If you’ve been following along, you know that I have recently moved my family to sunny SW Florida from Toronto Canada- and we sold almost EVERYTHING in the most epic of moving sales. We came down to the States pulling a 6′ x 12′ trailer that held essentially almost everything of our life in Canada (save for a few pieces that no matter how hard I crammed didn’t make it on to the trailer including my white feather Christmas tree, two gorgeous natural wood end tables and some extra copies of my book The Possibility Mom.

The process has taught me A LOT. And so for this week’s instalment chronicling the room design of my new living room, kitchen and dining room as art of this season’s One Room Challenge, I’m sharing the pros and cons of selling everything when you move.

PRO- DETACHMENT IS A GOOD THING

One great thing I observed as my furniture left my house in Toronto piece by piece was just how OK I was with stuff going. I am a deeply sentimental person. I have kept practically every single drawing my children have made for me, every card, every school craft, etc. And so I thought it would be similar with my stuff- and in truth, the first few pieces were hard to let go of. But after the pieces left, and my life went on so to speak, I realized that ultimately we are the ones who place meaning and value onto things, and I have a big say just how much meaning I give something.

Craziest story of my move- I had a storage room FULL OF STUFF that had not been touched for basically the almost 2 years we lived there. As I have children of all sizes, I have collected quite a few shoes, and boots and sandals and slippers. Unfortunately, there was some water damage on the property and a massive box of kids shoes got completely soaked and left to grow mold (gross). Old Lisa would have mourned the loss and the waste. new Lisa was like, “see you later moldy shoes!!!!”

CON- YOU HAVE TO FIGURE OUT STUFF QUICKLY WHEN YOU MOVE IN

I have never moved with such a small amount to unpack. It was actually quite surreal when we got here and we were able to unload the trailer in a couple of hours. But as a result of selling everything, we had literally nothing to sit on when we got here. If I were to do it all over again, I would have ordered a few pieces to arrive either in advance of us, or very quickly that first week- but I found there was just so much to tackle that I couldn’t get my head around decorating, and I didn’t want to make decisions out of panic or pressure- so we all sat on the stairs, on strollers, and on the floor for the first little while after moving in.

PRO- YOU GET TO START FRESH

There is something so nice about starting practically from scratch. For example- I don’t really have a junk drawer. I don’t have any random things in my freezer, or any half used expired spice bottles or random things like that. That has been SO NICE and noticeably different from other times we have moved.

CON- YOU GET TO START FRESH

The indecision I have felt around decorating my own home has been paralyzing. I am the WORST at designing for myself. Before I wrote my book #thepossibilitymom and started speaking and coaching moms on how to follow their dreams while being a great moms at the same time, I was an interior designer in Toronto for both private clients and HGTV shows like The Property Brothers. I loved what I did but discovered what was really fuelling my passion was helping families thrive- design was just to avenue.

All this to say, I still LOVE design and my tv design days have taught me how to design rooms on a budget, and FAST, which will be helpful because there’s only 2 weeks left for the One Room Challenge so it is going to be a legit race to the finish bahahah.

Here’s a quick update of what’s going on in my home:

We had a bit of an unspoken rule that if it did not fit in a box, it did not come to Florida. So while my furniture did not make the cut, a lot of my small decorative items did and this really made my home feel more like “me”. The cake stand is new and it is PLASTIC which is so helpful with my little toddlers with not so gentle fingers.

I am like a million weeks pregnant LOL and everything is adjusting to this Florida climate WHICH I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT BECAUSE CANADA IS NOW FREEZING COLD. I scored these side chairs second hand (PS- the resale market in Florida is just bananas. People sell high end, beautiful things for next to nothing. These chairs, in incredible condition, were less than $10 EACH! WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!

And I finally pulled the trigger and bought a sofa. Come back next week and I’ll hopefully have it here. Let me tell you it’s going to be the maddest of dashes to the finish line but I AM HERE FOR IT. Nothing like a nesting pregnant mama to get a decor project done in a jiffy.

Check out the featured 20 designers here, and the guest designers here. Thanks to the entire One Room Challenge team for all the motivation to get this room done!