I am going to preface by saying that this post may be a little premature. Officially we haven't sold our house, but it is in escrow and we should be closing next week. But I won't have time to be blogging soon and today I am feeling nostalgic, so lets take a little tour of our first place.
This is what the house looked like when we bought it. The picture is blurry, I know, but the paint color was U-G-L-Y and peeling off. So Kari decided to transform it into this....
For a few weeks last July Bryce, I and Bryce's parents painted this sucker. For anyone who thinks "Oh the house just needs a little coat of paint" just know that painting the exterior of a home is long, hard work. But worth it. My neighbor told me that the red paint on the door was a good idea because it keeps the "bad spirits" away. This is the only thing he has ever said to me. Yes, I was a little creeped out.
This room went through the most drastic changes. I wish I had a picture of the original. It was something from a horror movie. I had numerous people in my ward, at the doctor's office, co-workers of Bryce's, say that they had looked at this house and loved it. They would have bought it. Except for one thing. The living room. Picture the white woodwork a dark wood color. Picture metal bear stencils glued to the mantle. Picture orange and hunter green. Yes, I wrote that right. Orange and hunter green. Picture marble tiles lining the walls. When Bryce and I decided to buy the house my one condition was that we needed to get this room fixed within the first few weeks of owning it. Thanks to lots of help from my dad and other family members, we were able to transform this room to one of my absolute favorites.
Here is Quin's room with his first big-boy bed. We do have one potty training stain on the floor in this room. But, shhhhhhhhhhh. That will be our little secret.
Here is the kitchen/family room. We added the chandelier and a ceiling fan that Bryce got working last week. Miracle!
This back patio was Bryce's labor of love. Before there was dirt and a big stump outside. Bryce made a patio out of pavers, laid some bark dust and brought the grass to life.
The master. When we first moved, after about a week, there was water leaking through the wall and we were really freaked out. "We bought a disaster! Ahhhh" we thought. But this too turned out all right in the end.
The fire pit. This one is funny because it is made from all the yard junk that Bryce didn't know what to do with. He had a bunch of stumps, rocks and broken concrete from that back yard. With those things he created this. What can I say, he has vision.
This house is special because Dallin was born while we lived here. I spent hours in that rocking chair. I will always love this room.
And last is a picture of the bark dust that I laid. Yes, see that long line of barkdust lining the sidewalk. Yep, that was all me. Well, me and a wheelbarrow and a ton of barkdust. Once again, one of those projects where you think "this will be an easy project, just throw some barkdust on the ground." But once again, a little trickier and a lot more time consuming than originally thought.
Someone once told me there are houses that you love and houses that you tolerate. This one makes the "love" list. We will miss it and all the memories we made here.
Now just keep your fingers crossed that we close on it in a week....
