One year (plus!)

On May 21st, 2011 we first toured our future home, at the time having no expectation that we would be bidding on it, because we were "just looking". Many twists and turns later, it just worked and the house became ours. Now, a look at what has changed after 1 full year of occupancy.

 

The living room/dining room has since been joined to the kitchen, for one of the largest changes, and one that we completed more or less before even moving in! This room is so great. (Eagle eyed readers may notice that the same chair appears in both pictures. We have not hesitated to use the many "gifts" that came along with the house)

A lot of this picture hasn't changed, but oh what a difference for the parts that have! You can't really tell how worn out and ugly the old counters were, but let me tell you, they needed to go (now they live in our garage, in a pile on the floor!). The sink, which you can just barely see on the left side of the "before" picture was a cracked porcelain nightmare- it's been replaced by a shiny stainless steel beauty! Note: said nightmare fetched $20 on craigslist - no accounting for taste!

This is probably the biggest change. I'm GLAD there was asbestos in the ceiling! If not, this might have stayed this way for years!! It has really become our favorite room- Alan uses it for an office, and at night it becomes a great place to play board games and video games with our friends! Apparently we are still 14. Our cats also love the room. They love it so much they leave lots of themselves behind when they leave it.

This was an OK place to hang laundry, except that it was far away from any door. Then we renovated the asbestos room, and bam!: door, and a window magically materialized. Suddenly we cared what it looked like on this side of the house. 6 months later, we tore out the clothesline and pulled up the old pavers, and redid  the whole thing.  Ok, so it's a little messy, but  oh so much nicer.

 

Looking at this, you might thing we got the "before" and "after" pictures mixed up. No. The backyard is the one place that we have managed to make noticeably less nice. We started by tearing out the only really good shade tree (take that, tree!). Then we neglected the grass so much it died (take that, grass!). Now we've dug a bunch of holes in the ground to put in the new trees. Hopefully someday we might achieve the beauty and grace that attracted us to this yard in the first place.



A year has really made a big difference here. After many months it finally started to feel like OUR home, rather than some place we were living. It will be interesting to see what changes the next year brings. Alan hopes most of them will be cheaper than this year's!