Life Update :: "Wait! Why Did You Move Again? What's Happening to the Hill House?" + Something New!
It’s been a while since we did a life update here on the Grit and Polish and it’s high time! Because these past couple years have been jam packed with change and a little overwhelming if I’m being honest. It’s hard to keep up! So I wanted to walk you through where we’re living, what we’re renovating, and what’s in store for 2025 plus let you in on a little secret we’ve been keeping. Let’s get into it…
Cathy’s jeans, shirt, sneakers
“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end”. I read that quote recently (in Robin Sharma’s The 5am Club) and it struck me as a pretty accurate summation our lives lately. Now for the ‘change is hard’ part…
Change is Hard at First
Many of you probably remember that a year and a half ago we decided to make a big change. We sold our big, beautiful Farmhouse on 3 quiet acres and moved into a smaller fixer atop a hill in our small town (aka the Hill House). The Farmhouse was such a special home - the wood moldings, fenced garden, rural setting, epic white kitchen, not to mention all the memories we made there - but as the years past by what our family wanted and needed changed. With 3 school-aged kids proximity to school, activities, and our life in town became a leading priority. Trips back and forth were eating up the days and our gas budget. When the Hill House popped up on the market in the summer of 2023 - an old fixer that was walking distance to K-12 schools and had so much potential - we knew it was time to make a change.
But making a big change was, as Robin Sharma predicted, hard. Getting the gumption to start over - hard. Finishing the Farmhouse in a couple months and putting it on the market - hard. Sorting our belongings into save/donate/sell piles and saying goodbye to the home where Daphne was born and we made so many memories - hard. Leaving behind a finished home and moving into a complete fixer with hardly any furniture - well that was probably the hardest thing of all. But with all the hard change came excitement and adventure too. I’ve felt more alive and excited for our future than I have in years!
The Messy Middle
That brings us to the messy middle. Since the day we first toured the Hill house, the plan has always been to finish the Poplar Cottage and then move into it in order to start the Hill House. And that’s exactly what we’ve done. We moved down the hill to Poplar Cottage in March.
No, the Cottage isn’t 100% done, but it’s really close. And if I’m being honest, the Poplar Cottage’s working oven, dishwasher, and bathtub were real draws since none of those were functional at the Hill House anymore (I swear the house was hurrying us along by continually breaking down).
So how’s it been living in the Poplar Cottage?
Well, pretty great so far. The Poplar Cottage is small, just 1000sf, but small living seems to be working for us. The cottage is well appointed with mostly just the basics and we only brought the essential personal items with us to keep it from feeling too cluttered. All 3 kids share a bedroom, which is pretty fun (most the time :) and we’re just enjoying the heck out of this cute little cottage. I’ve pinched myself more times than I can count that we get to live in such a cute, almost-finished home that’s just a few blocks from the Hill House.
So what will this messy middle phase mean for the blog? Well you can expect us to continue sharing projects and DIYs from the Poplar Cottage and room reveals as we finish them out. AND you can expect to see the Hill House renovation. This is the messy middle after all, so we’ll be bouncing back and forth between the two houses as the weather/schedule/passion stirs us.
We’ve been keeping a little secret…
And that brings us to our big secret…we’ve already started the Hill House renovation! You might have gathered as much from the photo, but we’ve demo’d the upstairs (what we’re calling Phase I) and working to put it back together. We have so much to catch you up on so we’ll be sharing an intro post on that project here next week (ish), but in the meantime, you can catch some sneak peeks over on Substack!
something New
Substack is a new medium for us and one we’re really excited about. We launched our newsletter, Punch List, to take you behind the scenes of the Hill House renovation which is our 9th—and dare we say final!?—home. (Who am I kidding, it won’t be final!) We’re excited to share more of what a home renovation looks like as the owner, contractor, designer, and everything in between. Punch List will also be the best way to a have a conversation with us. There’s the chat function, virtual drop-in sessions, and the Ask Garrett Anything feature (he does have a PhD in Biochemistry and a strong kitchen game to go along with a diverse set of reno skills;). Garrett will have a big presence in Punch List content, which I’m excited about since he’s a great writer and hasn’t ever written much for the Grit and Polish. You can get a flavor for the content we’ll be sharing here.
So why Substack?
We’re pretty busy already, so why add another platform? For us it’s about creative freedom and connection. On our other platforms there’s always prisms that bend the content ever so slightly. On thegritandpolish.com SEO (search engine optimization), affiliate marketing, and ad revenue affect wording and topical choice. On Instagram we’re posting around an inscrutable algorithm that determines the fate of each Story, REEL and Carousel and it’s a crap shoot whether our audience sees it or not. On Substack we’re free from all of these influences. There’s no algorithm to dance around, no SEO to optimize for and no distracting banner ads. There’s also a more dedicated readership since you sign up to be there. As a subscriber, you get to see every post, not just the ones that happen to land in your feed. The story behind the content shines through and our connection to you is so much stronger. It feels more like what blogging was back when we started 12 years ago.
But don’t worry, the blog isn’t going anywhere. You can expect the same type of content you’re used to on the Grit and Polish - DIYs, room reveals, that kind of thing - with a bit slower frequency, especially through the summer. There will be an occasional cross post between the two platforms, but for the most part, they’ll be different with the blog being more public and search-friendly and Substack being more intimate and personal.
There will be a paywall on Substack for much of our content, but we have a few free posts to get you started including a new introduction: Highschool Sweethearts turned serial renovators part I and THE House. And for our OG Grit and Polish readers we wanted to pass along a discount. This link will get you 30% off of a one year subscrition as a thank you for being here all this time. We’ll also have occasional free posts if you’re not ready to be a paid subscriber. Either way, we hope you’ll join us!
The gorgeous end
If there’s any one constant through all this change, it’s how much we love the Hill House. I keep telling Garrett that it’s my favorite house we’ve ever lived in and you guys, it’s going to be so dang special when we’re done. The natural light. The large lot. The neighbor kids who bounce between our house and theirs. The views. The lovely layout. THE KITCHEN! It’s going to be epic and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with all of you.
That is it for today. Thanks for being here. Thanks for cheering us on, lending us your advice, and keeping us on track. We are thankful for each and every one of you. On to the next renovation (and more of the current one too ;)!
xx
