Bidding Goodbye to "The Little House"

I got on the old blog to reminisce...
I thought it would be fitting to do a post on here of the official before and after shots of our little house that I grew to love.
This house was ours because we failed to pray, to listen and to obey.  But God allowed us to have this house and used it for His glory and I am so thankful for it.
While I am not proud of the way that we came to own it, I am proud of this little house.  Proud of the hard work that we put into it, proud to be a part of helping to clean up a cute little street and I will miss it.  I will miss the friendships that were made, my awesome garden with the best dirt a girl with a green thumb could every hope for, the first house that Allegra has ever known...I will miss it.
I never thought I would say that.

Here are the "Before" and "After" photos...they are shocking to me.



 

This is the outside--the before is the perfect representation because this is a screen shot that I took from Google Street View

This is the Dining/Living Room

Kitchen

Bathroom

Kid's Bedroom

Our Bedroom - (previously referred to as PeptoBismol)

But if we hadn't have moved here, we would have never known our favorite neighbor...Tori

And the bountiful Peach tree

 

My Tomato Jungle and garden

It was here at this little house where we introduced big brother to little sissy

Yes, this house holds some painful reminders and memories.  The gut punch knock you sort of memories.  But there is lots of good ones mingling with the bad...a mosaic of sorts and when I stand back and look at it, I see lots of beauty in this story.
I love this little house.  Excited for what the future holds.    



Photo Credit: Stephanie Wiarda our neighbor and realtor took our official "after" pictures for the listing.  She was persistent, wise and patient...helping us through 3 failed deals, and eventually getting us to the lesser known "4th time's a charm".  Anyone looking for a realtor in the Portland area?  I highly recommend her.

Back On The Market

Monday, I spent all day cleaning and taking pictures for the real estate listing. I thought I'd share some of these with you as I'm kinda proud of the job that we (we is used pretty loosely as I didn't really do much of the work) did on this house.

For the before's you really need "smell-a-vision"

But this room is now Wyatt's bedroom!

Cool huh???

Wanna see some more?

"The Bathroom"

Pictures just don't do how structurally unsafe this room was, I mean, these people were one potty break away from falling through the floor. And I mean that very literally, no exaggerations. In fact, we think they may have been going in their motor home or something...there is just no way.

Anyway, it's pretty narrow, which makes it hard to take pictures of, plus the fact that for the listing it had to be a horizontal picture.

"The Dining Room"

And isn't that desk adorable? I just love it so much!

"The Kitchen"

I wish I had better "before" pictures of this kitchen. Honestly, I really don't think I remember exactly how this kitchen was. I know that we have video of it somewhere...I should dig it up and watch. But, again, if only there was "smell-a-vision", and these cabinets were 1000 times worse than they look, with old food and flies buzzing everywhere.

"The Laundry Room"

This is the room that Ryan was feverishly working to build for me before we moved in. Well, it didn't get done before we moved in but after the move, a week long vacation, Wyatt being sick, me being sick, and Grammy (Ryan's 88 yr old grandma) doing all of our laundry TWICE, it is now in working order. It's not finished yet, we still have baseboards and shelves to put up. The laundry is in the basement which before this room was open to the dank, dark, dirty, smelly old unfinished basement. Now we have a clean place to take our laundry and not a concrete floor. It's going to be so cute when we get it done....he did such a good job.

And this gem...this my friends, is our bedroom. Unfortunately it's been pretty shy lately and un-photogenic, but after a few more touches, it should be ready for it's "after".

BUT, rest assured, the Pepto Bismal pink is gone, that wretched carpet is gone, rusty heater...GONE, and cigarette stained ceiling and walls....GONE.

So, while we have re-listed this back on the market, this little house is really getting comfortable. I don't know what God has in store for us, but if he decides to keep us here, now I know that we'll be able to make it work. It's going to be a challenge and take some creativity to find places for all of the things that come with having a baby in the house, but we will.

We Lived To Tell About It...

So, I realize that I never posted my follow up recipes on the pork roasts...I have the pictures of some really delicious pulled pork sandwiches to post later. And the other roast, sadly, got lost in the shuffle and we threw it out on Saturday.

We moved this weekend. Do you remember this little find from "Google Street View"? Oh, this is a gem. This is where we live now....of course this is the before picture. The "cousin Eddy" motorhome is long gone, broken down old trucks are outta here, the dead Christmas wreath (that we pulled off in August)(mind you, this street view picture was taken at least 2 years prior to us taking possession, so that wreath could have been there for YEARS)...GONE, Christmas lights (that we pulled off in August)...GONE, and 40+ tons of junk (literally, in case you don't remember) GONE!!!
This is a post that I wrote last summer on our progress, and sometime soon I plan on doing a post with the final "after" pictures.
Ryan was working over here ever spare minute he had to build me a laundry room. The laundry is downstairs in an unfinished basement (where the prior tenents grew their marajuana) and I refuse to do laundry in a cold unfinished basement that smells like dirt. BUT, that meant that he wasn't at home to help me pack up the house. I've never moved with a rugrat before. A busy little rugrat at that. I had a few people offer to help me come pack up boxes, but moving from a big house to one that is less than half it's size...I needed to sort, purge, figure out what I wanted in storage and what I wanted to keep out. So, while I greatly appreciated the offers to help me pack up, I just felt that it was really only something that Ryan or I could do. I did, however, accept lots of help with Wyatt. My mom was over 2 full days last week (not leaving till at least 10pm) and also took him home with her on Friday which was one of our moving days. Ryan's mom was over after work to watch him and also took him home with her one night so I could do some work at "the little house". And then, Ryan's cousin Lynnann watched him on Saturday. Phew, so I had alot of help. (sidenote: if you want a good laugh, please click on that link to Lynnann's blog, it won't dissappoint)
Towards mid-week last week it was becoming apparent that we weren't going to have enough help for the move. People were dropping like flies. My brother Jeff tore his calf muscle and he was one of our "musclemanfurnituremovers" that we had lined up. My cousin and her hubby, Christine & Kevin, own a trucking company and offered to send us a box truck (w/ lift gate) and 2 guys to help us move on Friday. Wow, what a gift. So, we went to the title company that morning, signed our house away, and came back to the moving truck...I'm not kidding, it took them just a little over an hour. They had our washer and dryer, all of our furniture, and all of the boxes that I had packed up loaded and ready. What a blessing. I can't imagine how it would have gone without that truck and those guys. *shiver* I dont want to imagine.
Saturday, we had a crew of family out there again. Remember I was pretty much packing up by myself. So, while there was alot accomplished on Friday, there was still alot to do on Saturday. We buttoned things up and turned over the keys yesterday afternoon.
So, we left our spacious house of 1900+sq ft 3bd, 2ba w/ bonus room and A/C. In the middle of a heat wave, we wedged ourselves into this 720sq ft 2 bd, 1 ba with no A/C. The first night here was positively miserable, I need to be cool, and even though I took a cold shower right before bed and we had a fan blowing on us, full boar...it was miserable. Last night was much better, the house was cooled down considerably, and I was able to get some good sleep.
So, I'm sitting here at my new secretary desk from Ikea (I love this freaking thing)

The cabinet is an add-on to the desk so it sits right on top...When I unpack my camera, I'll have to take a picture of mine...so cute.
Anyway, so I'm sitting here at my new desk looking around at an almost unpacked kitchen, lots of boxes, pictures leaning against the wall, we live here now.
We are going to be putting it back on the market in less than a month. With baby on the way, this place is just too small for us. But there are some things to do before that, and a much needed vacation inbetween. Ah vacation...less than 2 weeks away.

Someday I'll get around to posting those pictures of my pulled pork sandwiches. They were tasty. And speaking of homemade food...I can't wait to assess my food situation and start making dinner here...if you are what you eat, then I'm a giant subway sandwich.