On House Hunting and Heart Break
What I learned when I didn’t get my ‘dream house.’
Welcome to So Many Thoughts, a semi-weekly newsletter about royal style and the other parts of life I want to think through with you. You can subscribe here and follow me on Instagram at @EHolmes. Thank you!
This week marks one year since we moved into our new home in Los Angeles. I am a sucker for these sorts of milestones, welcoming the chance to reflect and rethink. Below I wanted to share the story of how we ended up with our house and a few (very needed!) lessons I learned along the way. Plus, five links for you.
Take care, friends. 💗
Is it possible to have your heart broken…by a house?
When we started looking for a new home in Los Angeles, in late spring of last year, the real estate market was red hot. It was that brief moment in the pandemic when the vaccines were rolling out, the variants weren’t yet a threat, and it felt like life was opening up again. The energy was palpable and the competition was fierce, with listings routinely going for over the asking price.
It was an immense privilege to be entering the fray at all—and super intimidating. Matt and I were first-time buyers under the pressure of a looming deadline. We needed to get out of our rental in the Bay Area by the end of our lease and into a new SoCal locale before our oldest son started first grade.
With the clock ticking, we traversed the city looking at one home after the next. I quickly ruled out most properties—too old, too funky, too hilly, too bland—until I fell hard, really hard, for one. The listing photos were so stunning I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see it. Was this poised for a bidding war? Our agent assured me it was within our reach. I toured it skeptically the first time, looking for flaws, not wanting to get my hopes up.
But the more I thought about it, the more I could picture our family there. I began imagining breakfast at the kitchen counter and afternoons splashing in the pool out back. The swoon-worthy interiors, with saturated paint shades and bold wallpaper, drew me in further. Soon everything felt like a sign, from the nook at the bottom of the stairs to the tile in the bathroom.
This was it. This was ✨OUR HOUSE ✨ I felt it deep down in my bones. We wrote up our offer and paired it, on the recommendation of our realtor, with an impassioned letter to the sellers (which I know is a problematic practice). I heaped on praise for paragraph after paragraph, closing my note with “If I could hug a house, I would!” I even added “WeLoveYourHome” to the PDF file name.
[I know, I KNOW. So cringe.]
Turns out, I was not the only person who loved that stunner of a house. There were 14 (!) other offers and an epic bidding war ensued. The price quickly climbed out of our comfort zone. I’m quite certain my gushing letter never even made it to the owners.
I was devastated. The tears! THE TEARS. I cried so hard. I haven’t cried that hard in a very long time, crushed at the thought we had missed out on our dream house—and with it, some unrealized dream of a life. “Probably never stood a chance,” I wrote in an online post in my moms’ group, summarizing our saga. “It was AWFUL.” When a well-intended commenter tried to reassure me that our house was still out there, I responded, “So much sobbing this weekend!” and “Now I’m worried I’ll think about losing this house for the rest of time!”
Oof. As silly as it seems in hindsight, I know I was feeling it fiercely then.
Eventually, I dried those dramatic tears and got back in the hunt. My head knew to look for a house with less polish to avoid another circus, but my heart countered that a house like that was a lot harder to love. Who wanted to want a house that no one else wanted? I shuffled my way through another few tours until I came across a listing for a shingled house with white roses out front. It had massive curb appeal.
“I’m nervous to hope,” I texted Matt. “To get attached.”
When I arrived early to see it, I watched as another couple crossed the threshold, took one quick look, and hightailed it out of there. Inside, I understood why. The listing was not carefully staged as so many LA places are these days. Rather, it was a family home with lots of signs of, well, life. The tan walls were scuffed, the carpet leading up the stairs was stained. There was a broken shelf in the shower and more than one ceiling fan was missing a blade. The bedrooms were painted vibrant teal, grayish purple, and brownish yellow.
Still, I found myself lingering, trying to see the potential. The layout was just what we were after, and the location had a lot going for it. The kitchen had been redone recently. What would a coat of paint do to the other rooms? Or ripping out the old carpet? Then I spotted a series of lines on one wall, each with a name and a date, marking the climbing heights of three kids who had grown up in the house.
I flew home and told Matt I wanted to bid. Were we settling? I wasn’t sure. Our offer was one of just a few and was accepted without much fuss. From that moment, there was too much to do for me to assess how I was feeling. The inspection found some mold, which needed remediating. I scrambled to get quotes from a contractor and a painter. I ran around town with a single floorboard in hand, trying to find matching hardwood to put in upstairs. I bought a dozen samples of paint, testing them on different patches of different rooms, until I got so overwhelmed I shouted “LET’S PAINT IT ALL WHITE.“ At my lowest point, I shut the door on the demolished primary bath and pressed pause on all things house-related. We were living in a too-small temporary apartment, which was not fun. It was time to move into this house of ours and make it work.
All the while, my thoughts kept drifting back to that first home in all of its fully-designed, move-in-ready glory. Wouldn’t life be easier, better even, if we had gotten that house?
Easier? Maybe...? Better? No. A year later, I can say with certainty that it was not our house. It was objectively beautiful. But it was not meant to be, not for our family. Looking back, I see how the bedrooms were small, the kitchen was cramped, and the wallpaper was someone else’s choice. The house we got makes so much more sense for us for so many reasons—and the work we’ve put into it has made it our own.
We have a lot more to do, to be sure. But when we came home Monday from our weekend away, I exhaled and thought for the first time: I love our house. I truly do. I love the peacock wallpaper climbing the redone stairs and the window box molding we added to the living room walls. The built-ins we had made to frame the TV space are a game changer, perfect for toy storage. And I can’t wait to see how the blue tile we have picked out looks in the primary bath.
As a person who has always held things tightly and felt things deeply, there are so many lessons to be learned here. There’s the yes/and of it all: Yes, I loved that first house, and we found a better house for our family. And it’s the reminder that anytime I put myself into a project, the effort can make the end result mean more. But mostly, it’s the realization that even the strongest sentiments, the ones that feel like they will last forever, can change.
Five Things To Check Out This Week
READ / As more kids head back to school this week, I dove a bit deeper into the phenomenon of restraint collapse. My piece includes really great advice from experts on ways to prepare your kids—and yourself!—before it happens. Get ahead of it! (Romper)
ORDER / Danielle Prescod’s memoir, Token Black Girl, is available several weeks before its October pub date through the Amazon First Reads program. Huzzah! I ordered my copy, very excited to read. (Amazon)
READ / Not Amy Schumer offering up her income and expense details to a New Yorker reporter?? (The New Yorker)
READ / An exhaustive timeline of Don’t Worry Darling drama, which I didn’t know I needed. And I’m still not sure I need! But I read anyway. (Vulture / New York Magazine)
SHOP / Still very much on my quest to figure out how to layer necklaces. This feels like a promising addition! (Nordstrom)
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ICYMI Last week I had a fascinating conversation about royal photography that I had with the curator of the Hulton Archive, which is owned by Getty Images.
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