Welcome Home

That's what all of this feels like now, that I'm finally at home. The feeling that I've been wanting to experience for 2 1/2 years now!

We moved in here in August, but relaxing in a chaotic mess is nearly impossible for me, coming home to work leaves no room to settle into a routine, and family time just didn't happen. All of these things were very frustrating, straining on relationships, and tempted sanity to be lost. I told Matthew that not only should we celebrate being done with the house, but we should also celebrate the fact that our marriage survived it!

Oh, and when I say "done with the house" it doesn't actually mean done. Just means that we get to close our construction loan with the bank and start paying a mortgage! Should that really be so exciting to me? After so long of just paying interest and our house not getting any closer to belonging to us. Yes, a mortgage is exciting!

Tuesday after lunch, the house was given the "ok". That night, we celebrated by taking Matthew's parents out to eat! We have had many people to help us out on the house, but Matthew's dad has spent more time and energy on it than anyone. Also, my  mother-in-law and father-in-law allowed us to live with them for a year until we were able to move into here. I don't think I will ever be able to let them know how grateful I am for how much they have invested in our lives.

So here we are, finally at home and putting together our own lifestyle. Creating memories within these walls, listening to the rain against this green, tin roof, and getting to play in the biggest yard that I've ever had. This is what we get to do now. Would we do it again? I'm not quite sure. We have talked about it several times and we are leaning towards "No, we probably wouldn't do it again." This house took a lot of (literal) blood, sweat, and tears.

But at this given moment, I'm really glad that we were stupid enough to do it.

Before...While it was on the way to our property.

May 2010

After!!!

October 2012

Major Changes:

Outside:
Roof reconstructed, new roofing, new vinyl siding, front porch, back deck and center front door covered.

Inside:
New plumbing, new wiring, dining room and living room swapped, new flooring (in living room, laundry room, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom), wall between kitchen and dining room removed, wood stove between kitchen and dining room removed (and will be installed downstairs), "closed in back porch" turned into the laundry room/mudroom, wall between 2 bedrooms removed to create master bedroom, and basement changed from partial basement to full.

And we have more projects down the road, but for now we're just going to breathe for a little bit!

Do you think we should have a house warming party?