The Pandemic and our Best Laid Plans
THE FARMHOUSE
We’re nearing the 4-year mark at our Farmhouse (next month!) and that’s the longest Garrett and I have lived anywhere since we left our family homes at 18. But if you had asked either of us at the beginning of 2020 what’s next, we would have told you we were going to sell our Farmhouse and move this year.
That’s probably a bit of a shock to some of you. And believe me, the idea of moving didn’t come easily to us nor did it come from a place of not loving our Farmhouse enough or thinking our property is anything short of magical. We know what an amazing place we have right here, but… well it’s complicated. So today I wanted to share the whole story with you, our thought process behind the decisions we’ve made, and how the pandemic has altered our best laid plans.
psst: I’m sharing random photos of life lately at our Farmhouse. You can find home sources here and more photos here.
Before I share more, I wanted to say please don’t read this post as anything but a reflection on our own lives. I’m sharing this with you today as food for thought and because talking about our home and analyzing our life and sharing is what we do. It’s definitely not to make anyone to feel bad about their own circumstances or to complain about what we know is a pretty spectacular life. We are incredibly fortunate to have what we have and for the opportunities we’ve been afforded and we don’t take our privilege lightly.
The decision to sell our Farmhouse was one we came to slowly, but if I had to pinpoint the moment our thinking shifted away from the Farmhouse being a ‘forever’ home and towards moving, it would be the day our oldest kid started Kindergarten. At the time Garrett was spending a lot of days and nights in Tacoma remodeling his sister’s kitchen and on his phone a lot with Airbnb guests and I was loading all three kids in the car, shuttling them back and forth to elementary school drop-offs and pick-ups and sports practices and story time and feeling completely blindsided with how busy it all felt. I told anyone who would listen that our son was handling the transition to full-time school great - it was me who wasn’t adjusting well.
Our Farmhouse is about 10 miles from our small town – a 30-minute round trip drive to all the things we do in town: school, library, grocery store, pizza place, etc – and I found myself making that drive at least twice a day. Often 3 times or more. And every trip meant getting all of the kids dressed and out the door (shoes, gloves, gah), snacks stuffed in pockets, binkies, lovies, and all other essentials close at hand. We had gone from living on our own schedule to suddenly having a commute (😱) and feeling like we had to prepare for a NASA launch multiple times a day. I realize how ridiculous that sounds (like hey, try doing it with two full-time working parents. Or try doing it as a single parent. And gosh, how lucky you are to have a good, free school only 10 miles away?! I really do know it could be a whole lot harder) and I’m diving deep into ‘first world, middle-class’ problems here, but there you have it. It’s worth noting that we do, thankfully, have a bus system in our small town. We tried it a couple of times in kindergarten, but it’s over an hour ride each way and after our little guy was bullied by an older student he was afraid to ride it again, which I totally understand.
The decision to move to the country in the first place (in 2016) was largely driven by a desire to slow down. Garrett and I had been in Seattle for a dozen years, going to school, working, renovating on nights and weekends, and we were burnt out of moving every year or two. So we exchanged steady paychecks and employer-sponsored healthcare for 3 quiet acres and a kinder, simpler place to raise our kids (our realtor’s words). We were definitely hoping our Farmhouse would bring a slower pace of life, and in some ways it did, but in many ways we were busier than ever. At first it was having 3 Airbnbs going in Seattle (and doing most of the turns ourselves) and then buying the Porch House to renovate and an HGTV pilot to film and then a beautiful, wonderful third baby, and then prepping the Ravenna House for sale and remodeling the Tacoma kitchen and so on and so on. Despite not having 9-5 jobs we found ourselves shorter on free time than ever before. I’m fairly certain we were busier than when we worked full-time in the city, albeit we now worked for ourselves (a big positive!).
Being too busy was our fault, of course, and despite feeling stuck in that busy-ness we did have the power to change it. But it’s taken us a long time to find out how to make those changes. Looking back, we constantly wanted to slow down but then made decisions to the contrary. Like we felt like we had to put our kids in preschool when they were 2 despite the fact we didn’t need the childcare and it added extra trips into town and I worried and fretted over each and every dropoff because all 3 of our kids have resisted preschool as 2-year-olds and cried at dropoff. Choosing short-term rentals over long-term at some of our properties has always meant spending more time on landlording and on our phones. The HGTV pilot seemed like an opportunity not to be missed. And of course helping out friends and family with renovations and the like is a part of our family culture that I wouldn’t change. But this need to grow and feel successful and do more regardless of the time and stress it added to our days just meant we were busy.
During all of this, our Farmhouse started to feel like a burden. We’d pull in the driveway after a day spent cleaning or renovating other properties or driving in and out of town to school/events and see the lawn that needed mowed, the deck rail that needed secured, and the peeling paint rather than the beautiful home and quiet vista that were right there in front of us. I think we just didn’t have time to appreciate this magical country home.
It’s worth noting that we’ve always felt like our Farmhouse is too big for us. We spent the last decade in small, city homes and 3000sf-ish has always felt like a lot. I’m certainly not complaining to have the space, and maybe we’ll grow into it, but right now we don’t feel like we need it. You know? We’re acutely aware that the added square footage and acreage comes with a higher price tag and more work. And we started asking ourselves why were we spending the added money and effort on a property we didn’t have time to enjoy? I think there’s this Mr. Money Mustache efficiency philosophy that you should live where 90% of your life is (i.e. close to what you spend most of your time doing) and our Farmhouse just wasn’t that. So why were we driving in and out every day to live at a home that took up so many of our resources?
Fast-forward to 2020 and we knew something had to give. We were a year and a half into this ‘kids in school’ phase of life and looking in the back seat it was easy to see there were only going to be many more years of drop-offs, pick-ups, and time spent in town in our future. Miraculously we were in a position to make changes to our life. So we made a plan. This year we would wrap up the lingering renovation projects, put our Farmhouse on the market (right about now), and move into town. Whatever house we found in town, we would be sure it was smaller and within walking distance to the elementary school, library, grocery store, etc, and we would live happily ever after. We knew we’d miss our Farmhouse but it felt like the right path for our family.
Enter the coronavirus pandemic.
Like for many people, this pandemic has made us rethink everything. Everything. It’s striped our lives down and laid bare what matters and what doesn’t. Of course we’re only half a year into it, but so far, the lessons we’ve learned feel far-reaching.
And it’s worth noting that we’ve found some happiness in this pause, this extended time at home with the kids, this slower, more intentional pace. And after much reflection and thought, we’ve come to realize that our Farmhouse is not the problem. In fact, our Farmhouse on 3 quiet acres ten miles outside of our small town is quite possibly the exact way we want to be living and raising our kids right now. What we aren’t happy with is (was) the busy pace of our lives. The go go go. The drop offs and pick ups and frequent trips to Seattle and constant phone time with Airbnb guests. So rather than sell our home and move right now, we flipped the problem on it’s head and asked ourselves: how can we keep up this slower pace and simpler lifestyle and stay at our Farmhouse? (Please don’t think we’re romanticizing the pandemic – this time has undoubtedly been hard on everyone. We are NOT happy there is an international virus taking lives and shuttering businesses. But we are happy that we’ve learned some things about our own lives that feel significant).
Let me pose that question again: how can we keep up this slower pace and simpler lifestyle and stay at our Farmhouse?
Here are a few answers we’ve come up with…
One // We’re looking to get out of the Airbnb business. Come September we’ll have all of our rentals on long-term leases and we’re hoping that will free up time. It does, of course, mean reducing our income and not having a Seattle home to crash in, but hopefully the tradeoffs will be worth it. (If not, we can always go back.)
Two // Schooling at home. Our “stay at home” orders meant not driving in and out of town so much (like a couple times a week instead of a couple times a day) and that’s been a positive for us. So we started thinking about homeschooling our second-grader next year, but our school district just announced they’ll be offering an online option in the Fall. So we’ll be trying that. We’ll miss the community aspect of going to school (of course that may not even be an option next year), but not the driving, and we’re all eager to give it a try.
Three // Being more intentional with our money. The loss of our Airbnb income will mean a tighter budget, but we’ve found ourselves spending less lately anyway. We’re a lot more intentional with our shopping trips and planning ahead because we’re trying to go to stores as little as possible. Less trips have meant less money spent. And we’ve felt that decrease in discretionary purchases too (well except books) and less shopping means more time and money.
Four // Decreasing our landlording time. Between the pandemic and the fact that every single one of our rentals in turning over this year, landlording has been more time consuming and less lucrative than in years past. So we’ve decided to view this time as an opportunity to double down and invest in our properties - to paint, maintain, and improve. By putting the time in now, we’re hoping to free up time in the future. And as far as that future goes, we are more committed than ever to our “quality over quantity” approach to landlording. We aim to keep the number of properties we own, manage, and maintain to a minimum and make sure each rental is as awesome as it can be with maximum return (we still think backyard cottages are in our future).
Five // We’re selling our trailer. After only a year, we’ve decided to sell The Landlady. I love our vintage Argosy so much, but we haven’t used it in over 8 months. And having a trailer that just sits in the yard for most of the year only to be cleaned and maintained takes up time and mental energy that we just don’t feel like giving right now. Maybe someday we’ll be trailer owners again, but not right now.
Six // Give ourselves the grace to change. Can you tell that we don’t have it all figured out?! But that’s okay. We don’t have to stick to a plan or follow anyone else’s path. It feels like Garrett and I have spent the last 4 years figuring out what we don’t want to be doing with our time (to name a few: flipping houses, filming a show, renovating for other people, doing tons of Airbnb turns) and while we have high hopes for this slower, more intentional path at our Farmhouse, it’s okay if it doesn’t end up being right either. What works today might not tomorrow. But we’ll keep trying.
So…what’s next for us?
Well as of June 2020, I’d say you’re looking at our future right here: our Farmhouse. We’re not selling. Instead we’ll be slowly fixing it up as we slowly live in it. We actually refinanced into a 15-year mortgage with a lower interest rate because we’re planning to stay a while. Forever? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t want to put the word “forever” on this home (or any home) because that just feels like too much pressure. But for now, for the immediate future, we see our lives here.
And in case I haven’t expressed my love for this little slice of earth adequately… my sister recently reminded me of a scene from Yellowstone (a show I’ve admittedly watched very little of, but this scene stuck with me) when Kevin Costner’s character explains why he won’t sell his large ranch to developers. If you had all the money in the world, what would you buy? he asks the would-be-buyer. And my answer, just like Costner’s character, is that I’d buy this property right here. And somehow, miraculously, without a fortune in the bank, we already own this little piece of earth. So we’ll be keeping it for as long as it serves our family and feels like the right path for us.
xoxo
