Seven years ago I had somehow evaded the round of layoffs at work, and Jacob worked in service, which wasn't necessarily being effected by the recession at the time. Rent prices in Atlanta were soaring, and it didn't make sense to keep downsizing apartments. So we started the house hunt.
Our goal was to find a "starter" home. Something to get our feet wet in the home owning world, and something to gather equity to help us buy our "dream" home in a few years. We had no idea what the future/recession held for us. We looked at a lot of homes.
Then we found the "Purple" house. The outside was painted lavender with dark purple shutters and door, with white trim. The living room, dinning room, and master bedroom was plastered with blue/purple/pink striped wallpaper. The basement was pink, and other rooms were a light blue, that matched the counter tops and carpets. It was a three bedroom, two bathroom "gem". I fell in love. I loved the odd shaped living room, the shag carpet in the "completed" basement, and the backyard was already fenced in, ready for Lola to call home. The previous owners had moved states and wanted the house gone. We got our house for what was a steal at the time. It took a little over 3 months, but we soon were able to say we lived in a purple house.
When we moved in we had so much room! The master easily fit our over sized king bedroom set, we had an office space, and extra bedroom for guests. Our porch was big enough for a medium sized grill and outdoor furniture. The basement had a 12 foot long closet, that held all of our items needing to be stored. The entire large room was wired and set up for Jacob's man cave.
The recession hit us hard. We lost value on our house two years after moving in. Our paychecks were the same, but the cost of living went up, and any money we were setting aside for home improvement disappeared. The house took a backseat as we, along with most of middle America, struggled to make sure the bills were paid. Not to mention we experienced the norms of owning a house, as in plumbing issues, heating struggles, flooding that collapsed our two backyard retaining walls, oh, and that time I put my foot through the floor by the back wall that lead to a 3 month long "renovation" where the back wall of the house, connecting the kitchen and dinning room, had to be completely replaced, because they found "wood rot". We sold almost anything extra we had in the house to help with the bills. The basement shag carpet had to be taken up due to the "wood rot" and having a litter of 7 puppies raised down there. We were living in the house, but it wasn't something we would call an oasis, or really somewhere we wanted to have people over.
Then we found out we were pregnant. It was at our 5 year mark in the house. We had wanted to sell around 5 years. Although the recession was over, the value had not increased in our house. There was no way to come out even on the house, which meant we had to start looking at our starter home as a we-need-a-couple-of-more-years-out-of-this-house-home. With no budget we started to decide what needed to be done to make this house our home.
We painted and hung curtains in the living room. I know, it took us 5 years, but it is what it is. We moved the office to the basement, the guest bedroom to the office, and created a nursery. With a step-dad as the most handy man I know we visited lumber yards, clearance sections, and created a beautiful, functional area for our baby. We painted the dinning room and kitchen. We started to replace light fixtures, outlets, and door handles. Just a little at a time.
Now we find ourselves pregnant with our second. In a home that was suppose to be our, as in two people, starter home. We are now a family of almost four humans, three cats, and two dogs. It would have been so easy to just get upset or disappointed in our situation. But Jacob, being so super handy after learning so much through the years, decided we have plenty of room. We just had to reorganize the space we have.
Cade moved to the front room, in what I think is the cutest big boy room we ever could have created. The nursery has been "pinkified". What used to be the large room in the basement, has had the floor stained, and has nice area rugs to define each new space. We have created a guest bedroom, a playroom/man cave, office, and athletic area. In our smaller room in the basement, we have Jacob's tool bench, and laundry room. We have purged so much. I don't know if it is the "nesting" part of pregnancy or what, but Jacob and I just have such a devotion to make space for our family, and not keeping materials that would push the family out.
All of these changes took months at a time. It took planning, scoping out the good deals, gathering materials, and completing a little at a time. Jacob worked on completing half of the basement big room at a time, causing him to have to drag everything down there side to side, twice. It took a month and a half from start to finish in the basement. But I am so happy with our finished house. Cade loves having so much room in his new play room, and Jacob was so happy when we set back up his surround sound. I am just so happy feeling like so much is gone out of our house that we didn't need anyway.
Are there things left to do? Um. Yes. We have never done anything with the master. The paint that was sprayed, yes sprayed, over the striped wallpaper has started to become so thin I am starting to see some hues of blues and purples. I have pinned many images of mud rooms that I want to create. The laundry/tool room floor needs to be stained. The stairs need some attention. The outside of the house, well it is with pain in my heart that we have a fund started to repaint it, and it won't be purple.
But what have we learned? We have always been so lucky to have our house. It is not in our perfect neighborhood. It is not our dream house. It has a lot of imperfections that we know we won't have in our next house. But I am back to the point where I am just as happy with our home as I was the day we found it.
We are home.
No comments:
Post a Comment