before it was home

I’m going to miss my house.

We moved into our house in August of 2004 – a crazy time for real estate. Prices were still going up and everyone wanted to buy. The couple that sold us this house seriously banked on it, and I always picture them sitting on a beach somewhere toasting frozen drinks and cackling with their success. In reality, I think they moved to Somerville.

It was one of the first houses that we looked at, and it wasn’t necessarily love at first sight. It was only after we saw many other houses that I zeroed in on this one. And it was definitely me, because I remember Kevin being skeptical. This place? Really? But I had a vision, and I was able to get him on board. It was un-renovated, quirky and just kind of sad. And coated in dog hair. (It took years to get rid of the dog hair tumbleweeds that would spontaneously appear out of nowhere.) But it was on a lovely street and had, as they say, good bones.

And we didn’t want to pay for someone else’s Hope Depot issue renovations. We wanted a clean slate. A place we could really make our own. Over the last nine years that’s exactly what we did. This is probably the first year since we’ve been here that we haven’t had a decent sized renovation or maintenance project lined up. We’ve slowly, one project at a time, brought to life the vision that I had back in the day. This was going to be the year we were going to just enjoy this house in its current iteration – and then plans change. So we enjoy it for the next two months and then pass it on to another young couple just starting off. I feel good about that.

I am oddly at peace with letting it go. But today I am looking back at what we walked into in the summer of 2004, and remembering all the sweat and frustration and accomplishments in creating our home as it is today. All in all, it’s a good house. And it’s been a great home for us.

Later this week I’ll come back with my favorite little corners in our house. But first we flashback to before it was our home.