It's true. We sold our beloved split level home in June. Ironically enough, we sold it exactly seven years to the day that we bought it.
It was a bitter sweet goodbye. It was a little more sweet than bitter because we moved to a house on an acre and a quarter. We have talked and dreamed about buying a home on a bit of land since the time we got married. So in a big way, this was a dream come true.
We hunted for the right house on some land for about six months before we found the right one. We weren't afraid of buying another fixer upper and putting in a lot of work to make it pretty. That's exactly what we did here, and looking back, it's been lots of fun seeing the transformation throughout the years. The first house we went to look at happened to be a small labor and delivery hospital back in the early seventies. It had acreage and "character" in a way, but was more fascinating to look through, then it would have been to fix up with our meager funds. If we'd had an extra $200,000 cash laying around, it would have been a fun fixer. So we walked away from the "hospital house" and kept looking for months. We had a hard time finding what we wanted in our price range and often went from, "let's just not move and stay where we are" to "this is a cool house, let's pray about this one."
In the end, we put an offer on a home that my husband had to almost drag me to go see. I was so sick of looking at the wrong homes and was tired of being disappointed. The pictures of our new home online, made it look like an old persons home and at first, my bad attitude couldn't get past the old decor and craaaaaazy wall colors. But I begrudgingly went to look at it with my husband and our realtor. Surprisingly, it looked better in person. As we were walking around the yard outside, the leaves were fluttering in the wind, making a heavenly noise and I said a silent prayer, asking if this was the right house. I had a peaceful reassurance wash over me and I knew this was the one. Although we would want to change things about it, it was the nicest house we'd seen and it met a large majority of the wants on our checklist.
We put so much sweat, blood, and tears (literally) into this split level. For so long I hated it and by the time I learned to love it, it was time to say goodbye.
Soon I'll share some pictures of our new home. I already have a handful of "before" and "after" photos. It still doesn't quite feel like "home" yet, but it's getting there.
5 comments:
Wow. I'm glad your new house has over an acre. We moved almost 2 years ago to a fixer upper. Slowly but surely, it's coming together.
I'm excited to see pictures of your new places.
Hi I stumbled across your blog because we've just bought a split level fixer upper very similar and needing to pick paint. I'd love to know your upstairs & entryway paint colors if you recall the names. Thank you!
Hi Sarah! Our main paint color through the house was called Dolphin Fin by Behr.
That split level is so common in my area. I grew up in one and the house my husband and I bought almost two years ago is almost the same floor plan except previous owners had added on an extra room and garage behind the kitchen due to a fire I believe. My husband and I are looking to update the house a bit more than it is now. I found your blog on Pinterest and loved your updates. Hoping to draw some inspiration!
Your house looks beautiful! I myself like to build on the side but my wife says I am not very good at it though. I try and you know what, it makes me happy. I am going to build a tree house for my kids and it's going to be awesome! It will be two stories high and I want to put a deck on it.
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