We’re Moving to Napa!

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I’m so excited to share some news with you guys that I’ve been holding in for a little over a month now. We bought our first house! And like the title of this post shares, we’re leaving San Francisco and moving to Napa!

I’m a glass box of emotions over here, but mostly I’m just so excited for Omied and I to be homeowners and have a place to call our own.

We’ve lived in San Francisco, in the same one-bedroom, rent-controlled (#bless) apartment for nine years. And while I love this city and feel so lucky to have lived here, we’re ready for a change of pace.

Our apartment has been feeling smaller and smaller over the last couple of years, but especially with us both being quarantined and working from home for the foreseeable future, it’s really been feeling like the walls are closing in on us lately.

We’ve been eyeing Napa for a couple of years now. Wine country is one of our favorite places to spend the weekend, and Napa is also where we got engaged (you can read our engagement story here!). During one of our trips there, I thought I’d take a look at Redfin just for the heck of it, and I found that homes were actually relatively affordable (compared to San Francisco and the East Bay…it’s still California, people).

So the seed was planted and we started to consider Napa more and more. Especially as it was looking less and less likely that we’d be able to afford the type of house that we wanted (with extra bedrooms, a backyard, a large kitchen, etc.) in San Francisco, the idea of moving to Napa became even more appealing. For the price of a one-bedroom condo in SF, we could get a four-bedroom house in Napa.

Before Covid hit, we had gone to check out some open houses in Napa but hadn’t made any offers. We were thinking that we might get serious about a potential Napa move next year. But then corona surprised us all, and the combination of interest rates being historically low, uncertainty in the real estate market from a seller perspective, and seeing a house listed that we fell in love with all swirled together to create the right opportunity for us.

So we jumped on it, and here we are!

Several people have asked me if I’m sad to be leaving the city and the truth is…no, not really. We’ve had a great experience living here for the last nine years, but at this point, the inconveniences of living in the city (lack of space, crazy neighbors, people shouting on our street at 2am on a Tuesday, obnoxious landlords, ? and ? on the sidewalk…I could go on and on) are really outweighing the pros of living here, for us.

And SF is only an hour away, so the things I do love about San Francisco are still easily accessible and I plan to be in the city often for meetings, events, catching up with friends, etc., once those things are a reality again post Covid.

But for now, I’m just so excited for this new chapter! We are literally quadrupling (!!) our space, and we already have so many ideas for updates we want to do to the house.

And of course, this also means I’ll be able to dive into a new vertical on What The Fab and share way more home content! Decor, furniture, projects…I can’t wait!!

Our new house has three bedrooms and a bonus room, so we’re thinking besides the master bedroom we’ll have a guest room and we’ll make one my cloffice (closet + office). Which honestly feels like a dream because I’ve always wanted to have a dedicated workspace that’s super “bloggy,” as Omied would call it. ?

We’re not 100% sure what to do with the bonus room yet (one idea was to make it What The Fab shipping and receiving since I deal with a lot of packages ?). There’s also a large landing area at the top of the stairs that we’ll probably make Omied’s office.

Downstairs, we’re excited to have a spacious kitchen that will be life-changing. We’ve gotten so used to our galley kitchen where Omied and I literally rub butts if we’re both in it at the same time. And there’s an actual pantry. Coming from SF we’re like, what’s that?? I think the pantry is abouttt the same size as our old kitchen. ? There’s also some really sweet amenities like a wet bar, backyard, and…a wine cave ? (!!).

Anyways, I have so many ideas for house projects bouncing around in my head (who are we kidding, they are all listed out with status updates in a spreadsheet, because I am who I am and I can’t hide the PM in me). I can’t wait to show you more of the new house and share all of the progress as we get settled in!!