crew.
The boys had a ball running all over the place until Rhett’s nap time creeped up on us and we headed home for lunch and sleep for Rhetty Roo. We got Ryder settled in his room for quiet time as well and then Ryan took Chase fishing while I ordered samples of paint colors for the cabinetry in our house and browsed Pinterest for inspiration for tile for the bathrooms and laundry room since we have a tile selection meeting coming up soon. Just another one of the billions of decisions it feels like we are making for this home! Also, to anyone who has done home renovations, built a home or updated the design of a room, can we all agree that searching the internet for home inspiration photos is where time goes to die? I can find myself in the depths of Pinterest searching for that perfect bathroom vanity paint color inspiration for waaay too long.
The rest of our afternoon passed by in a blur of kid activities, picking up food for dinner and curling up to stream Encanto for movie night. Have you guys seen this movie yet? Though we’ve been listening to the soundtrack for a while, this was our first time watching the movie and I thought it was so cute! It was definitely the best animated movie I’ve seen in recent years. The music is incredibly catchy and the big kids seemed to enjoy the family’s special powers. It was definitely more in Chase’s wheelhouse than Ryder’s at this age but both boys seemed to like it. And Rhett thoroughly enjoyed playing with all of the big kids’ toys while they were distracted with the movie. Ha!
Sunday
Sunday morning began with a family park playdate!
We took the boys up to Hope Park in Mooresville and it’s one of our favorite spots because it has great play areas for toddlers and big kids. Chase is still one hundred percent obsessed with running and there is an outline of a little track around the playground so we raced around it a million times. For any mamas out there feeling bummed about not being able to stick to the fitness routines we used to be able to do pre-kids, just remember we do stuff like this allllll day long. Phew!
We had to call our park playtime short because I had to get home for a virtual baby shower for my friend Carrie, one of my best friends since elementary school. Carrie is being induced at the end of the month and my friends Leah, Michaela and I tried to make her feel a little special from afar by sending her flowers, brunch and a baby shower banner and planning a virtual shower for her so she could feel a little bit of the love that’s coming her way for her and her growing family. The three of us are also flying to Idaho to meet her baby girl in March and I cannot wait!!!
The shower was only an hour but Carrie, Michaela, Leah and I stayed on the video chat for nearly two hours after just catching up. It was so great to all be able to connect at the same time and was definitely a highlight of my weekend! By the time I emerged from our bedroom, Rhett was just waking up from his nap, Ryder was still sleeping and Ryan, Chase and my father-in-law were out fishing. They arrived home about 20 minutes after I got Rhett up and we all dug into the homemade chicken noodle soup Ryan began prepping earlier in the day. It was perfect for a cold and dreary day and we ate it along with the Biscoff blondies I made for our crew.
Since the rain derailed any afternoon plans, we did early baths for the boys which worked perfectly because Chase was anxious to test out the buoyancy of the submarine we put together as part of his latest Science Junior delivery, a past birthday gift he received from my parents.
And YES, that would be TWO front teeth you see missing from Chase’s smile! He lost his first upper middle tooth on New Year’s Eve and the next one fell out a few days later. I can’t handle it.
After baths, we ate dinner and did the usual bed time routine before I went into my office to work on blog stuff for a bit before joining Ryan in bed. I read a little bit before my eyes would no longer stay open and called it a night.
Plans for today include some solo work time since Annemarie is coming this morning to watch Rhett for a couple of hours while the big kids are at school and then later this evening I have a preschool board meeting for Ryder’s school. (I became a board member over the summer.) I am especially looking forward to the coffee date and work time and hope to make a little more headway on the blog post I have coming you way soon that touches on life with three kids now that we’re 16 months in. Stay tuned!
Have a great week, my friends!
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Amazing!
What makes up your forever home? Like what does it have compared to your current house? 😃
Love this question!! We’re making a lot of decisions that center around us being in this home for a very long time. For example, we’re building a very large pantry with an extra fridge/freezer inside because we know we’ll go through a lot of food as the boys get bigger. We also have a space for our parents to stay when they come visit without stairs to hopefully make their visits more comfortable as they get older and wish to stay longer. That is just the tip of the iceberg but those are some things we’re considering from a “forever home” standpoint.
Julie, congratulations on your new house! How exciting!!! I‘m all about interior design and the process of it all so please keep the updates coming! Also, how do you do it all? I‘m so amazed by how you manage the kids, your business, the building process of your house, work out at and always look so rested and put together despite it all! You are truely Superwoman! So inspired by you. All the best, Sarah
Sarah, your comments are always so encouraging. I appreciate it so much!! I also assure you I have moments where I am incredibly overwhelmed and feel like I’m a complete mess in every area of my life. This is one of the reasons I sought out help for Rhett one to two mornings a week because I really could NOT do it all!
Please bring on the home content!!
Oh my gosh, so exciting!! Yes, all the home + interior design updates please 🙂
What made you decide to move/build?
What much do the boys know or understand?
Are you going with any specific design style?
We love our current house so much and while the size (square footage wise) is just fine, the allocation of space has been an issue for a while and our yard is very sloped and not great for kids playing. We don’t have a “real” pantry outside of our kitchen cabinets and no mudroom/drop zone, a small laundry room and very limited closet storage — all things that were totally fine before kids but as we’ve added more children to our family, we’re feeling this more and more. For the new house, we prioritized a great yard/outside space for the boys and focused a lot of the home layout on these areas mentioned above!
Chase and Ryder are so excited about the new house and have been “in the know” from the beginning! They realllly loved the beginning of the construction process — clearing the land, pouring the foundation, framing — it totally blew them away!
As for design style, I have no idea if my style has a specific name so I’ll say no! Haha!
Big congratulations on your home! I hope you all can move this summer. Matt & I have admittedly struggled majorly on just buying our first home. Difficulties with agreeing, & now the market has become horrendous. Real estate is not for the faint of heart.
Looks like it was a lovely weekend!
Oh the market is absolutely insane right now!! We feel fortunate that we bought our lot right before things went completely bananas but we also paused our build for 6 weeks at one point with hopes that lumber prices would decrease a bit (a gamble that paid off, thankfully). It’s intense for sure!
Kudos to you both for navigating this well! Our time will come. In the meantime, I will enjoy reading about your adventure. <3
I’m curious how you found the property and whether chase will end up needing to switch schools or not. We think about building sometimes so we can get some land for a horse but we love our school and it would be such a specific area we’d be looking for land, that my little searches rarely reveal much!
Ryan has actually been eyeing the property for years so we were so excited and thankful when everything seemed to align. The location is ideal for us and Chase will thankfully not need to move schools. I know the whole school thing is HUGE and we definitely did not want to move far away from the area because we love and value our boys’ schools so, so much. I totally understand your dilemma!
That’s so nice!!! Even better if you’ve been waiting for years to make your move and finally get to! Congratulations and post away all the house content! I will eagerly read!
Congratulations!!!!! How exciting!!!! Would love to hear it all 🙂
I’m wondering – will Chase have to switch schools? We are looking to build in next few years but I’m stressed about trying to time it with a potential school system change! (And also love our school)
Hi Kit! Sarah (above) asked the same question regarding schools so I just didn’t want you to miss my reply!
Congratulations, how exciting! Please keep house updates + interior design content coming!
We’re actually building as well; not our forever home, but our first home, which feels rather unique! Would definitely love to continue to see updates 🙂
That’s so, so exciting!!! How far along are you in the process?
We actually bought a spec home before it hit the market (which seems to be the only way to get a house in southern Maine these days!). So it was framed when we bought it but we’ve gotten a say in most of the interior design choices which for a first-time home buyer feels like such a treat! Talk about seemingly small decisions adding up quickly 🙃
New home yay! Congrats to you and Ryan! My husband and I built our first home about two years ago and what an experience! The biggest thing we had to practice was saying “no” to all the upgrades. It’s so tempting to pick out everything and just roll the cost into the final cost (pennies on a mortgage!) but saying no to a few things was a really healthy exercise for us. Structural > cosmetic so to speak 🙂
Please share more! Have a great week!
Love this advice!! And yes, it is SO tempting to want to do it all upfront! Especially when it comes to trimming out the whole house. We’ve tried to prioritize more visible areas and tell ourselves we can always do more later if it’s important.
SO HAPPY FOR ALL OF YOU JULIE. Congrats to you. YES show all of the content about your home build. SO EXCITING. All of your hard work is paying off.
Thank you, Donna!! I can feel your genuine excitement for our family through this comment and appreciate it so much!
All the home/interior design content!!!!
SO exciting!! Congrats Fagans! The “forever house” convo is a constant one in our house and “do we look”, “should we build”, “do we just add on what we need” questions.
-What made you want to build? ex what were you looking for that your current house doesn’t have?
-Is that a front porch? Or just me being a house building rookie and not realizing (lol)? I am so jealous if its a porch!
Congrats!
Hi Cait! See my reply to Aleisha’s comment above regarding our “forever home” decision! And yes! That’s our front porch! I looove the three front door look and cannot wait to see it all come together. <3
Absolutely, I want to hear all about the new house!!! I wholeheartedly agree – it’s such a fun process and I’m fully invested in the Fagan home series!
Haha!!! I am the SAME and absolutely devour home content!
Tell us ALL the things about the house process!!
Congratulations!!! So exciting! Please, please give all the house updates and interior design updates coming! I’m slowly but surely doing small projects/renos on my house (been here just over a year) and I LOVE seeing projects and getting inspiration from others. Can’t wait to hear more!
definitely would love to know more about the home building process as hubby and i are getting ready to do the same this year.
Very excited for you, Glenneth!! It’s been SO fun to do together!!
thank you! i would really LOVE to know about how many hours a week you and your hubby spent (and are spending) working on the new home….(and if there is anything you know now that you wish you had known before you started).
I would LOVE updates/blog posts on the house build!
Congratulations! I built a new home in 2017 and I had so, so much fun picking the layout and finishes! It felt so grown up, and a little like real life Sims! 😂
LOL! Totally get this — definitely feels very adult which is hilarious because I mean I’m in my mid 30s with 3 kids so I should probably already feel this way. Haha!
Congratulations to you and Ryan on building your forever home. Can’t wait to read more about the process and see photos. (Definitely interested in reading more about it on your blog).
If I lived in North Carolina, I would buy your current home! It is so beautiful.
Love Chase’s toothless smile!!!
PS. I know you guys moved from FL to NC many years ago. I would love a blog post on moving to a new state. We are contemplating where our forever home will be. We have loved in IL our entire lives and just can’t take the winters any longer.
I love this idea for a blog post!! It was not an easy decision but it’s one we’ve never regretted. I’d love to dive into this in more detail.
Congratulations on the new house! So exciting for your family! My husband and I hope to build one day so I’d personally love to hear all about it!
Congrats!!! Would love to follow more on your forever home journey!
Congratulations on your new house! I know I would LOVE to hear ALL of the things about your home and the process!
Yes!!! I want ALL the details on your forever home! Please share everything!
Please share it all!! Doing some renovations and would love to hear all about the choices for your beautiful new home!
Congratulations on the new house! As someone who loves design/ DIY blogs, and lives in NC, and has parents on Lake Norman in Cornelius, I’m super interested in your house details! I’d read anything about building a home, but things I would wonder specifically might be… How much do the builders allow for outdoor planning/ landscaping, and will you get to design your yard for your boys? Are you all closer to Lake Norman or further away now? Are you keeping your boat? I’m sure you’re tired of supply chain issues, so how has that affected building? And how much autonomy do you get in designing?
Also, as a separate point, I love the evident growth and joy anyone can appreciate in your kids through your blog. I have a 2-year-old, and your blog does an amazing job highlighting the beauty of every phase of childhood, such that I can smile about the baby stuff and think excitedly of the bigger kid stuff. I just want to say that you share joy so well 🙂
Julie! I am so excited for you all! My husband and I had planned to move this coming summer (when our oldest was headed to Middle School) but because of the pandemic, we ended up moving in the summer of 2020. We relocated from Northern Virginia to Hanover, VA. My good friend from college had just had a custom home built the year prior (she lives 15 miles away) and I absolutely loved hearing all of the details. My husband and I went to Richmond at the end of May just to look and to try to get a sense of whether or not we could move there (I have been going to Richmond twice a year for the last almost 20 years to visit my friend so I was pretty familiar with the area!). We really needed more space because of the pandemic and everyone being home together. We visited two weeks after our first visit and put a contract on a house two days later. It was actually the first house my husband had sent me but I had dismissed it because I wasn’t crazy about the outside (it has grown on me since then!!) But the inside happened to be exactly what we had always dreamed of having, and we only had to paint one wall! It is most definitely our forever home. I think it’s probably less stressful to build right now in this crazy market… I am so excited for you! How many miles away are you moving from your current home?!
I personally love home content and would love to know what style you are going with, design decisons, which decisions have been tough, etc.
My husband and I feel like we bought our forever home but it certainly doesn’t check all our boxes so I have a feeling we will build somewhere down the line.
YEEESSSS!!!! Congratulations on the massive undertaking! I LOVE building and renovating homes. Please keep the updates coming!
Oh my goodness how exciting!! You should definitely do a post about the new home you’re building! Also cannot wait to see pictures of the finished product!
Please share ALL about the house and design process! I love that type of thing and love getting g ideas for our future home this way – plus this blog is about your life and it’s a HUGE part of it currently!
That is so exciting!! PLEASE give us ALL the updates. I love home design and look for inspiration to remodel. Congrats! That has got to be so fun and exciting.
Congratulations on the new house! This is very exciting. I would love more updates or blog posts. I’d love to know what made you decide to build, and some ideas on specific things you are building into the home to fit your family or your future. And, I would love a new home tour once you’re in.
And I LOVE Encanto. I agree that it’s definitely my favorite animated movie in recent years. It’s such a sweet story and I always love the music that Lin-Manuel Miranda creates.
Congratulations! Super exciting for you all. I too would welcome more interior design/home content–my husband and I bought our first house a little over a year ago so this is very topical 🙂
Congratulations! What a huge project! I am very happy you have this big new adventure ahead.
Here for ALL the home design and building process content. I love all of that so much and cannot wait to hear it from you!
Congratulations and please keep the house updates coming!!
Wow! Congratulations on your new home journey <3 Looking forward to hearing about items you're considering to create your "forever home." We're at the point in life too where we still have young ones (4 y/o and 7 m/o) but are looking to the future and what it may bring. Hope you include some home building content on the blog!
Also, unrelated, I've been thinking of your father-in-law's health and hope he is well. (And if you ever wonder if you make an impact in your reader's lives, consider this a good indicator that I am invested in your blog and care about you and your love ones!)
Thank you! He is in a much better place right now and we are so grateful. I appreciate you thinking of him!
Yes yes yes to home building content! We want to custom build one day but it is so hard to find a big lot that isn’t sloped with good schools. Questions for a future Q&A: how did you find the lot, is it in a neighborhood with a builder(s) you had to use, how did you find the builder if not, did you custom design the house layout or did you choose from a pre-designed blue print, how did the pandemic impact the build, did you find the cost of the new house + lot to cost the same as or more than just buying a house?
Congrats, Julie, to you and your family! I’m a sucker for home/interior design stuff so keep it coming. My boyfriend and I are at the very beginning stages of buying a home together so hearing from people further along in the process is always helpful/inspiration. Good luck with everything!
Congratulations! I’d love to see house content!!
Wow, this is so exciting! Since me and my husband are almost finished with building our own home I would love to read more about the process an especially about your design decisions since we are living in Germany building a house with a little bit of an American style (I just love porches, dormer windows and all things farmhouse style).
Reading your blog is always a very nice part of my day and I think after some of the hardships you and your family had to endure over the last years (I often think about your posts about miscarriages and about you losing Sadie) you are more than deserving of this excititing chapter in your lives.
And just in case you need a tip from someone who has almost survived the long building process: Stay patient and positive when your spouse has a hard day concerning all the stress that comes with building a house and vice versa. It`s such a crazy journey but walking through your almost finished home is incredible.
All, alll, allllll the new house content! It’s so exciting to see your family undertake this new adventure.
Julie, congrats!! I’d love to hear all about your dream home, the motivations behind picking certain decisions for the house, and updates at each stage. So exciting 🙂
So exciting!! Congratulations! I would love to see any content concerning your new house. What an exciting time for your family.
How exciting! So happy for you all! And yes to all the house content. I’m slacking in home design creativity so I love reading how others approach it.
I’ve been a reader for a lot of years and it would feel wrong if you didn’t share the new home content.
In addition, I work for a homebuilder and I love to hear different perspectives. Please keep sharing!
Please share ALL the home/build/decor content! I think by the comments you can tell we are here for this new adventure!
Would love to hear more about the ho.e building process. It is on my wish list!
I always thought you and Ryan and the boys would move back to Florida to be near family. So exciting! Can’t wait to hear more details! 😊
Congrats and I am all for the home and interior design posts! I’d love to hear some of your favorite blogs/Insta accounts for interior design and home inspiration. I come here for the lifestyle posts – recipes, raising young children, book recs, so the home design is an added bonus to that. Best of luck on the build and move!
Congratulations! Very exciting news! 🙂 I would love to hear more about the home building process – bring on all the content!
Yea ~ congrats on your new home. Heck yes, I would love to see and hear updates. 🙂