My House

I have so many emotions tied up in my house. And now that the time has come to sell it, they are all bubbling to the surface in a confusing mess. My dear dear house no longer fills our needs. We need more. This is a great house. It will make someone else very happy. Just like it’s made me very happy. I bought this house a year after I moved home from Texas after an absolutely devastating end to a serious relationship with the man I thought I would marry. This house was the final piece of picking myself up and being independent. Knowing that I can do it on my own and don’t need to rely on others. I remember when I first looked at it. I had a price range I was looking at and this was slightly above it. There are only two bedrooms, with the possibility of more. Being built in 1920 gives it some interesting and lovely characteristics. One of which is the floating wall between two of the upstairs bedrooms. The previous owner had removed the wall so instead of there being three bedrooms upstairs, there was one normal sized and a double sized master! Excellent for the single life. So much beautiful original wood work in this place. Not that it didn’t have it’s fair share of issues and shortcomings. The plumbing in the upstairs bathroom was done poorly (that’s putting it nicely) and the space for the toilet was 24″ so pretty much you felt like you were in a tiny closet. That was the first major remodel. Bryan and I got together sometime around then and he eventually moved in. With all of the hard work we poured into that project he made my house a home for us. And that was the beginning of the remodels. I bought this place five years ago, almost to the day. In the last five years we have remodeled almost the entire house. There are so many different memories. There is the ceiling fan in the kitchen that was originally this horrid white thing with a neon blue light strip that only partially worked around part of it. It took us four hours to replace it (should have been much less time) because there wasn’t the proper electric box in there but we made it work. The fan was horribly unbalanced. My dad fixed it for us that weekend. We repainted several rooms. Bryan pushed me into more daring and bold colors than I would normally choose that turned out wonderfully. There were several late nights of me painting while Bryan would make dinner and keep me fueled with booze and snacks. One of the first parts of the bathroom remodel we did was to move where the window was. Yes, it can be done. The existing location sucked so we took that window out, studded, sheetrocked, sided and put the new one in. Bryan wholeheartedly jumped into it. Which meant lots of standing on the top of verrrry tall ladders. Standing on one section of roof, holding onto the edge of the house and reaching way out to nail with his non-dominant hand. We just redid the kitchen, knowing that it would help sell the house. We stripped the wallpaper, painted, put in new countertop/sink/faucet, installed a tile backsplash, and changed the cabinet hardware. All in I think 6 weeks. A very crazy 6 weeks. It’s lovely and we should have done it before so we had more time to enjoy it. The kitchen is where Bryan proposed to me. On a very special/quirky/romantic night. He had the ring custom made and couldn’t wait for some big elaborate proposal and when I got home from my class and was putting groceries away I turned around to find him on one knee. Far from the fairy tale “perfect” moment but it’s us. It is who we are as a couple and it is perfect. This house has held a lot of laughter and tears, joy and sorrow. My first house which Bryan made into our first home is where we fell in love. And joined our lives together without knowing it. And got engaged. When our whirlwind get-the-house-market-worthy prep is done and it’s on the market it’s going to be sad. Part of me can’t imagine leaving this place. There is so much here I love. But removing emotion, this is our past. We need to move forward to our future. It’s exciting, thinking of the new houses out there, the new possibilities, the new renovations. It’s sad but exciting. I see good things coming.