Our last goodbye

We officially said goodbye to our house today. It was bittersweet, because so many special things happened in that house. It was our first home, it was the place that Ruth was born. It was where I first tried to make a house a home and got to decorate all on my own. It was full of first memories and full of reminders of times that my family gave of their time to help us remodel and get it ready to be a home.

But at the same time, it also held sad memories. When we first found out that it was the cause of Stephen's health issues, I almost hated our house. It seemed to represent all of the hard things we had gone through and had to endure. It felt oppressive and reminded me of all the long days of no answers and lots of questions.

But the last time I walked through my house, I got teary eyed. I remembered the moment that I wrapped my arms around Stephen at 5 am one morning as he washed up some dishes in the kitchen and told him that we were going to have a baby. I remembered Ruth taking her first steps in the living room. The first time that Stephen and I felt like real parents, as we waited until Ruth went to sleep to make some cookies and then enjoyed them in secret. All the meals that we ate together at our table or out in the yard. As I remembered all of the joy and happiness we did have in this house, all of the sadness and struggles were made a lot smaller. It was a lot of fun to turn a house with some serious interior design problems into a home that reflected who we were. When we moved in, it reeked of smoke, the floors were uneven in spots, the kitchen was apple red with rooster accents, the bathroom was completely dark brown, and the trim pieces throughout the house were the same brown. The two back bed rooms had built-in bunk beds and had a Jack and Jill bathroom with no door...

And with that, here are some before and afters I was able to put together. I failed to take pictures of each room before I took all of my decorations down, but I was able to scrounge up a few pictures that I had taken before we started our mold journey.

KITCHEN BEFORE:

(Painted the ugly apple red cabinets, made a cast iron wall, and took out the cabinets above the fridge)

BEDROOM TURNED OFFICE BEFORE

(We closed in the Jack and Jill bathroom on this side, and opened up the doorway to make it more open concept with the living room)

RUTH'S ROOM

BEFORE:

DINING ROOM BEFORE:

(Took out the cabinets above the washer and made it open shelving. You can see the red cabinet area we took out above the fridge in this picture) I also loved my gallery wall that we had started on the far right wall above our dining room table.

(One of my other favorite things in my house was the chalkboard wall we put in the dining room. I had dreams of writing facts about Ruth and what her favorite things were each year on her birthday on this chalkboard wall.)

BATHROOM BEFORE:

(The entire bathroom was a very dark brown when we bought it. We brightened it up with a grey paint, added some shelves above the toilet, and while our plan was to update the light fixture, we never got around to it)

LIVING ROOM BEFORE:

(We took out the shelf above the corner area, and had just made that into another seating area just before we found out that we had a mold problem... I was so excited to finally have a reading nook!! Most of our furniture had already sold by the time I took the after picture, but you can see the general idea.)

MASTER BEDROOM BEFORE:

(Again, I failed to take good pictures before everything started clearing out, but my sister made me some macrame plant hangers, I had my Goodwill find hanging above the bed, I had made some decor out of my wedding dress on one wall, and had our handwritten vows hanging beside the hoops. I still had lots of plans for this room, but it was starting to look like home)