A Tour of our First House…while it’s still our house!

We are moving in 2 DAYS. TWO!!! I can’t believe it! The moving truck is in our driveway, and a few of our awesome friends and family helped us get it filled to the brim over the weekend. We hand over our keys on Thursday and we won’t be getting the keys to our new place until Thursday as well, which means that until then we will be living with a section of our sectional, a tv, and some mattresses on the floor. What more could you want? I won’t even ask who packed the folding card table that was suppose to act as our dining room table for the next few days, because yeah, I kind of still want that, but otherwise we are doing our best to enjoy the adventure…

But before we walk away from this home where we spent the last 13 years, I am taking some time to get a little sentimental. I have been feeling like I need to somehow put a little bubble around my life right in this moment before the backdrop changes entirely. I know, I know, we shouldn’t get so hung up on material things, like a house. It’s the memories that are important, well guess what? I have a TERRIBLE memory!!! I may remember the name of the girl that peed her pants in a green chair (that no one would ever sit in again) in 3rd grade, but as far as remembering the important stuff, it sometimes gets foggy. So I document through pictures. A lot of pictures. To my husbands horror, I will admit that I have over 2500 photos on the camera roll of my phone alone, and we won’t even talk about the hard-drive upgrade that we had to do to my computer when I started a blog! My mother’s motto is, if there isn’t a picture of it, it didn’t happen. I guess that’s where I get it.

So there will be no tutorials in this post, or recipes, and you probably won’t learn anything. It’s just a self indulgent sentimental walk down memory lane where I can make my own little time capsule post to look back on to remember “our first house.” I thought it would also be nice to share a house tour, since I am hoping to include a lot more home DIY posts once we get into the new house and this would give you an idea of our style and where we started.

I wish I had before and after pictures to share, but the only “befores” that I have are in an album already packed up, wah! Maybe another time. We bought our house when we were just babies at 23, and worked our (and our parents…and friends) little butts off to make it our own.

So much has happened here.

We got engaged while living in this house (that’s not my house)…

We’ve had 11 New Year’s Eve parties here…

and a mudfest of a pigroast for my husband’s 30th birthday here…

Lyle and his groomsmen got ready for our wedding here…
Ha! Like they shared/took pictures of that! (can I just point out that all of those groomsmen were here hauling boxes on Saturday, except for one, who is OUR REALTOR, and sold our house in 28 HOURS!!! You guys are awesome!…and probably not reading this blog, lol)

We welcomed a puppy into our family here, and said goodbye to one of the sweetest dogs in the world here……

We brought our babies home here…

bathed them in the kitchen sink here…

watched them take their first steps here, literally and figuratively…

and form their first sibling bonds and rivalries here…

We took a house that was completely old, outdated and a little moldy and made it our own…

Gage’s Room…

Ellie’s Room…

Master Bedroom and Bath…

Basement Gym and Playroom…

My “Office” and Laundry Room…

Backyard…

This house holds so much joy for my family and these photos do bring back so many memories. I hate to let it go, but we never intended to stay here forever. We always considered this our “starter home,” and always hoped and dreamed for a little more property someday, especially now that we have kids. So we are finally taking the leap and starting over. We have found ourselves buying another “fixer-upper.” It’s another house with great bones, but is completely outdated, so over time we can renovate it, fix it up, and make it our own. AND we have our own little slice of property that the kids can run around and get into trouble on. I am so excited to see what our new home holds for us and the memories we will make there, that I can take pictures of. We have a lot of work ahead, but luckily the rest of our lives to get it done, because we really believe that this will be our “forever home.”

Once we get in and get settled a bit, I will be sure to share a house tour of the new house and all it’s mint green bathroom glory, until then, I’ll be sitting in my near empty “1st house” blubbering like a baby, and begging the new owner to let me peek through the windows every once in awhile in a completely non stalkerish way.

xo
c

In case I don’t get posts up as often as I would like while we are moving, be sure to follow along on Facebook and Instagram for more regular updates!