From the Outside Looking In

Our house is over 50 years old....well, that was when we bought it. It's almost 60 years old now.

It's a sweet little house that I fell in love with right away. We knew we couldn't afford to live outside of town in the country like we truly wanted when we were ready to buy our house. No, but we figured this 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house would be a great "starter" home. Of course we'd only be here 3 to 5 years, then we'd be ready and able to afford something bigger and better.

Ha ha. If you haven't already noticed, 3 to 5 years turned into 8 going on 10 and more. We've currently been here over 8 years, and we're prepared to stay here a while longer.

Do we still love this house? No, not always. (Matt might say never.) It has it's issues like any home, especially an older one, does. And after being here 8 years, it's ready for some major maintenance. But, honestly, it's our first home. I do have some strong attachments to it, and I know it will be sad to leave it.

Part of that is that I grew up in one house. Never moved. My parents bought their house in a teeny tiny town that I called home a few months before they got married. They had me two years later and then my sisters a few years after that. I lived there until I got married. My parents bought a bigger house in the country when I was pregnant for Zachariah. So, that first house was home for a long time.

After owning a house for a few years, you need to start doing some work to it. It never fails. This is especially so with an older home. Ours had new carpet and fresh paint throughout the house. The outside had been painted and things looked great.

That only lasts so long. I've slowly painted some of the rooms over the year. Only two of the bedrooms and hallway are still plain original beige. The bathroom has been completely gutted and remodeled...by us. We've done little maintenance things and fixed things that need done too.

We're at the point where some major things need to be done. The siding is old, the windows are old, and the roof is quickly wearing out. The list could go on and on....and on and on. We've been using extra money and tax returns to complete some projects little by little.

We've prioritized indoor and outdoor projects, things that need done and things that would be nice to have done. It was nice to get some things worked on over the summer and here and there when we could do it.

We are planning to replace our front door and one back door. We purchased the front door, but we don't have a screen door yet that we'll need. We will probably hold off until spring for all this.

There are two windows in the garage that were falling apart, so that was the last priority project this year (before the bad weather sets in). So today being a nice day, my dad came down to help Matt replace these two windows. My dad remodeled their whole house (the one I grew up in) slowly over the years. He's quite handy at almost anything household related. And we're so grateful for his help with these projects. (And I definitely won't complain at the money we save by doing it ourselves.)

So out came the old (rotting away) windows and in went the new ones. I can't tell you how good it feels. And I'm so proud of my husband for being willing to work hard to make our house nicer. Sure, we'd love to get everything done all at once and live in a better house. But this is what we have for now, and I'm so happy that he can help.

On with the old house we'll work. And some day we'll sell this old thing, and start all over at another place (hopefully when and where we want it).

**I do have before pictures, but it was too dark for after pictures. I'll insert them later.