Three Houses

The hubby and I have lived in three houses over the past 31 years.

We moved into this house shortly after we got married.

2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 850 sq. ft. (or was it 825?) I had a hard time finding any pictures of the outside (organizing pictures is one of those things I was going to do after we moved, but I haven't done it yet) Anyway - this picture was taken a few years after we moved in. When we bought it, it was painted white and had blue shutters. I was probably standing in the driveway when I took this and you can't see the detached garage that was behind the house. The small window on the left (that is mostly cut off in the picture) was the kitchen window. At some point, it appeared that someone had added a few feet to the kitchen which cut into the driveway so you couldn't really get a car to the garage unless it was a small car and you were really careful! Other than some paint, we never really did a lot to this house in the 6 years we lived there.

In 1985 we sold that first house and bought this one.

This is the side/front as it looked when we bought it.

Back/side from the (dirt) driveway at time of purchase.
3 bedrooms, 1 and a half baths, 1600 sq. ft. and seven - count 'em, seven closets! Thought it was huge! We lived in this house for 24 years. We worked on this house pretty much from the time we moved in until the time we moved out. (My list was still not complete when we moved) We worked on both the inside and outside. Without adding on actual square footage we managed to carve out 4 bedrooms (if you count the converted attic) 2 baths and an office within the original footprint of the house. (We stacked the washer/dryer that were in that half bath and added a shower - much needed with 3 teenage boys and their friends!)


This is how it looked the summer before we moved. We added the flower beds around the front and side that spring.

The picture I showed yesterday was taken the day we left. We really hadn't 'lived' there for 8 months - we had been driving in on weekends to try and keep up with the yard and such but it is really hard to take care of it properly when you aren't there all the time. The flowerbeds hadn't had much attention all summer and the yard didn't get a final mow because the closing date got moved at the last minute and we had already given away the riding lawnmower. There wasn't time to push mow the 1/2 acre lot even if hubby had wanted to. We cut it close just getting the house emptied and cleaned before the deadline. You can accumulate a lot of stuff in 24 years!


This is house #3 and our current home. This picture of the front was taken before we actually moved in,

and this one of the back was taken right after.

We have been working on this one pretty much since the day we moved in. We have accomplished a lot, but there is still a long list of things to be done. (though not nearly as extensive as what was done to the last house! Mostly just things to make it work better for us - and banishing the beige!)
Even though we moved out of the Bolton St. house in August, we didn't move in here until October (we were living in a one bedroom apartment!) Pretty much everything we have done so far has been documented here on the blog, but when we hit the one year mark I might just make a list to see just how far we have come.
The other day someone asked hubby if he couldn't just buy a house and leave it alone. He probably could - obviously I can't.