525,600 Minutes
Well...it's been a minute...or a few hundred thousand. All great intentions are just now coming to fruition with our blog. So...here we go. I feel like I need to give a quick-ish introduction to our lives...personal and professional because around here, they constantly blend together!
So for those who are completely new to Blue Door Homes...here is a history lesson. In 2011, Thomas and I (Marida) were set up on a blind date by his mom's best friend who worked with me at the YMCA...talk about what seems like a lifetime ago!!
We quickly blended 2 families consisting of 2 homes and 4 male dogs-all BIG, all dirty...you could say it was providential but more on that to come.
9 months later...we got engaged.
9 months after that...married. We purchased our first home together in Downtown Murfreesboro but both kept our own homes and turned them into long-term rentals.
And 9 months more...you guessed it...we had our first baby BOY 💙!
Life was already moving fast so I guess I shouldn't have ever been surprised that is how everything has been since. Well we got a curveball when the YMCA closed its doors in Murfreesboro August of 2015. I lost my job, benefits for our family and the professional identity I had created over the last 9 1/2 years. But...life must go on so we decided I would stay home with our oldest while Thomas focused his efforts on his landscaping company.
Baby Boys and Blue Door Homes
Soon after our 2nd BOY 💙💙 was born in 2017, we decided to sell my house in East Nashville and invest in our community using a 1031 exchange. THIS was the inception of Blue Door Homes...named after our mutual love for the color blue, the MTSU Blue Raiders and our son.
We purchased a home with about 2.5 times the square footage of my old house and it was at least 30 minutes closer to our home...WIN WIN! Thomas and I decided to do a test run of short-term renting in the upstairs 1 bed/1 bath unit. We didn't have too much to lose given that we had most of the furnishings already (Thomas likes to collect things if you didn't already know that about him). So...on night one of going live...we got booked! A million things were going through our heads! But at the end of the day, we were excited at the opportunity. We quickly realized that this was a niche that we enjoyed and could be successful. We outfitted the 3 bedroom/1.5 bath at the same house downstairs and soon after purchased another home down the road to also short-term rent.
In comes baby BOY #3 💙💙💙! We decided it was time to move somewhere with more land. Well you could say that's how it happened. Ha! What really happened was Thomas showed me a house on a Sunday that he said we had to go see...it was on the river. He set an appointment to look at it the next day. I went along with it. This is not completely out of the norm. By the time I woke up the next morning, he told me it wasn't worth it. The house wasn't ON the river. I told him we should just look for fun. I walked in a fell in love with the potential! Thomas barely saw the inside...he was walking to the river. With a 5 year old, 2 year old and 3 month old baby...we moved to "the country"...4 acres and a VERY dated one story ranch. We got started right away ripping out carpet and stripping wallpaper. With an art background, I was definitely in my element!
Change is the only Constant
Something was happening with our business too...changes are constant remember?! It was organically growing. People started hearing about what we did and wanted us to manage their homes. I was kind of in shock at the beginning...and also honored! I still am when we are approached to help people with their home dreams. Whether it is to renovate, buy, sell or short-term rent, Thomas and I love to be a part of the process. Thomas decided to move away from landscaping and focus on becoming a General Contractor and later adding Real Estate Agent to his business card! It only made sense to have what we needed to be in each part of the process. I joke that I can't get my Real Estate license because every time I tried, I got pregnant. 😂
So in December of 2021, we welcomed baby BOY #4 💙💙💙💙 to the crazy Balch crew! I never imagined being a boy mom to the max but let me tell you...it is SO FUN! At this point I got a lot more used to the constant changes in our lives...family and business. Along the way, we added and removed different properties in our short-term management portfolio. Each time, the moves have been more and more calculated. We have some stand-by personal policies we now go by with more and more experience supporting those decisions. Creating a memorable experience for everyone we work with is our passion and we hope that it shows.
...more to come...