The House

Well, we did it guys.  Finally.  We bought a house.  Most of you are painfully aware of our long lived search for a house to purchase.  This year we finally realized that we would never ever ever be successful in any of our bids for houses in our ward (where we go to church) and we turned our sights to the other side of town where the market is a little more welcoming.

 

This has been our home since the day we got married.  It was part of the reason why it took us so long to find a new house.  You see, I loved this house with all my heart!  It was so perfect for our family and kind of cool (I thought) and now holds so many beautiful memories of our life together as a family.  Besides, we lived right next door to the French Oven Bakery and made friends with Richard the owner, who would graciously leaves boxes of baked goods on our doorstep regularly.  Even more importantly, he and his wife loved our babies.  The day we told him we were moving he said he would be sad to not see the babies grow up.  I started bawling.  Because that's the whole point!!!  I didn't want to leave our neighborhood not just because of the people we loved, but because of how perfectly they loved our babies.  It seems silly to be so traumatized by moving 15 minutes across town, but still.  Apparently I am not good with change.  But I digress...we finally did it anyway. 

 

 

Yep.  We went from renting the above tiny cute house, to owning the below tiny cute house. 

 



We had been working with the same wonderful realtor for some years.  When we first started looking with her we were still trying to figure out how many bedrooms we would need if we were going to adopt a baby or do foster care or who knows what.  And look at us, all grown up with our two toddlers as we signed our closing paperwork!

I am still grieving over leaving our ward, but I want to focus on the really great things about our new house.  Like our trees. It was a glorious fall watching the leaves change colors, cling and then gently fall. 

 

Also, I am a fan of the peonies in the front.

 

Easily the best part of this house is the yard.  It has by far the best yard of any of the houses we looked at (and there were many).  It's fenced so the babies can run free, which is their favorite thing to do.  Our backyard was Ezra's magical happy place all summer and fall.  When it snowed...not so much.  But we're working on it.  Not only is there a lovely lilac tree...

 

...we also have 2 fully functioning apple trees!  Just no pictures of them, apparently.

 

The yard didn't have any raspberries, so we put some in. 

 

 

Another good thing about this house is that we feel like we got a screaming deal.  Which means there was work to do!  Mostly just cosmetic stuff, but this house project ended up being how we spent our summer.  So we don't really have any fun Alaska summer pictures this year, unfortunately, but we do finally have a house.  And luckily, I have a brother who selflessly flew himself and his whole family up here to do nothing but work on our house.  Am I a lucky girl or what? 

 

So the rest of this post is going to be dedicated to our renovations.  If you don't care, don't look.

 

First things first, I want to clarify that any time I use the word "we," I mean anyone other than myself.  Mostly Paul.  But also Levi and Jen and their kids.  And some really great friends.  Why didn't I help with anything?  I was busy helping two very busy little toddlers stay alive and out of the way. 

 

 

These are some before shots of the living room.  These are the pictures that were posted on their listing online, which explains the furnishings which are not exactly our taste. 

 

 

 

 

Jen took care of the painting. She only dropped her phone in the tray full of paint once...and salvaged it!!!  I only cried over the stress of choosing a color for the walls once.  (First world problems??)  I'm still ashamed of it. 

 

 

Levi and Paul put in new flooring in this area and the kitchen. 

 

 

  

This was Paul's triumphant pose after completing that project.   

 

 

This was Esme's contribution to the painting/flooring project. 

 

 

 

Later, we hired a guy, (a really fantastic guy named Kevin) to put in some bigger windows in our living room and a window seat/nook in our kitchen for some added light and elbow room.

Our living room is south facing which is absolutely necessary in Alaska.  In the winter the sun just kind of skims the southern horizon, so if you want any sunlight in your house, you've gotta have south facing windows. 

After pictures of the sun filled living room.

Yes, I know, I hung my pictures too high.  I was going to wait until we got them where I want them before doing this post...but I'm already like 5 months late...so just know that I'm aware they need to be lowered. 

We also had Kevin put in some really great can lights, replacing a couple dim ghetto light fixtures.  Let me tell you what...it's one of my favorite changes.  And they dim!!

Okay, so on to the kitchen.  Before.

Kevin put in our little nook.



Hi Kevin!

Paul painted the cupboards, put on new hardware, added a couple cupboards and a backsplash and voila!

 

The master bedroom before.

 

Because we can't ever do anything normal, and because drums and foosball are so important to this family...we decided to put a loft in the master bedroom for our bed, so we would have room for all the important stuff.

After pictures of the rec room/master bedroom.  Because who doesn't want a rec/master bedroom?

When Levi and Jen left, Paul was on his own to finish the rest of the stuff we wanted done...which seemed like an unending list.  We were really shocked at how long everything took.  But we made it.  Eventually. 

Kids' bedroom before.

Kids' bedroom after. (Yep, they finally have their own cribs!)

Bathroom before.

Bathroom after.

 

 

 

So that's it.  We now live exactly across the street from where I lived when Paul was a missionary, which is kind of funny. 

We did let Levi's family have one morning off to go fishing down at Ship Creek.

While all the constructioning was going on at the new place, Ezra and Esme were helping me pack up our old place.

 

And sometimes this happened instead of packing up.  That's me asleep on the floor.  Because that's what I do when I'm pregnant.  Yep...having another baby!!!  Can you believe it??? 

 

And so we all lived happily ever after.