Most of my readers (all 3 of you) already know that we're moving...tomorrow! I thought I'd take some time this afternoon to reflect on this house that has served us for 5 years.
I recently spent some time walking around our house, and then looking at pictures I've taken of it in the past. I have a set of pictures from before we even moved in - when it was a foreclosure. And then I have lots of pictures of various updates we've made over the 5 years we've lived here. It was a nice trip down memory lane, and I decided to repeat a post I did just over 5 years ago, when we first purchased this house.
This post was entitled Things I Won't Miss in Our Apartment - and it was my 'bottom 10'. I meant it as part humorous, part looking forward to new and exciting things, but I was surprised that some people took it as complaining. They told me I should be grateful because it was way better than their first home. (Now who's complaining?)
I truly meant for it to be a grateful post. I was grateful for the apartment where we shared our first year of marriage. But is a basement apartment (that was added as an afterthought, and therefore not really a well-thought-out living space) really where I'm supposed to want to live forever? Was it so wrong for me to be excited about a house that would be all ours? I don't believe that was wrong, but I thought that with our upcoming move, I'd make two lists. One of things I won't miss, but also one of things I will. And maybe that's all that was missing from my last post to make it seem less whiny. (But honestly looking back, I can only think of one or two things that I really liked about that apartment.)
This home, however - our first house - I'm quite sad to leave. I know we need to move; Caleb has too far to drive to work now, plus we're running out of room for children. And I'm very excited about our new house (and will post all about that soon), but that doesn't mean I don't still love this house. I will miss it - a lot!
I tried to come up with two even lists: 10 things I'll miss and 10 things I won't. But I couldn't quite come up with 10 things I won't miss, and came up with more than 10 I will. (There's your gratitude right there, mister.) So without further ado: My Bottom '10' and My Top '10'.
My Bottom '10' (in no particular order):
1. I will not miss all the traffic. We live on the corner of two very busy streets. To be fair, my daughter loves watching the cars (this will be noted in the next list), but pulling out of the driveway takes some getting used to.
2. I will not miss the sirens. We're moving within 2 miles of a fire department, but right now, we're right across the street.
3. I will not miss the road construction. Because we live on two busy streets, they get repaired more frequently than roads less traveled. This summer, we lived through a very long repair job that closed down our main route for the entire season. This added 5-10 minutes to our commute anywhere - not a huge deal, but still kind of annoying when your doctor's office should be 3 miles away, and is instead 15. (Of course, now they won't have to do anything to it for a few years.) (And to be fair, the upside of living on a busy street is that we get plowed earlier in the winter.)
4. I will not miss our basement. It's a 1940s basement, and when we bought this house, it was dirty, creepy, and dark.
To be fair, we've done a lot to improve it. Like, you know, cleaning it. And then 2 years ago, when we first thought we were going to move, my friends and family came and painted it for us. The walls got coated in a white sealer paint that was supposed to help keep moisture out, and the floors got painted a beautiful blue/grey. Even the support posts got painted. Everything looks much cleaner now:
And yet, the basement itself is unfinishable. The ceiling is too low to add drywall or a drop ceiling, and while there is very little moisture, in a bad storm, we do get some puddles in the corners. While we can use the basement for storage and laundry, it's wasted space beyond that.
5. Of course, the storage space in the basement is very important, because there's not a lot of it in the rest of the house. I will not miss that! There's a large closet in the master bedroom, a small closet in the 2nd bedroom (Jo's room), a little cupboard in the hallway (which, for the first few years, got mice in it - we've since eradicated them), and a big closet in the entryway. And that's it. The 3rd bedroom (the office) has no closet. We've made it work, obviously, but I'm looking forward to having extra space.
6. Do you watch HGTV shows like Love It or List It? There's always some dramatic scene where they show the husband and wife trying to maneuver through their too-small space, ending with someone dropping something, and the other in a huff. That's pretty much been us in the office. Once Jo was born, I had to move my sewing things out of her room. It's not really something I can do in the basement, and the living room seemed impractical with an exploring baby roaming around, so the only option was to share Caleb's office. It works, sort of, but we have days where we trip over each other, and it's not really fair to him, since I usurped his space.
7. I will not miss having only one bathroom. Okay, okay, I know millions of people survive with only one bathroom their entire lives. And it's almost never a problem. Except when I'm pregnant and can not wait. I would be fine having only one bathroom, true, but since we bought a house with 2.5, I think I'm allowed to rejoice in that. But, seriously, though, I will miss this pretty bathroom:
 |
| Photo by Harr Creative |
8. Our new house has plenty of bedrooms - room to grow. We'll even have a spare room, which is pretty exciting. But even if we had a child in each bedroom, if we had some overnight guests, two of the kids could share a room for a bit. At our current house, the best we can offer company is the couch, or an air mattress on the living room floor. We don't have overnight guests a lot, but then again, we also don't have accommodations for them.
9. Finally, I will not miss the distance from everything. This is the main reason we are moving now. Of course, when we purchased this house, one of our main reasons was the proximity to everything in our lives at that time. We were 2.1 miles from Caleb's job, a beautiful 20 minute drive from my job, and moving here put us 15-20 minutes from my family and 45 minutes from Caleb's family. But now we're 45 minutes away from Caleb's new job, and everywhere I go is at least a 10 minute drive south of here. Moving south just makes sense.
And that's it. If I sound whiny anywhere, please know I didn't intend to be. This house has been super great for us and to us, and I'm so grateful that we got to live here for 5 years. I'm also ready to move forward, but before I do, here's my Top '10' - things I will miss about this place:
1. I love to watch my baby girl watch the traffic.
We might get more dogs and school buses in our new neighborhood, but not nearly as many trucks and cars.
2. I will miss having a park right across the street.
3. I will miss our beautiful kitchen. I love a blue and white kitchen, and we finally finished it this summer (replaced the last of the old cupboards, and got all new countertops). It's light and airy.
 |
| Photo by Harr Creative |
4. Our house is done. It's decorated, curtained, painted, etc. just how we want it. All those little projects are done: replacing old/broken switch plates, finishing trim, etc. I know some people like having a project house, where there's always something to do (and then they move when they get it all done), but we don't mind not having to work on things.
 |
| Photo by Harr Creative |
5. Our beautiful fireplace. My sister painted this for us two years ago, and it is still absolutely stunning. Check out the whole project here, because it is truly amazing.
 |
| Photo by Harr Creative |
6. I will miss all the charm and character in a 1940s house. We have these beautiful arches and curved ceilings. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
 |
| Photo by Harr Creative |
7. I will miss our piano! Sadly, we have to leave it behind. (The technical reason: the bass bridge is cracked, meaning [1] the piano can no longer be tuned to 440 Hz, only to itself and [2] the piano cannot be moved from the house, or the bass bridge will break entirely.) Josephine loves to play 'Elmo's Song' on the piano. ('Elmo Elmo dee dee deeeeee')
 |
| Photo by Harr Creative |
8. I will miss all the custom window treatments I made for this house. While the buyers didn't want most of the curtains, they won't necessarily fit the windows in our new home. I may be able to reuse the fabric, but I will be starting mostly from scratch there.
 |
| My kitchen curtains - one of the first things I ever sewed! |
 |
| The blackout curtains I made for Jo's room |
 |
| The living room curtains |
 |
| The door curtains |
 |
| The roman shades - I'm most proud of these! |
9. Moving outdoors, I will miss our lilac grove. We have an insane number of lilac bushes on our property, and it smells like heaven every spring!
10. I will miss the wild raspberry and black raspberry bushes on our property. Some years, I've picked and frozen enough to last me all year. I throw them in pies, crisps, muffins, etc.
11. I'll miss my rhubarb patch. Yes, I can plant more rhubarb, but I built this patch and will still miss it.
12. Finally, I will miss my tulips. And my hyacinths and crocuses. But mostly my tulips. True, our new yard has amazing landscaping, including multiple fruit-bearing trees (and raspberry plants), but no tulips. This Dutch girl will have to plant some next fall.
This move is definitely bittersweet, but I'm ready and excited for this new adventure!
Love and Duct Tape,
Leah Joy
P.S. Just in case this post needed to be longer, here's a sneak preview of our new house. This was taken just after we closed (Jo was done).
