Flashback Friday

Our First Home

September 2004

Brent and I bought our first home in September of 2004.  We had been living in a rental farmhouse since we married in June of 2003.  It was a long house hunt and we were confident we could turn this house into a home for us.  We knew it was going to take a lot of work, though!

One of our first discoveries was that our intuition was right... there were beautiful hardwood floors underneath all of this old, yucky carpet. 

We spent lots of hours {lots!} on sanding and refinishing the floors, but it was absolutely worth it.  Brian and Jen spent a weekend helping us, too.  For the next week, we drove from our rental to the new house at 4:30am and put a coat of polyurethane on the floors.  Then, we went home, got ready for work and after a full day of work came back to the new house to put on another coat of poly.  We did this for three days straight. 

Final product. Beautiful!

Kitchen - before.

We tore out the cabinets, flooring and spent many laborious hours tearing off wallpaper and contact paper.  There was sticky, baked-on contact paper on the walls!  Jenny and Teresa hard at work.

Ryan and Brent examining the damage.   

Kitchen - after.

Living room - before. 

Living room - after.

Bathroom - before. 

Bathroom - total gut. 

Bathroom - after.



Bedroom #2 - before. 

Bedroom #2 - after. 

Bedroom #3 - before.

Bedroom #3 - after.

Master bathroom - before.  The word "Ewww!" doesn't even begin to describe it. 

Master bathroom - after. 

Master bedroom - before.  This had sweet, red shag carpet.  The two things hanging down in this photo are pull chains for the light and fan... yes, they were each about five feet long!

Master bedroom - after. 

We closed on the house on September 27, 2004.  We spent four weeks gutting the house and creating our first home.  We had lots of wonderful help along the way but our dear friends Heidi & Ryan were there for all of it.  They spent many hours helping us think through plans, tear apart, reconstruct and paint.  It was such a fun project!

Moving day. 

There are some funny stories about this moving crew... the boys were giggling like junior high girls and it ended with broken glass and a new door on our house.

Oh, how we loved this house... we made it everything we wanted and loved it... we had the best neighbors in the entire world.  Sometimes I miss this house, but I wouldn't trade it for all of the wonderful blessings we've had since we moved.  What a fun Flashback Friday!