Hello! I am really excited to share that my family is about to start our next big adventure - maybe the biggest yet! We are moving to Wisconsin!

We may be totally crazy because we are quite happy here in Minnesota - wonderful schools, jobs and friends.

I guess we have reached a point where our tight little family is ready for another adventure! Even the boys surprised us with their enthusiasm. My husband got a great new job with the same company he works for now and I am excited to live close to my family and old friends.

So here we are. In about 4 weeks we will be moving to Wisconsin!

We have sold our home. (In a day! Thanks to Nan Emmer of Coldwell Banker Burnett for being a great realtor!)

We have bought a new home.

When we first started the process of buying a new home we were so excited and filled with dreams and hope! However - a little over a month later - we became worn down and exhausted. The home market in the new area is crazy! Homes are listed in the morning and sold by the evening.

We also had very bad luck with a realtor which led us to bad luck with houses. We made offers and they were accepted on two different homes. Each home revealed huge problems in the inspection. Both needed almost $100,000 in repairs! So we walked away from both homes and the realtor that tried to convince us to buy them.

My bit of buying a home advice: Make sure if you are ever hiring a realtor to buy a home that you hire one who acts like a “buying” agent and not a “selling” agent. Our original agent was in such a hurry for us to buy a home that she would try to overcome our concerns like she was the salesperson for the home we were viewing. My husband and I have been in sales for decades and we know the drill well. We learned that you need a realtor who is also critical of the homes you tour and is willing to voice that. I am so grateful for two dear friends - Joanna Todd of LW Reedy in Chicago, Illinois and Josh Zuehlke of Coldwell Banker Burnett in Minneapolis who spent a lot of time on the phone consulting me!

In the end, with our realtor friends’ consult, we unconventionally bought a house without a realtor. We used the realtor who was selling the house we wanted to also buy it on our behalf. She is a smart, classy realtor who sells over 80 homes a year and can handle a dual deal with no problems.

Our home is in a great location. Walking distance to school, the coffee shop, biking trails and more. It has space for me to have a home photography studio!

It is a 1970’s mod home that was designed by a well known Milwaukee architect named Ray Prell. He designed a home for my grandmother. He designed my parents’ home. And their cabin. So when we saw this home - we knew it was fate!

Some people would definitely call it a weird 70’s looking home.. but that’s exactly what I like about it! It is unique. Here are a few of my favorite parts:

a sunken living room and a spiral staircase

A master with high ceilings and a teeny little private patio!

I will be busy in the next few weeks prepping to move but I am really excited to take you along on this new journey. I hope to share photos from this new, beautiful area we will be exploring as well as a few DIY home projects, the set up of my new studio space and the general challenges that come with moving to a new state! (Hopefully there won’t be any! 😆)

Thank you so much for your continued support!

❤️Jill