This House, Part 2

Shortly before Hannah's first birthday Andrew and I had been talking about finding a larger house for our family. Hannah was crawling all over and we were bursting at the seems with stuff. I am not a hoarder. I go through most of our belongings at least once or twice a year to purge things we don't use regularly or have little use of in the future. I donate clothes and household items fairly regularly. Even so we had closets filled top to bottom, things stored under beds, just everywhere. Hannah is a small person but she has a lot of stuff!! We (probably) want another child down the road so we can't get rid of all her baby gear, but it takes up a lot of space. After packing up her beloved jumperoo and realizing I had no where to put it away we decided it was time to find a larger house.

I spoke to Paula who decided she would sell the trailer instead of renting it out again. We started looking for rental houses and she started looking for a buyer. (We don't know if we will stay in Alabama long term, so we are not ready to commit to buying a house here. Hence the rental).

I mentioned to Jan, my dance teacher, friend and step-sisters' mother, that we were looking for a rental at this price point and wanted to move in at the end of October. She said she'd keep her eyes open for us. Literally the next day her neighbor and good friend, Jolynn, mentioned that they would be doing some traveling and wanted to rent out the main floor of their 2 level house. It happened to be exactly the budget we were looking for and open at the exact same time we wanted to move in. Fate brought us together with Rick & Jolynn and this house. 

We waited excitedly for 2 months when suddenly the trailer sold sooner than expected, the buyers wanted in and asked if we were able to move out 2 weeks before we'd planned! Our new landlords were fantastic and worked their butts off to finish their portion of the move faster than anticipated and worked up to the literal last hour. We're thankful to them and can already tell we've lucked out once again with awesome landlords!

We've been in this house 2 weeks as of today and it is awesome. We have gotten most everything unpacked and put away. We hung our art and pictures, put our clothes in the closet. This house is becoming our home. 

 Hannah has found a quick exit strategy from each room, learned the loop that goes around the kitchen, dining room and den. She knows the door stopper behind her bed room door makes a funny noise and wiggles every time she touches it. This house has already made us happy. 

We are filling the rooms with our memories and our hopes for the future. This house will see our daughter walk, our love grow deeper and hopefully many, many moments of laughter and happiness.

 

Our wedding letters/guest book hung over centerpieces Andrew & I made for the wedding <3

We now live next door to my sister Ashland and our niece, Harlee. Jan and Michael Jay live next door to lend a hand, give a hug or share a cup of coffee. This house is situated at the end of a cul de sac where we can watch Hannah ride in her cozy coupe car and run around with her cousin.

Our very own custom art in 3D chalk by neighbor and artist Janis Sherwood!

This house has the exact kitchen Andrew and I have dreamed about cooking in, preparing food to nourish our bellies and our souls.

A dining room to act as my office, but also help host family meals. A sun room to sit and visit, talk and laugh.

Loving the closet space in Hannah's room!!

Hannah's original piece by JJ and MJ

This was the first thing I made for her room when I found out I was pregnant and we had a name chosen!

We haven't finished our room yet. Those pieces on the wall will move to over the bed

Guest room / holding space for unfinished/unpacked stuff

The first piece of art or furniture I bought for the trailer when I first moved in has found it's way to the new house

This house is just what we wanted, more than we needed and so full of potential and joy.

This House, Part 1

At the end of 2011 I was looking for a new home to be my fresh start after the end of a relationship. I wanted something affordable, safe and homey and with a yard for my dog to serve as my first house that didn't include a roommate. A good friend of mine's mother owned a nice piece of land with a trailer that she sometimes rented out, so I called him and jokingly mentioned that I would love it if his mom would let me rent the trailer. I figured it was a long shot but worth asking. He checked with her and the stars had aligned, her previous tenants had recently left and she was having some work done on the place but it could be mine if I wanted. It was available for me and I moved in on approximately January 4, 2012.

I brought my pets, the furniture I had, used some old stuff that had been left behind and bought 1 piece of art. It was a shadow box from Target that says "Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself." This was fitting given the season of life I was in. Andrew and friends helped me move in and it became home. Over time I never bought any more art, I only hung photos of us or things that I've painted myself. It truly is my house. It isn't the most picturesque or matching decor, but I put a lot of effort and love into every piece of refinished furniture or painting on the wall.

 A few months later Andrew and I had started dating and he was spending more and more time at the little pink trailer in the woods. He officially moved in in mid 2012 and we made it our home. Over the years a kitten adopted us, our dog Sidney ran after tennis balls in the yard, we painted furniture on the back deck, read books in the sun room, changed a guest room into a nursery. We've watched the leaves fall and the grass regrow many times now, and this house has been good to us.

Our relationship grew from friendship to a deep love while we lived here.
We celebrated our engagement, newly married life and pregnancy here.
We welcomed home our first child during our years here.
We watched our daughter crawl and laugh and talk while we grew here.

This house became our home. 

But there were also hard times.
We said goodbye to our beloved dog while we lived here.
We grieved the loss of multiple family members during our years here.
We experienced a difficult pregnancy and hard recovery here.
We work too much and often miss spending enough time together, but we still grow here.

This house is still our home. 

Our landlord, who was once 'Zach's Mom', became Paula, our friend. She watched our family grow and helped us along the way. We will forever be grateful to her for her generosity and kindness.

Our family outgrew this house, and now it's time to make a new home. We are excited for the new adventure and extra space, but it's hard to beat the quiet that comes with the beautiful plot of land. I'll miss watching the hawk that lives on the left side of the yard and the momma deer and her twin doe that crunch the grass along the back treeline. I won't hear the squirrels that rule the entire property and like to run along the top of the sun room when the weather is nice. 

This house will always be where our family grew and our love flourished.

Summer Projects

I started this post at the beginning of the summer and kept it as a draft and added to it as I checked projects off my list. Well it's wintertime now and the crib still isn't finished (it's lacking a coat of polycrylic) [she sleeps in a cradle in our room for now] but these other projects are finished! Guess I should share it despite it being 6 months late now.

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This time last year I was neck deep in painting centerpieces and DIY projects for the wedding. My what can change in a year!! This summer I'm belly deep in painting furniture and trying to get the nursery pulled together before I get too big to do anything productive. I love painting, furniture in particular. However, 2 of the 4 pieces on my to-paint list are not easy tasks. The crib and changing table have so many slats, grooves, rounded edges and more. They are time consuming. The other 2 items are dressers. We have decided to use Andrew's dresser in Hannah's room. This dresser was actually his grandmother's and has been passed down in the family for a few generations now. We liked the idea of keeping with that tradition and giving Hannah a piece of history from her great grandmother. Only downside is the dresser is a medium-dark stain, not the sweet baby girl vibe I had in mind. No worries, just paint it!

Of course I forgot to take the before pictures before I actually started painting the drawers. Whoops! Please excuse our mess of a sun room aka my work shop.

Before

 After!

The soft white and pale pink drawers are just what I was looking for to keep her room soft and sweet, but with a little bit of color. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. The paint was Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White and Antoinette (pink).

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To replace a dresser for Andrew, we found a nice, larger piece off craigslist that is in great condition, but in desperate need of a few coats of paint. Since I didn't want to paint it white, and couldn't justify buying another quart of ASCP (it's expensive!), I went the diy route and made my own chalk paint. It didn't turn out as chalky as it maybe should have, but live and learn. I like the color and think it turned out pretty well. One day I'll finish the other, mismatched dresser in our room to fit, but it's at the bottom of the priority list right now.

Andrew's newly finished dresser. Much better than the sparse coat of white spray paint!

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Also on the list is the changing table we got off of Craigslist. It started out like the pic on the left,

And ended like the photo on the right!

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The light fixture in the nursery was old, yellowing and cracked, so it needed to go. Trouble with living in an older trailer is that it's pretty hard to find new items that fit and work with the older set up. I would have been ok with just a new light cover, but we couldn't find one at our local hardware store, so Andrew decided to replace the whole thing. I wasn't so keen on this idea at first. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical. I love my husband, but his electrical skills hadn't been put to the test in our marriage yet. Worst fear was for him to take apart the existing light and not be able to put it back together. That would leave an unhappy wife, displeased land lord and a baby in the dark! He was more confident than me, so I just left the room and let him go for it.

Before

 During - yikes!

 After!

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Lastly is the Craigslist crib. It was a score but I hate the oak color.

At some point we will finish the crib. It'll have to be before too long because Hannah will outgrow her cradle in a couple of months! But the white turned out really well. It will match the changing table.