Welcome to the new place :) it has a huge iron dinner bell!

Well, here she is! A project we’ve been working towards for quite some time is finally really starting. We got ourselves a home on several acres of land, the ideal setting for the modern homestead we’ve dreamed of and hope to cherish and make our own for a long long time.

If you’ve been following along on the journey of our New Orleans renovation, there’s a chance this seems very out of the blue. We’re still in the middle of renovating the New Orleans kitchen! We put two years of daily labor into making that house perfect for us! Why would we leave?

Let’s back up a second.

We’ve privately talked about buying property outside of New Orleans since 2018. In fact, something our close friends and family knew that we never really shared online was that the entire Rosie Roadtrip–you know, the one where we took our vintage camper Rosie around the country for three months–was largely to scout out places we could see ourselves moving to. We just didn’t find the right fit back then.

We’re both from New Orleans, born and raised, and have never experienced living elsewhere, and so the idea of an adventure out of the city has been appealing to us both for a long time. But we returned from that three month long road trip in 2018 feeling defeated. We couldn’t really see ourselves somewhere like Austin, Texas: we wanted to live somewhere with seasons or at least with a break from the heat we have in New Orleans! All of California was beautiful and we spent almost an entire month there tempted by the sunny skies of SoCal, the beautiful hills of Central Coast, and the breathtaking landscape of coastal Northern California, but none it felt--uh--affordable. The Denver area was promising and was high on our list as a possibility before we had even visited, but even back then it seemed impossibly expensive and maybe a bit too cold?

We got back home so fulfilled by the experiences we had on that trip, but also feeling that we had pretty much failed at our goal of finding a new place to call home. And so Louisiana it was, for the time being. We saved up our money for a couple of years, and still hunted the real estate apps for places up and down the west and east coast. Maybe Charleston? Maybe Upstate New York? So many gorgeous places and possibilities, and nothing ever felt right. Not to mention we were getting increasingly busy with work and moving somewhere on a whim felt like a potentially stupid move. We wanted to take our time.

And then it was 2020, and the world was on fire like never before, and staying put sounded smart. And we bought our home in New Orleans, the place we’d discussed leaving so many times.

Our rationale was… well, we haven’t found anywhere else we’d rather be, owning a home in our hometown near family felt like a good idea, and maybe all this searching was in vain and we’re where we’re supposed to be. After all, South Louisiana is where so much of our hearts are. It’s like nowhere else on earth.

We spent the first year of owning our home in New Orleans feeling very secure in that decision. We were happy to have so many projects, a place to make our own in ways we never could as renters, and we loved our quirky and beautiful little neighborhood. So much of it felt right. And it was!

It was a smart, satisfying decision, and a particularly amazing project to have during the time of Deep Covid, when leaving the house, let alone leaving the city, felt intensely stupid.

But in summer of 2021 the conversation started again…

Do we really want to never have lived anywhere else ever?

What would it be like to have access to nature, or seasons? Or, like, snow?!

We don’t know if we’ll always have the privilege of working from wherever we have a WiFi signal… do we really want to waste that opportunity by not trying out somewhere else?

All of that was in our nightly dinner table conversation rotation, but we were so deep in the renovation of our New Orleans home that it all felt like a far off dream. It didn’t make renovating the New Orleans home (which is still under construction as I type this) any less sweet, because we really have loved getting to be creative in such a beautiful and historic home together; but it was certainly a strange position to be in. Usually when you’re renovating your home you’re dreaming about what it will be like to enjoy it when it’s done, not what part of the country you’re looking forward to moving to once you’re finished.

It didn’t really matter though, because we had yet to decide on where we’d like to experience next. How the hell is the country so big but nowhere was really jumping out at us as a potential place for our next chapter of life?

And the longer we talked about it the more picky we got.

I didn’t want to live in a big city–suburbs were fine but ideally we’d be in a large town or smaller city, think along the lines of Portland, Maine, or Santa Fe, New Mexico–but not those places because they didn’t feel quite right. I also wanted seasons, and nowhere that was too hot for too long.

Matt didn’t want to live in a place where we knew absolutely no one. The idea of totally starting over in a new place–especially if it was somewhere with a smaller population, rightfully sounded like a pain in the ass, especially because he gets a lot out of social activity. Matt also liked the idea of having seasons, but didn’t want to live anywhere that was too cold for too long.

And we both wanted somewhere that was more climate safe than New Orleans. That was a major must-have.

So, to condense down our needs, we wanted: a climate-safe town or small city that wasn’t too hot or too cold, with seasons, where we already knew at least one other human who could be a friend.

You can see why this was such a struggle.

For a very long time, very little progress was made, and we talked in circles.

In August of 2021, Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans. The day before landfall, it was looking like this would be a major hurricane, and that we were going to get a direct hit. We’re two “Katrina Kids” who had just bought our home a year prior, and the anxiety was very real. We knew we had to evacuate but we weren’t sure where or for how long. All of the motels and AirBnBs further inland were booked, and we weren’t sure what the best move was, but we couldn’t stay in the city.

We were texting a few friends as we tried to make plans to leave and that’s when Thomas and PJ, who live in the Chattanooga area, suggested we make the eight hour drive to their house. It was a drive we’ve made a bunch–but always for vacation and never for refuge. It made sense. We packed all day and left the next morning at 4 a.m. with Fox and copies of our important documents and a few randomly selected other items that felt like they shouldn’t be left behind at the mercy of a major hurricane.

That evening we arrived around dinner time, and as we always do, immediately felt at home with our friends. We had dinner and wine and talked a little about the storm that was set to make landfall the following morning and tried to keep it together as much as possible because at that point in the game there’s nothing you can do but ensure all of your friends and family are also somewhere safe and hope for the best.

We woke up to the news that the storm had made landfall, pretty much a direct hit on New Orleans, and it had slowed, which is always bad, dumping rain into our little fishbowl of a city built in the swamp. We didn’t know how our house had fared, but we knew everyone in our family and friend group was safe, and that was really the only priority. And so we just embraced our new location in East Tennessee, which would be home for the foreseeable future.

We spent our days between Chattanooga and our friends’ farm to the east in the town of Ocoee, near the mountains. We had nights of star gazing and making s’mores and becoming even more familiar with this part of the country, which we’d already visited so often but never for more than a few days at a time.

We found out that we shouldn’t expect to have power back at our New Orleans home for at least a couple of weeks, and that residents were asked to stay put in their evacuated spots while crews fixed power lines and utilities were restored and grocery stores and gas stations restocked. So we sat tight, and felt so guilty about how at peace we were in this new place, even though we were in someone else’s home and sharing a car and wearing the same three outfits over and over. And while we were staying in the area we made the most of it and went to tour a couple of homes for sale, because why the hell not. Nothing was a great fit but our gears were starting to turn.

Ten days into our evacuation we received notice that our home had power restored, and that some folks had begun to return. We decided that it was time to get back to the house–to deal with what would surely be a hell of a disgusting fridge and to clean up the branches all over the yard and get back to normal. Luckily New Orleans had made it through the storm without nearly as much damage as previous storms had brought, though neighboring communities along the river were not as lucky.

Once we were back, it kind of clicked… had we just spent almost two weeks in the exact place we were searching for? How did we visit so many times previously and not have it come to mind that the Chattanooga area could be a new… or another… place to call home?

And so the search began, we looked at homes close to the city and further out near our friends’ farm by the mountains. We looked at properties on a single acre and on a dozen acres. We weighed the pros and cons of each part of the area and looked at house after house after house. We eventually decided that if we found the “right house,” the actual location didn’t matter as much–whether that meant being in the heart of Chattanooga or butting up to the North Carolina state line. We were doing a mix of in-person and virtual tours; coming into town to visit some and relying on grainy facetime walk throughs with our incredible and dedicated realtor, Thomas’s lovely mother Lila, for others.

We put an offer in on one home–a five acre property with a pool and mountain views–and were outbid. We toured a farmhouse on several acres not far from Chattanooga and ended up going under contract, only to pull out after a rough inspection, knowing we just did not have it in us to take on another fixer upper.

And then there was a lull. From November 2021 to March 2022 there was basically nothing that showed up on the market that worked for us, and we became pretty much super discouraged. We were relieved to not have a dilapidated fixer upper on our hands, but wondering if we’d missed our opportunity to find the perfect place. Not to mention, we were busy! Our book was weeks from being published, the New Orleans home renovations were demanding, we had partnerships and jobs for the blog to manage. And through all of it we still couldn’t shake the desire to find the perfect place.

And then it happened: a home caught our eye. An estate-like property on several acres near the mountains, with an interesting history and already so much beauty in place. The home was built in the early 20th century, and originally consisted of just a bedroom and kitchen with a brick fireplace for cooking. That fireplace is still there, but the home had been added onto many times over the years, each time making it a bit more spacious and up to date. It was actually a home that had caught our attention before, but it was out of our budget and we didn’t want to stretch ourselves too thin. What caught our eye about it this time around was that it had just hit its 100 days on the market–which in the early 2022 housing market was extremely rare. Homes were selling incredibly fast, often for over listing price… but this one hadn’t. It certainly was way overpriced, but we had to dig deeper as to why it had been sitting for over 100 days with seemingly no action.

In talking to the listing agent, we got intel that the seller had been pretty stubborn on lowering the price or making any concessions. The seller wasn’t super motivated to sell, but apparently had just found another home they were interested in, and was getting discouraged by the months of the home sitting on the market with little interest from buyers… and now seemed like the opportune time to try and make a deal happen. We went in with the lowest of low ball offers, $100k below list price. Normally I’d have been embarrassed to even submit that kind of ask for a home that wasn’t, like, a million dollar property, but it wasn’t really a choice, we weren’t going to go above our budget so we could only offer so much. With some resistance a deal was made and we got under contract for much below listing.

We were obviously thrilled, and nervous. The next month is a bit of a blur. In the due diligence period, Matt came up to see the property but I had to stay in New Orleans to take care of a few projects and to watch the animals. I spoke about it in our weekly email last week but that was a really tough scenario for both of us–Matt having to make such a huge judgment call on both of our behalfs and me having to trust Matt to do so! But we talked it through a million times and got comfortable with the idea, especially since we had friends there to offer their valuable input.

We closed on the home in mid-April, a week before our book was published, and without me ever having seen it. What a wild week. We decided it would be best to wait until we had enough free time for a long, proper visit to become acquainted with the property, and that ended up meaning we would come visit for the first time on June 26th, with the goal of staying until mid- August.

We packed up an extra mattress we had and a few random pieces of extra furniture and drove separately, me in my truck with a Uhaul trailer and Matt in his Bronco with the animals. He beat me by a couple of hours because I’m terrified of towing a trailer and as a result I went reallll slow. I got there at 9 p.m. with the property bathed in the last bits of glowy sunlight and fireflies in their full glory. I drove up the long winding gravel driveway, through the gigantic trees, and the house came into sight, just like I’d seen it in so many photos! Better, even.

Standing in the future courtyard, where we plan to have a firepit, warm lighting, and seating.

The bedroom opens up to one of the sunrooms and it’s such a magical little set up.

A big charming home nestled on land facing fields of grass with a forest in the distance. I was in love. Our first week here has been shockingly comfortable considering we’ve been living out of suitcases with a mattress on the floor while we shop for furniture and deep clean. The animals are loving exploring a new place--the cats have so much more room to run and play and plenty of windowsills to watch redbirds and chipmunks from. And Fox might have been born for the hills? He loves checking out different corners of the land with us. Such a daddy’s boy. Not that he really has a choice, considering.

The home and surrounding acreage is already so beautiful, but could use a good bit of attention to make the property as a whole shine at its highest potential. And it has so much potential. I won’t get into the nitty gritty of our plans here, but we’re hoping that when our work is done, this will be a modern homestead where comfort, style, and sustainability work in tandem to create a magical getaway tucked into the foothills of the smoky mountains. We can’t wait to share in this journey with you.

And to answer the big “what about New Orleans?” questions: we’ll be back! We’re not planning on selling our place in New Orleans anytime soon. The Tennessee home is in a pretty rural area, so having a home in New Orleans feels like a nice tether to our social lives and families. We don’t know exactly how we’ll split our time between the two places, but it’s an easy drive and a quick-ish flight. I don’t have all the answers right now, but I think I’m fine with that.

As always, thank you for stopping by the blog and reading about our little project.

Xoxo

Beau & Matt & Fox & Barley & Rye

The Next Adventure: Our Tennessee Home