Our House -- The Early Days

Yup. That's us. Not a great photo of us (right? glad I've refined my bangs -- looking a bit blunt and bushy), but a significant one. We're standing here with the previous owner of our home. She lived there for 59 years -- moved in when the house was BRAND NEW!!! -- until we purchased it in June 2008. I post this today because several of my friends just bought and moved into their first homes and, well, it made me think back to that special time in our lives.

And we have some photos from the early days to share with you all today. Here's the tour :)

This is the first photo I took inside our home. I just love the glass door handles throughout the house. I learned from neighbors that not all homes like ours (and there are many -- a local company built hundreds of cookie-cutter houses in three different layouts in the late 1940s) have this feature. It has something to do with the boss being away in winter, so the builders could splurge or something like that. We're happy about it.

Now on to the living room. Look at all that green carpeting! Yikes!

The dining room. No. We weren't lucky. That lighting fixture (from West Elm) wasn't there when we moved in. I hated the one that was up so much that it's one of the first things we ripped out.

Unfortunately, I didn't snap any photos of the kitchen. When we moved in, the kitchen walls were covered in yellow and orange sunflower wallpaper. The refrigerator was obstructing any semblance of a flow that could be had. And it was carpeted, as I've mentioned many times before. I mentioned above how one of the first things I did when we moved in was remove the lighting fixture. Well . . . the VERY FIRST thing I did the night we moved in was rip down the wallpaper. Ah, it felt sooooo good.

Moving to the master bedroom. I laugh at this one because it's so . . . sad/sparse? And what you don't see is that the paint that had been on the walls for years and years was actually faded in parts. I painted over it with a light grey which only washed out the room even more.

Here's the office in all her pink-walled glory. I quite liked the couch, but we parted ways with it late last year when we redid the space.

Not sure why, but I don't have photos of the other rooms later. With how many I take daily, you'd think I would have been on my game with that. What I do have a photo of is our insanely disorganized packing system. Scully's in there, too. We didn't want to forget her!

As well, I documented the orange carpet and peach walls that made our hallway look oh-so-1970s. And Scully again. It was summer. She was hot.

Here's where we ripped up the layers of stained vinyl that covered our bathroom floor. That was a fun day. I think I may still have a splinter or two.

Piles of rhododendron branches and leaves from when we ripped out the two gigantic bushes that had been there for ages. I believe at this point, almost all neighbors on our street have thanked us for the beautification efforts.

So, there you have it -- our very earliest house photos. Not so pretty. But. Oh, the memories! It's been quite a year and a half.

If you'd like to see what our house looks like now (not really the "afters" because it's a project that has always and will always be in process), go check out our newly-updated (with more kitchen photos) HOUSE TOUR.

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