A Little Update: Where We’re At With the Hill House Reno and When We’re Moving In

THE HILL HOUSE

We’ve gotten so many questions lately about when we’re finally moving back into the Hill House, so I thought it was time for a little update.

The short version: we’re getting close! The upstairs is alllllmost done. We still have some lights to hang, blinds to install, furniture to bring in, and of course the ensuite bathroom, but we’re nearing the finish line. And every time I walk up the stairs, I get that little flutter of disbelief and excitement. It’s come so far and I’m completely obsessed! After all these years of planning and building and waiting for this house to become our home, it feels incredibly good to be this close.

couch (ink cap), rug, flush mount, sconce , paneling, skylight

Someone recently asked me why we’re hurrying back into the Hill House instead of staying at the Poplar Cottage a little longer. And the thing is… we’re ready! We’re ready for more space and the location and our neighbors and the life we have there. We love the Hill House and we’re ready to live in it again!

We also have a deadline. Garrett’s sister and her family are coming to visit for a month this summer, and they’ll be staying at the Poplar Cottage. That’s exactly why we wanted to keep Poplar as a furnished guest house/Airbnb in the long run, so we’ll be thrilled to have them there. And if I’m being honest, we’re also thrilled to have a deadline, because that’s usually how projects get finished around here ;)

This season has also brought some hard family things close to home, so we’re moving through this renovation a little more gently where we can. We’re still having a ton of fun with the renovation, but with a little more perspective these days - which is exactly as it should be.

So… we’ll be moving into the Hill House by early July (!!!).

Our move-in plan is a little unconventional, but that probably won’t surprise anyone. We’re planning to move the whole family upstairs first and live there while we work our way through the downstairs renovation. It’ll involve a bit of shuffling - Garrett and I will start out in Daphne’s ensuite room, Daphne will be in Brooks’ room, and Brooks will bunk with Wilder - and then reshuffling later. Our downstairs bedroom will be a temporary living/dining space and we’ll be using the second kitchen as our main kitchen since the main one is now demo’d (why the Hill House came with two kitchens we’ll never know, but we’re definitely glad it did!).

psst: you can see our whole-house renovation phasing plan here.

I know, it all sounds a little bit crazy! Living through a renovation with a family is no joke, and there are definitely moments when I wonder if we’re getting a little too old for this. The Hill House is whole-house renovation number 9 for us, and while we truly love the renovation part - the dreaming, the building, the seeing old homes come back to life - we always say we’ll never live through another one. And yet… here we are :) Of course it will be 100% worth it in the end.

The mysterious second kitchen at the Hill House

Vintage cabinets in the Hill House’s second kitchen

So what’s left to do before we move in? Well we need to get the downstairs second kitchen working well enough for real life. That means appliances, figuring out the flooring (Garrett is trying to convince me we should just leave the carpet, but I just can’t!), adding more storage and cabinets (there’s a matching drawer bank in the basement), and a little finesse. This will be our kitchen for a year or more, so we really want to put some effort in and make sure it’ll work well for us.

We also need to fully wrap up the upstairs renovation, including little things like lighting and hanging doors and one the one bigger outstanding thing: the ensuite bathroom. You can expect to see more on that renovation next month!

The Hill House main kitchen (currently demo’d)

I’m really eager to start sourcing up the main living and dining rooms, hopefully this summer. Garrett bought me my dream dining table as a 20-year anniversary gift for this space and all the family dinners and entertaining we’re going to do here in the years to come. I can’t wait to have a space to put it in! But of course with family in town and kids out of school, renovations may not be moving fast this summer. That’s okay. The whole point of buying this house was to have a warm, welcoming family home in town where people can gather - so if we get to do more of that this summer and a little less renovating, I'm not going to complain :)

Another thing on our radar: plans for the main kitchen. We spent hours this winter dreaming up a layout we absolutely love, and have an architect working on plans now. We’re looking at a small addition off the back of the house to clean up the strange geometry and give us just a smidge more room. It’s definitely a dream kitchen, and even though that chapter feels a ways off, we’re so excited about where it’s headed. I’ll share more when we get the plans back from the architect!

So that’s where things stand right now: not moved in yet, but getting close enough that it feels real. There’s still a lot ahead, but the upstairs is coming together so beautifully, and we’re incredibly happy with it. We really can’t wait to spend summer here.

psst: here are all the paint colors we used up here

The Hill House is our “this stage of life” house. We plan to raise our kids here and stay a good long while, so this has never felt like a renovation we wanted to rush through. We want the house to feel warm and lasting and really good to live in, not just pretty in photos. So we’ve felt it’s worth taking the extra time, money, and energy to get the details right and add the kind of finish and craft that make a house really special. And can I just say that one of my favorite parts of this whole process has been seeing how far our skills have come, especially Garrett’s. He’s getting so good at this!

Slowly but surely, this old house is becoming our home.