Swansboro House

And Surviving Hurricane Florence

They say timing is everything, and mine happened to be pretty terrible as far as this move is concerned. Ironically, the last time we moved, Hurricane Matthew had just hit Eastern NC. We didn’t suffer any damage, but it did delay our moving truck by a couple of weeks. What is it with me and moving during hurricanes?!

This time around, the risk was even greater because we actually bought a house in the area hit by the hurricane. In fact, we closed almost exactly a week before it hit.

Pro tip: You can buy a house in someone else’s name using a special Power of Attorney (POA). That’s right, I was able to buy our house without my husband ever seeing as much as the neighborhood in person.

Poor David hasn’t ever stepped foot in the house he now owns, and once news of the severity of Hurricane Florence broke, he was afraid he never would.

Read the full story on building our house HERE.

Our new town of Swansboro received record breaking amounts of rainfall (more than 30 inches!), and by far the most in the state. I’m still evacuated, but from the pictures I’ve seen of our house, the exterior looks unharmed. Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t say the same.

Eastern NC experienced massive flooding along the coast and inland, and it will take a lot of time, effort, and money to rebuild. It’s been amazing to watch how communities are coming together and rolling up their sleeves to provide food, relief, and repairs for families who are suffering.

I’m eager to get back home and check things out for myself, but for now I’ll reminisce on moving in, and look forward to getting things finished.

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Famous Last Words

Before David left for his deployment and I moved home with my parents, he asked me to please not buy a bunch of stuff while he’s gone (he knows how much I love junking and my mom and I are a dangerous duo when we get together). My response was “of course I won’t buy a bunch of stuff…where would I put it?!”

In my defense, I didn’t know I was pregnant when I agreed to this deal. And when you find a great deal on an antique chest or a Mid-Century Modern dresser perfect for the nursery are you really supposed to pass it up? I think not.

I quickly learned to take advantage of all the nooks and crannies of my parents’ house to stash all my goodies and bargain finds, and ended up renting a 6’x12′ Uhaul trailer to carry all my new belongings to NC. #sorrynotsorry 

Thank goodness for parents, because I could not have moved without them. My dad is a master Uhaul packer and knot tier, and my mom has more get-up-and-go than an Energizer bunny. It took us an entire day in the 100 degree heat to get that thing loaded and ready to hit the road.

Eventually, we were ready and mom and I hit the road to NC. Uhaul and all.

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Moving In

It’s funny how in six months I totally forgot how much stuff was crammed into our 15’x20′ storage unit. Or maybe I just blacked it out…moving out was not pretty (and it didn’t help that we waited until two days before David’s deployment to get it done).

My mom literally laid on the ground to hold stuff in so I could open the door to our storage unit. And once it was open, I was partially amused and partially embarrassed at the amount of stuff crammed in there. I’m pretty sure David and his friends are Tetris masters from how well they utilized every inch of space.

Professional movers are worth their weight in gold, y’all. They had everything moved out and loaded in their truck in under two hours. I think it would have taken anyone else at least two days!

Once we got to the house and the movers had everything unloaded, we breathed a big sigh of relief. And then we looked at all the boxes and died a little inside. 

As exciting as it is to unpack everything and be reunited with all my furniture, dishes, and decor, it was a little overwhelming – especially at 7+ months pregnant. My mom is a trooper though and singlehandedly tackled anything that required lifting, a ladder, or being on your feet for more than an hour.

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Calm Before the Storm

Before I show you the mess we created with unpacking, here’s a look at the house while it was still empty.

Upstairs

Downstairs

We got into an unpacking groove and established a system for organizing. The living room was the downstairs drop zone and the loft/office was the upstairs drop zone. Truth be told, mom did most of the unpacking on her own while I made phone calls to utility companies. She’s a fast worker!

The sad thing is, this isn’t even half of what we unpacked. The entire back wall of the living room is lined with wall decor, the kitchen had boxes upon boxes of dishes (and Rae Dunn of course), and upstairs was a smaller version of this organized chaos.

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Work in Progress

In between doctor visits – I had to get established with my new OB – we spent a solid two days decorating. I definitely overestimated how much I’d be able to do, and after the doctor sent me to the hospital to get my legs and feet checked out for swelling (I guess you really are supposed to stay off your feet while pregnant…), I wasn’t much help at all.

Mom, on the other hand, is a total rockstar. She hung six sets of curtains while I sat and directed, and unpacked/set up our entire kitchen, among a million other things.

With so much decorating left to do, I didn’t trust myself to be without supervision in our new house. So, we did as much as we could before heading back to SC together. We knew the hurricane was a real threat at this point, and did the best we could to move irreplaceable and valuable items upstairs in case the house flooded. We prayed over the house and our town before backing out of the driveway, and hoped for the best.

Now that the hurricane has come and gone, I’m breathing a cautiously optimistic sigh of relief. Our town is still without electricity (and has been for the last week), and many of the roads are closed due to flooding and/or flood damage. Some of my new neighbors shared pictures of our street and from the outside everything looks ok.

I’m praying things will look exactly the way we left them inside when I get back to NC this week, and I can’t wait to finish decorating the house before David gets home and we become a family of three (plus Lilly, of course).

It’s definitely still a work in progress, and I can’t wait for a few big pieces like the sectional, crib, and glider to get delivered, and to finish decorating. Regardless of the mess, it already feels like home.

Once we get totally moved in and set up, I’ll do a full home tour. Stay tuned!

That’s right – in addition to starting the online shop, opening a booth, being pregnant, and being in the middle of a deployment, we’ve decided to take on a new construction!

The Backstory

When we moved out of our rental house back in February so I could move in with my parents during this deployment, we didn’t have a plan for where we would live this fall once David is back home. We just figured we’d start looking for rental houses or available homes in late July with the goal of moving in by mid-September…but that was about as far as we had gotten. Once we found out we have a little one on the way, I started getting a little panicky about the lack of having a plan. You can’t take a newborn home to a hotel room! (Well, you can. But that would be far from ideal.)

After weighing our options, we decided we wanted to buy in the sleepy beach town of Swansboro, NC. It’ll be about a 40 minute commute for David, but we’ll be super close to the beach and much closer to Jacksonville, NC which is considered the “big city” of our area. It’s also a great market for renting and selling, which will come in handy when the Marine Corps decides to move us again.

With the goal of closing and moving in early September, I did my best not to house hunt online, because the idea of putting in an offer with three months until closing didn’t seem realistic. I did want to go ahead and explore the area to get a feel for the different neighborhoods so I could be prepared to house hunt online later this summer, so in May I took a trip to Swansboro to get a feel for the area.

I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to window shop for neighborhoods without zeroing in on specific houses.  I really gave myself too much credit, because during my little exploration visit to Swansboro, I totally fell in love with a new development. After many long conversations with David – who is totally trusting me with this decision while he’s on the other side of the world with limited phone and Internet access – we decided to put in an offer on one of the two houses left on the street we’re interested in. After some back and forth with the builder, our offer was accepted!

The Floor Plan

The house we chose is called The Milan and it has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths at roughly 2400 square feet. When we went under contract the drywall was already up, but nothing cosmetic had been done to the interior yet (yay!).

The Progress

We went under contract while I was out of town, but the builder’s rep made it clear that I needed to get myself to Swansboro ASAP to make selections for cabinets, flooring, paint color, and hardware. I managed to squeeze a quick overnight trip in between two week-long trips – it was exhausting, but it was the only way to get it done.

When I first got to Swansboro, I did a quick walkthrough of the house. Even though they weren’t supposed to do any work until we made selections, they had already laid tile in the bathrooms.  Luckily, I like the choice they made. But it was slightly annoying to start off on that foot.

On a brighter note, everything else was looking awesome! Here’s a quick look at the progress.

I’m super excited with how things are looking, and taking a peek at the house was extremely helpful before heading to the selections meeting.

Making Selections

This is where things got interesting. I had envisioned going to this big beautiful showroom and picking out options on the spot. To me, it makes sense to run your business that way. Have the options and pricing ready ahead of time, so the client can pick and choose like a candy store.

That is not what I experienced. Thank goodness I had a realtor with me to ask specific questions and push for information because as much as I like the look of our house, I am not loving our sales rep.

What they had for me to look at (after dropping everything and making a 12 hour roundtrip drive to Swansboro, mind you) was a conference room with some samples. Our sales person is not very helpful or forthcoming, so overall I didn’t leave with a great impression.

Despite that, I was able to select our paint color, cabinets, granite, hardware and potentially flooring. I picked out the builder’s standard options for flooring, but the standard option is laminate and low grade carpet, so we’re interested in upgrading to luxury vinyl plank (LVP) floors and nicer carpet depending on the pricing.

We were sent to the flooring vendor’s showroom to look at upgrade options and are still waiting to hear back on final pricing (two weeks later).

Here’s a look at what we chose to get quotes for:

Next Steps

So, now we wait. Hopefully in the next week or so we can finalize the flooring and get things rolling with the house. We’re hoping to close in September, so stay tuned for updates!