Friday, December 23, 2011

You say Hello, I say Goodbye!

In 2001, Tom and I got married...Tom graduated from college... we bought a house...AND it all happened on the same weekend. We have loved living here for the past 10 years, but it is now time to say goodbye. We put our house up for sale at the beginning of last month and today we are selling it. We have so many memories here, so I wanted to remember it one last time before we said goodbye.  
The side of our house became our most common entrance to our old home, so I decided it was where we should begin our goodbyes. Good friends never use front doors anyway, right? We replaced the porch here in 2007 just after Tommy's 3rd birthday.
 Our living room. It looks so much better with wall to wall carpet (not wall on wall carpet mind you!) instead of being cut in half with hardwood on one side and carpet on the other. I love how the fireplace turned out. I hope the new owners love this room as much as we did. 
 Our kitchen used to have hideous wallpaper. I don't know why it was the last thing that was torn down, but that's how it went. I love how open the kitchen feels now. 
 The Dining Room looks far more elegant now with the paneled walls. 
 This room is where we had worship every night. So many good memories. I believe our piano lived on all four walls of this room at one point or another. 
 There used to be a doorway in this hallway when we first bought the house. I love how elegant the hallway looks now with the trim up top. 
 This bathroom took forever to remodel. I remember walking on planks for weeks before we finally got it remodeled. The door that opens to the bathroom used to be where the linen closet is now. 
 I loved having a laundry chute. I wasn't sure about it when we bought the house, but I grew to love it. It originally was located in a closet, but we tore the closet out to put the new door to the bathroom in. 
 Bedroom number 1 was our guest room first and the walls were a dark navy blue. We also considered it Kitty's (our orange and white cat) room until we had to convert it to Tommy's nursery. We repainted the walls then to a mint green with blue trim. Then when Nikki was born, Tommy and Becky shared this room for a while. This is where Becky and Nikki both used their first big-girl beds.
 The bedroom closet. Nothing really changed here other than paint color. 
 Bedroom number 2. Tom and I lived in this room when Tommy was little. Then when Becky was born, we remodeled it so Tommy could have it. We re-did it again when Nikki was born so she would have a place to stay. Becky also lived in this room for a short while when she and Nikki would play instead of sleep so we had Nikki move in with Tommy.

 We made this desk area special for Tommy so he could have a place to someday do homework and play on the computer. He mostly used it to drive trucks on though. :)
 Our master bedroom also used to serve as a guest room at one point. Then when the kids outnumbered us, we reclaimed it for our own. 
 We created a large walk-in closet when we converted Bedroom 2 for Tommy.
 Our master bath used to be a half bath.
 We finally added a shower once we moved out. I love how it turned out. I would have loved this bathroom if we stayed. I'll love my new bathroom more though, I think. :)
 Our backyard has evolved significantly. There used to be kudzu all over the backyard. Carpet too. That was some crazy stuff we found in the backyard! We rebuilt this porch in 2006 the month after Becky was born. It was wonderful to finally be able to walk out onto a porch, but we weren't sure if we wanted a porch or stairs here. I'm glad we decided on a large porch. I enjoyed using it. 
 There also used to be a forest on this side of the house and some very old rotting wood for a pathway. 
 Our friend Clint dug up the backyard so we could put in a retaining wall and make it a bit more user friendly.  
 I toured most of the house by myself up to this point, then Becky decided to join me for the rest of the goodbye tour. She told me that she petted the house goodbye and wanted to be sure I had too. 
 There used to be hideous wallpaper in this stairwell. That was such a pain to remove, but we had some wonderful friends (Billy & Trey) come help paint the walls once it had been removed and cleaned up a bit. 
 When we bought this house in 2001, the people before us had originally used this room to entertain because there was a bar in the corner by the stairs. We tore it out with the plans of eventually finishing it. We usedit for homeschool, but never finished it. The kids had fun playing down here, despite the yucky floors. The new paint on the walls makes it a lot more bearable - and if we hadn't sold it so quickly, we had some nice fake wood linoleum to lay down. 
 The water heater. We replaced it sometime around when Becky or Nikki was born. I don't remember exactly when. 
 Becky is standing where our washer and dryer used to be. I hated doing laundry downstairs. :) We also used to have storage between the posts, but I love how open the garage feels now without it. 
 Our new safety-fence. Our final DIY contribution to our house.
My brother convinced us to put up this fence so we could use more of our driveway. We followed his advice and loved the outcome!
 
I loved these trees.
 The side of our house used to have HUGE bushes and a small walkway between to the backyard. I don't miss them.  
 Our porch railing used to be blue. 
 We said our goodbyes to the house and happily drove off to play with the kids best friends while Tom and I went to the closing.
The couple who bought this house are really nice and I hope they really enjoy it. It was great meeting them at the closing. The closing took a really long time because paperwork had to be faxed before our check could be released. When we finally got our check, we ran and deposited our check. Tom and I celebrated selling our first house by trying out the new vegan restaurant downtown Chattanooga. It wasn't as good as we were hoping, but it WAS wonderful that we sold our house! I don't think either of us expected to sell our house so quickly, so we praise and thank God for selling it for us. Goodbye old house, Hello future house! :)


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