We bought our house in 2011 in the middle of the housing crisis. We had been married for two years and desperately wanted to get out our loft apartment, because we were tired of writing our rent checks to our landlord’s kids’ trust funds. We knew that houses were just sitting on the market and that we could take our time looking – unlike today where you have to rush to the house the minute it is listed and immediately put your offer down whether you’re in love with the house or not.
Our realtor definitely worked for her commission. We toured our house six or more times, taking our parents, grandparents, siblings or really anyone that wanted to go through it.
It wasn’t pretty.
It had dusty pink walls with maroon accents anywhere it was possible, metallic wall paper (the kind with the paper backing on it so it was like taking down two layers of wall paper even though it was only one), and old stained carpeting along with a variety of laminate and tile flooring throughout the house. The kitchen was redone in the early 1990’s and the bathroom probably about the same time. It, too, carried the pink and maroon theme.
It took some convincing on my husband’s end to see the potential that I saw in it. Outside of the cosmetic, it had everything we were looking for – three or more bedrooms, at least 1.5 bathrooms, nice neighborhood that was close to downtown and a yard that was manageable (I didn’t want something that required a riding lawnmower). I knew at the time that everything would need to be overhauled, not so much at the price it would require, but we were in our twenties and everything was seen through rose colored glasses.
After some ups and downs with the buying process our 1954 garrison colonial was ours and you better believe that the first thing we did was rip down the wall paper! We actually had about three weeks left in our loft before we had to move so we spent every free minute working on the house to get it “move-in ready”. We took down wall paper, repaired walls, painted E V E R Y room and fixed everything the home inspector pointed out to us.
And now here we are, eight years later. We’ve done A LOT to it – renovated the kitchen and two bathrooms, discovered the original hardwoods and had them restored, installed matching hardwoods in the rooms that didn’t have them, hung new lighting throughout, painted all the walls at least three times over, created a new outdoor/patio space complete with a new lawn, sprinkling system and landscaping, put on a new roof and ceiling in the family room (ice damn) and countless other projects cosmetic and non.
I can’t say this is our forever home, but it is certainly a place we love and intend to stay for a while now that it is completely ours.
2 thoughts on “about our house”