Cottage in the Woods – New Home!
We moved! (Yes, again!)
My husband and I have never lived anywhere more than 4 years thanks to the Army life but when we moved into the Marsh House after he retired, we thought it could legitimately be our “forever home.”
I mean, that view was amazing, right?
Well, we hit the four year mark and life has a way of taking turns we didn’t see coming and we decided it was time for a change.
Why we moved
Our Marsh House was in a lovely suburb of Savannah with great schools and a more rural feel. While our oldest son loved his school experience there, our middle son didn’t thrive at the very large schools and craved a smaller, more structured school.
He ended up starting freshman year at a private school in Savannah where he has thrived but the drive was 45 minutes to an hour plus in bad traffic each way.
When it was time for our youngest son to decide between the public high school (which is great and my husband is now a teacher there!); he opted for the private school where his brother is now a senior, and we decided it was time to move closer to their school.
The Housing Market
We initially decided to move in the spring of 2025 and our house was under contract with multiple offers within a week, it was great. However the deal fell through after inspection negotiations. (The buyers asked for over 15 repairs to include repaving the entire driveway 🙄) We had been under contract for a home in Savannah but it was a contingent offer, and we had to back out of our offer when our deal fell through.
With our oldest about to graduate high school, the stress of the process had me going crazy and we decided to pull it off the market.
Fast forward a few months this fall and we started the school year commuting yet again and we decided to put the house back on the market. Boy, oh boy had the market changed! Houses in our area were now sitting on the market 3+ months!
Because houses were sitting so long most sellers were not taking contingent offers, or if they were it was with nonrefundable earnest money. Stress!
We were also looking for something very specific in our home search in Savannah. We primarily wanted to be close to the boys’ school, we didn’t want to be in a neighborhood or somewhere with a HOA, and we wanted privacy and freedom to keep our little flock of hens. When a property that fit the bill came available we decided to hop on it and make a NONcontigent offer on it even though our marsh house was not under contract yet, and our offer was accepted.
The Cottage in the Woods
So as you may notice, I nickname each house we have and this house I’m calling “The Cottage in the Woods.” My husband doesn’t love the nickname because it’s not a small house so he thinks it shouldn’t be called a cottage but I’m the one writing the post so I’m going with cottage!
The property is on over an acre!! You guys! That’s like a unicorn in the heart of Savannah! It’s on a heavily wooded property with just a few neighbors and tons of privacy. No HOA, it was just perfect!
The property apparently used to be part of a botanical garden and is full of camellias (I’ve counted over 100!), azaleas, magnolia trees, and gorgeous live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. It is amazing!
The Stress!
While we were very happy to be under contract on The Cottage in the Woods, we still owned the Marsh House and showing after showing was left with frustration. We did get an offer but it was contingent on them selling their house and their home wasn’t even on the market! We had to refuse it.
After we closed on our new home we hired movers to fill a truck and it was all very hectic. We actually spent our 20th anniversary moving, how romantic! Even with the moving truck we still left a TON of stuff at the old house, we definitely needed to purge and downsize.
After that I started an almost daily ritual of driving the 45 minutes each way to the old house to load up my car with things to donate or move to the new house. It wasn’t fun.
Also not fun is carrying two mortgages!
We knew that it was likely we would have the two mortgage payments for at least a month or two and had planned for it in our budget, but man I have to tell you, it did feel scary once it started. Not only were there two mortgages, but two electric bills, two water bills, two internet bills (so we could keep security cameras running at the old house), two pest bills, etc. It was a lot!
Having that stress of not knowing when the house would sell with the financial burden of carrying two homes and the constant back and forth trying to clean out the old house (which was pretty big) was so taxing on me. I really felt the stress in my mood, my body, everything. While it was a calculated risk, I don’t think it is something myself or my husband would do again if we could avoid it.
Thankfully we went under contract for the sale just before Thanksgiving with a closing just after New Years. It was a great relief to be under contract but it was still stressful going through the inspection process, knowing that our previous deal had fallen apart in those negotiations. Luckily it was nothing too crazy and we just had to hustle and get everything out of the house and clean it up for the new owners.
Finally!
We closed on time and met the new owners and they were so happy about the house it took all the stress off my shoulders. They were coming from up north so were excited to get some nice mild Southern winter weather and get to enjoying their pool here in a few months.
One last look at this beautiful home we made so many memories in…
Renovation Time!
What better way to celebrate the end of a very stressful period than starting a whole new stressful period-renovations!
At our last two homes we lived with things we weren’t happy with for a few years then ended up changing them within a year of selling. (See the kitchen renovation at The Brick House and the bathroom renovation at The Marsh House!!)
This time we are paying for it upfront and changing the things we don’t like now so we can enjoy them. Here’s the plan for renovations:
- Upstairs bathroom – This bathroom is small and original to the 1997 build of the house. It will be completely gutted and redone. We can’t change the footprint but we can make it beautiful and functional!
- Master bathroom – This bathroom was updated in the past 3 years but not to our taste and quality. We are keeping the tub and shower but redoing the flooring and replacing the vanities and shower glass.
- Wet bar – I thought the wet bar in this home was a fun bonus but it looked like possible a coat closet conversion that looked odd and it wasn’t very functional. The opening was framed in such a way that you can’t even fully open the side cabinets. It will be gutted, the opening expanded, and redone.
- Kitchen – There is a dated low desk in the kitchen that has no function/purpose. It will be removed to open up the space. The cabinets are navy blue and will be painted a creamy white to lighten up the space. The cabinet hardware is not high quality (I’m a sucker for fancy pulls!) so it will be replaced as well. The counters will be updated as well.
- Exterior/Garage – Some lack of maintenance in previous years has caused water damage to much of the trim and some exterior boards of the house. This is being fixed in stages. We are also replacing the exterior doors and the garage door.
Whew! Quite the list! My blood pressure rose a little just typing it out!
It is a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time but hopefully come spring we will be through most of it and able to enjoy the lovely weather in our new home.
Congrats if you made it this far! I can’t wait to keep you updated with our progress!
I’m glad you were able to find a home & sell yours in a reasonable amount of time. I hope you & your family will be very happy there.
Thank you Jill! It was definitely a relief to get the old house sold!