Photo credit: NY Times

I don’t know if you have ever seen Lake Tahoe, but I will never forget the very first time I reached the crest along Mount Rose Highway. All at once, the sky opens up and there appears this vast and stunning pool of deep blue speckled water encircled by a fortress of snow-capped peaks. It’s gobsmacking. And that’s why I am pretty excited to announce that all this ^^^ is basically about to be our backyard. 

We made the decision to move to David’s hometown of Reno last fall. It seems like every day is a new crazy adventure with Sof and Isa at the moment. They are learning and growing and changing so much, and that really made the goal simple. It is time for us to be closer to family. New York is, and will always be, a part of us (and we will be keeping the Catskills Blue House, of course) but after ten years in this crazy beautiful city, we’re ready for just a little more balance. 

Not to mention that relocation would offer us the opportunity to take on another fullscale renovation of our OWN(!!!) Something we both were, of course, just a little too excited to do. So we started the search for a home remotely with the help of David’s parents (who are in real estate). Our offer was accepted what feels like 32 secs before the end of the world came along. 

So we’ve actually yet to set foot in our new home. It’s a four-bedroom, two-story house in a quiet little neighborhood full of families. Reno is a fishbowl (so is Oslo btw, it’s a killer trait for a city), so the large windows in the back capture an awesome view of both city and mountain range. The potential for what we could do with these, coupled with the high ceilings, is what sold us on the house. (Oh and the opportunities for hiking, biking, and skiing at our backdoor.)

The current interior is.. let’s just say interesting? Overall the condition of the home is pretty solid, but you know, the carpet in the bathrooms was probably going to need to go. It’s a nineties tract home build, with its fair share of bulky and ornate accents that someone decided were “hip.” From the stairs to the kitchen to a garage conversion we had a pretty good idea of what we would want to do, but the how could really only come from experiencing the space in person. 

So while everything feels almost suspended in time at the moment, this ball was already in motion and we haven’t really had a choice but to adapt and figure out how to move our family across the country (responsibly) in the midst of it all. 

We would have to rethink staying with my parents-in-law during a renovation and find a way to move directly into the house. (I’ll give you the quick and dirty on what I’m calling our two-week-mini-Reno-reno in a separate post I promise.) We would have to find a way to pack up everything in Brooklyn with two kids underfoot and while living two hours away. 

I’d have to find a way to relocate inventory and set up Blue House Goods operations in a new state without losing the momentum we have built since launch. Not to mention shoot and launch our new spring collection with a crappy iPhone and dire need for haircuts across the board. But David and I love a good challenge. 

So here we are. The next three weeks will be spent doing projects around the house and enjoying the recently sprung spring in the Catskills. We’ll be preparing to open the Blue House back up for rentals (I’ve got a playhouse to finish and a good amount of hinges to WD40 before then). Let’s just say we’re busy enough. 

I think it would be impossible to sum up all the feelings I have about leaving New York right now in a single paragraph, scared, happy, sad, eager, anxious, you name it. But I can say I am incredibly excited to take you guys on this adventure to Reno. I hope to bore/regale you with details around paint swatches, hardwood floors, kitchen alcoves, and all the parts in between. We’re calling it Project Starr.