Hello? Happy New Year?

Testing 1..2..3...ahem, I'm feeling a bit rusty at this. Happy 2016, my friends! 

For 2016, I won't pretend to make promises that I won't keep, resolutions that would never last, or predictions that would only be a guess. Instead, I'm going to declare that I have no idea what this year will bring. Here's what I know for sure -

2015 was a great year for the One Room Challenge™.

House Beautiful credited this shot

as their number one Instagram like for the entire year! 

What's even more shocking is that this image did not go up until November, so it had a short amount of time to gain all those likes. You can read about the top 15 images for

House Beautiful, here

.

House Beautiful has always been great to the ORC. They often feature some of the

guest participants

. Melissa, from

Polished Habitat

has been featured several times.

Her closet makeover

got their attention., this round. Can you even believe this closet?

Polished Habitat

I would be so embarrassed to show you my closet. Although I did mange to find some

new dressy-er pants

for my dynamic career

as a real estate mogul

. Did I mention my daughter is

threatening

thinking about going to Law School? She barely finished writing her essays for her undergraduate applications. #ImNotPayingForThat

Aniko, from

Place of My Taste

was also featured on House Beautiful. Her living room transformation is fantastic! Be sure to

read all about it on HB

.

Place of My Taste

Another end-of-the-year-but-I-hope-it-is-not-too-late event going on is a sale at TPP (

The Pink Pagoda

). You can find all

the gorgeousness, here

.  

Well I made it through my first post of 2016! Thanks for hanging in with me and keeping up with all my shenanigans (had to use spell check for that one). 

I'm going to beak my non-resolution/prediction, and say that my new site will be the largest website transformation I have ever procrastinated and agonized over. I'm not sure when it will be done, but I do know that it will be finished long before my

home renovation

 is complete. That will never be finished :).

Happy Thanksgiving Week

Well hello! I know we have so much to get caught up on. My home is still sllllooooooowly coming along. A crazy thing happened during our renovations, I had some sort of life-altering reality check.

My daughter is a senior in high school and my son is a freshman at the same school. She is working her way through the college application process (it makes the ORC look like playtime in the sandbox) and he doesn't want to hang out with mom. And then it hit me, how do I want to spend my time when I am not catering to their every demand and assisting them through their teen years?

What was my passion?....other than design, the One Room Challenge™, and this site :).

So I decided to get a degree in real estate stalking. Yup! The state of Florida has deemed me qualified to sell real estate. During the last two months I have been working on the One Room Challenge™, coordinating electricians, painters, and everyone else who wanted a piece of this home project, working a day job (did I mention that I had a day job? We really do need to get caught up), and going to real estate school on the weekends. Whew!

I'll tell you all about my plans in a future post, but for now, let the shopping begin. I'm also working on renovating this site. It is long overdue for a fresh new look. 

Source?

My sincerest wishes to you and your family for a healthy and happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of you checking in on me with your comments and emails. I will be spending the remainder of this week going through all of the One Room Challenge™ Guest Participants. I have been reading each and every post. Come by over the long weekend, and take a look. One of them has already been featured in House Beautiful! 

Oh, and if you can, please consider dropping something off to your local food bank. 

Palm Beach Real Estate

Here we are halfway through December?! I wonder if I will ever be fully prepared for the holidays? This weekend, we took a break from our usual routine, and headed to Palm Beach. It's amazing how different the PB homes look from Naples real estate.

I was online looking for outdoor lanterns on real homes, my new favorite way to search, and I stumbled upon

this listing

.

Of course I had to check out the inside...but first, more of the outside.

Love these lanterns.

You can see more of this listing,

here

. Do you look at real estate sites for home ideas?

Dean Farris | Letter Writing | Housewives

What are you doing, tomorrow? Do you live in the area? I will be listening to Dean Farris giving a talk, entitled "Florida Luxury, The Pampered Guest".

I have been reading Dean's blog for quite some time. He was recommended to me by my friend, Home Before Dark (she has a real name, but does not want to go prime time with it). Dean has an impressive body of work as well as a great sense of humor. 

Thank you to everyone who pushed encouraged me to start a letter writing campaign for my house hunting quest. I have only been out twice, and already received 4 phone calls. 

One was way out of my price range, one was completely unrealistic with his price (and he knows it), one was from a couple who flips homes (and kept calling me, Lori), and one was from a lovely woman who may possibly be a great ally in my search. Taking action feels better than waiting around. 

If you want to see a new home listing in New Jersey, it looks like Teresa & Joe have their home on the market. 

Bravo

Thoughts?

And of course I was not shocked to read that a television pilot called Elite Housewives of Naples is currently being shot around town. 

Naples Daily News

Isn't everyday life fun?

    or Lori  

Hollywood Hills Real Estate

Look what I stumbled upon.

.

this stunner of a Hollywood Hills home. It's for sale and guess who's selling it?

All images courtesy of

Berlyn Photography

| Designer

Brett Barrett

Remember this guy?

Chad Rogers from Million Dollar Listing, LA.

If you would like to see more of this home you can

visit Chad's Blog

...

.

yes, everyone has a blog! 

Life in Naples.....so far

You have all been so kind in following along with my relocation progress. I have received quite a few emails asking about my current living situation and I thought an update would be depressing fun.

Chad Hoeft Designs via The Glam Pad

I was 100% sure that I would have found a property to call home by now. We actually put an offer in on one home, but lost to a higher bid. The listing agent never came back to us to see if we would have increased our offer and did not serve her client well. That home has since closed, and to be honest, I'm not sad about it. It was going to be a HUGE project and I think I really want a moderate sized project, instead.

There are plenty of homes on the market, for those of you who keep asking (dad!!) but not where I want to live. I have more real estate alerts on my phone, than these guys. 

What can I say, we fell in love with a specific section and apparently, those people are not selling at the moment. C'mon snowbirds....it's time!

The weather is hot, there are no two ways about it. My daily uniform consists of these shorts and versions of this top. The locals tell me that this is Naples' version of the winter we have back in the Northeast (indoor only, weather). So far, I have not had to shovel one bit of sunshine and everyone is still smiling....I disagree.

My husband and kids are well settled and content, and of course that makes me happy. The other day, my husband and I went to the supermarket (modern day date night) and the Manager bagged our groceries. It made us laugh, things like that never would have happened at the A&P.

Now if I could only find out where I can buy this seltzer, it would really feel like home....for now. Thanks for hanging in with me, I promise there is more to come.