The Story of Our House: The 1st Year

 

Every house has a story.  I think that’s why we can get so emotionally attached to them—or not, depending on the memories we make there.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in our “new” house for a little over a year.  And, I’m realizing I’ve never really shared much of a home tour.  So, here are several of the pictures I snapped the day we closed on the house last June, and some highlights of our family’s first twelve months here.

 

 

 

 

We bought the house from a sweet lady (who I hear checks the blog; I hope she likes our changes!).  She and her late husband built it about twelve years ago, and I could tell there was a lot of love and attention to detail that went into it from the first moment I walked through the door.  As the saying goes, it just had “good bones”.

 

 

 

 

 

This was the formal dining room that we changed into our home office:

 

 

 

 

I loved the spaciousness of the breakfast room and kitchen—for good reason.  We spend lots of time here:

 

  

 

 

The living room (you can see a glimpse of my progress here) . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the master bedroom, which leads to the master bath, which leads to the closet:

 

 

We took down the window treatments and painted the bedroom earlier this year.  See the new color here.

I plan on changing the wallpaper, but I have zero experience with taking it down.  I’ll be sure to blog about that when it happens :)

 

 

 

 

The master closet was a surprise when we first looked at the house, with lots of custom built-ins.  This could be a great “dressing room” some day, but for now, we also use it for baby supplies and the occasional game of hide and seek:

 

 

 

 

The powder room—and most likely my next project:

 

 

 

 

The laundry room with lots of storage, which makes me really happy:

 

 

 

 

One of the kids’ bedrooms—both look basically like this:

 

 

 

 

And, the space I spend the least time in but am probably the most thankful for—our playroom:

 

 

Wouldn’t that window nook be perfect for something like this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first “dinner party” the night we moved in:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I told you that we were in the middle of the Better Homes & Gardens shoot (at the old house) at the same time we were moving.  But, we were so excited to stay here that we slept without any furniture for the first couple of nights :)

 

 

 

 

We also learned that along with mature landscaping comes a lot of work.  My dad spent a whole day of their first visit trapped in our shrubs with a trimmer.

 

 

 

 

During the first year, we’ve had fun celebrating birthdays, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The colors of the seasons,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holidays,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And “BIG” surprises . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, almost one year exactly after our move-in day, we moved in two new family members:

 

Arriving home from the hospital and slightly scared to death :)

 

 

Thanks for sharing in our first, fun year in this house.