Hello friends and welcome to our new home! It’s been a long time since I posted anything on the blog! Unfortunately 2020 brought so many changes and stress into our lives that I could not keep it going. However, a new year is almost here and we are so excited to get this blog started again!
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Why i put the blog on hold:
We sold our house sooner than we had planned
You see, we were in the process of remodeling our entire basement and were not planning to move for several more years. However, the rising cost of new homes in Florida and the fact that my health was not improving in Kentucky moved up our timetable significantly.
The global pandemic
Selling our house was quite stressful in itself. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit during this process which exacerbated the stress! We moved in with my Dad as the whole country was about to lock down. That meant five adults, two dogs and one cat were moving into his small house! It was quite cozy, but we really enjoyed our time with him. I was able to add a few posts during that time, but then things got really crazy!
We bought a house online, without SETTING foot in it
Our plans to travel to Florida to start the building process on a new home were stopped by the travel ban. I did not want to spend another winter in Kentucky because of my health issues. So, we had no choice but to start looking for a home online and to give up on our plan to build. Oh my gosh, who would buy a house online that they hadn’t ever seen in person ?? Certainly not me, the girl who plans everything single thing in her life. This was so out of character for us! However, we did it and in May we moved to Florida.
A cancer diagnosis
I set a goal to re-start the blog by September 21, 2020 , which was the one year anniversary of us starting the blog. Right before that, Rich received the news that he had prostate cancer. He had surgery on October 20th and thanks be to God, his surgery was a success and his prognosis is good! He is slowly recovering and as far as we know, he’s cancer free!
Had I known just one of the above scenarios was going to happen, I would have never started a blog!!! Putting it on hold allowed me stay sane. I’m feeling healthier than I have in the last two years, and that’s the most important thing! So, a little over one year later, I find myself ready and eager to try this again. So here we go… we would officially like to say welcome to our new home and the re-start of our blog!
Why you should hang out with us here on the blog:
Home organization
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a bit obsessed with home organization. When it comes to organizing my home, I try to live by a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “A place for everything, everything in it’s place”. I even have it framed in my office. The main reason I wanted to start the blog was to share my passion for home organization.
When we moved in the house, I just threw things in closets, cabinets and drawers to get them out of the way. For example, I had lots of boxes of decor items, pictures, rugs, etc. that I put in the sitting room off of our guest bedroom until I could find a place for them.
I’ve had seven months to figure out where I want things to be placed and how I want certain areas to function. So, no more procrastinating on my part, it’s time to get this house organized!! Here’s the sitting room after I unpacked all the boxes and removed all the clutter.
Lucky for me, I have a great strategy for organizing every room in my home! It starts with setting goals. I find that I am most successful when I set seasonal goals for myself. This winter I will organize what I call the “working” spaces of my home. So, I’ll be focusing on the office, kitchen, and laundry room for the next couple of months.
Every season I am going to challenge my readers to organize certain spaces in their home! I hope you will join the challenge but, of course, you are not obligated!
home DECOR
Let me start by saying that I am not an Interior Designer. I just love to decorate! Moving into a new home has provided me a blank slate, so I have lots of work to do! Since we didn’t build the house, we did not get to choose any of the decor options. I like some of the choices more than others!
Decor options I love
Here is a list of the options that I had to have in our new home.
- Wood/laminate flooring in the main living areas rather than tile.
- White kitchen cabinets with cooktop separate from wall oven and microwave.
- Front porch and large covered lanai.
- Wood stairs without carpet and either wood or rod iron spindles.
- Master bedroom and laundry room on the first floor.
This house met all of the above criteria and we also got beautiful tray ceilings that are a huge bonus!
Decor options I would not have chosen
Unfortunately, there are several options I would never have chosen. Every room in this house is painted the same color of gray. Don’t get me wrong, I happen to like gray but with every room being the same color it’s a bit depressing. Oh well, it will have to do for now and we will just work around it. We also don’t like any of the choices made in the bathrooms, including the cabinet color, countertops, light fixtures or tile work. I’ll show you pictures in a minute, when we get to the DIY section because I’m planning to make lots of changes to all of the bathrooms.
Now, let’s get back to decorating. Since we moved in, I’ve come up with a strategy that has made decorating fun, instead of so overwhelming. Unfortunately, my budget will not allow me to do everything I would like. So, it’s going to be a slow process but I will go room by room and decorate as much as I can! It’s going to be an adventure that’s for sure!
I also love to decorate for the seasons, so I’ll be sharing lots of ideas on how to add seasonal touches to your home! For example, here is the empty living room, then the living room with furniture added and decorated for fall and then for Christmas!
DIY Home Projects
Most people who move into a brand new home don’t have any need to do DIY projects. Let me explain why that’s not the case with us.
Bathrooms
As I was saying earlier, we don’t like any of the choices that were made for the bathrooms. Okay, maybe that’s a bit harsh, the tile choices are not horrible by themselves, but they just don’t match and are not my style at all! I would have gone a completely different route.
Believe it or not, we consider the ugly bathrooms an answer to our prayers!! Let me explain…Sadly, for the people who built the home, their financing fell through and it sat for months without selling. Our realtor (Amy Kidwell with Heart and Home Orlando/we absolutely loved her) felt, and we agreed, that the reason it was not selling was because the builder grade choices in the bathrooms did not match the rest of the house. Since it was not selling, the builder chose to lower the price, which brought it into our price range. Woo Hoo!!
You see, this was my favorite house plan but I had eliminated it from my list because it was over our budget, but thanks to those bathrooms, I got my dream home!!! But, now we’ll have bathroom DIY projects that will keep us busy for years to come!!! Way to look at the bright side, huh?
Our old furniture
We brought the majority of our furniture with us but since I want to decorate in a completely different style, I will be painting a lot of the furniture and accessories to get a whole new look, without a big price tag. So if you like to see before and after pictures, stick around!!! Lots of DIY coming your way! Here are the foyer table and lamps before and after I painted them! I will be sharing step by step how I make-over each item, in case you want to try it at your home!
Craft projects
I love to make easy and affordable DIY craft projects to decorate my home. I’ll be sharing step by step instructions so you can duplicate the look in your home! Here is an example of how I used the reverse canvas technique to create affordable wall art to match the sitting room that you saw earlier.
If organizing , decorating or DIY projects aren’t your thing, I still hope you will follow along so that we can stay in touch!
A great way to stay in touch
Here are three different ways you can follow our progress and keep in touch with us! Choose one or all three, we can’t wait to hear from you!
Sign up for our weekly email
Even if you’re not interested in organizing or decorating your own home right now, we hope you will still sign up to receive weekly emails, so we can stay in touch. Please comment on the posts and let us know what you think or just to say hi!!! If you have friends or relatives that would be interested in this type info, please tell them about An Organized Season and share our posts!
Click HERE to sign up.
Follow us on Facebook
We are also on Facebook and invite you to follow us at An Organized Season. Before we moved to Florida, I had never posted anything on a social media platform, so this is all new to me and completely out of my comfort zone! However, I must say it is a great way to stay in touch with people, so I’m glad I took the leap! You can connect to us on Facebook by clicking on of the Facebook button at the top and bottom of this post.
Follow us on Pinterest
If you love Pinterest as much as I do, then please follow me there as well! This is where I discover new ideas and collect pictures of things I love and that inspire me! I hope my pins will inspire you as well. You can connect to us on Pinterest by clicking one of the Pinterest buttons at the top and bottom of this post or by saving a pin from this post.
If you’d like to see some of my previous posts from our “Old Kentucky Home” just click the links below!
Blessings, Donna and Rich
**Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. We appreciate your support. (disclosure policy)
Loved seeing your house!! It is beautiful!! Thanks for the update on you and Rich. Prayers he will continue to get better each day!! Hope the boys are doing good . So glad your health has improved! Will give you a call soon!
Hi Rosann! Thanks for your comment! Hope you and all of your family are doing well! Can’t wait to hear from you again, give me a call anytime!