This Old House

I still find it hard to believe that someone else is living in my old house. That it is someone else’s house now. I feel like once we left it, our house ceased to exist and in a way, it did because it’s NOT our house anymore, it’s their house.

I have not been back there since we drove away from it two weeks ago but I drove by my friend Sarah’s old house yesterday (she moved two days after us) and it made me wonder what was happening at the old house, almost enough to want to drive by, but instead I look up the new owners on Facebook, hoping they will post pictures of their new home.

I’m so glad we got to have one final meal there – well, the boys ate while I packed up the remaining items. I’ll miss the coved ceilings, the hickory wood floors and the lilies we planted over the years that come back to greet us every summer. But we took the most important things with us – the people that made the house a home – my boys (and George) are all I need to make me happy (and often frustrated as all get out).

We put so much into that house in the last ten years:

• central air
• new garage door
• new roof
• repainted the entire exterior
• gutted and remodeled second floor, complete with addition of a full bath (and she ended up taking the clawfoot tub that has lived in our garage the last 4 years – you can see it in the picture below)
• new appliances (all but the stove/range)
• brought the grass back from the dead and added many plants around the yard

But the house also gave back so much more that cannot be quantified by money or time:

• my first house – Simon was the second person to ever visit
• our first home together – the place we exhaustedly (and happily) returned to after International trips, marathon road trips and weekends at the beach
• a place to bring both our babies home to (Liam came home in the bright heat of summer, spending his first month swaddled up next to me in the one air conditioned room in the house; Jack came home a month earlier than expected, on an unseasonably warm day in February to a newly-remodeled upstairs that our friends moved us into while we were at the hospital having a baby)
• location for a couple family holidays (I SO look forward to catching up on my hosting duties now that we have a house big enough for it)
• play dates, birthday parties, backyard BBQs, girl’s nights with my friends, soccer-viewing on Saturday mornings
• a home filled with much laughter, few tears, unforgettable memories and endless warmth (and not just before the AC was installed)

I have so many memories in each room, and despite the negatives that come with an old house, I remembered none of those as I took one last walk through the rooms. It served us well, just like the new place will do in the coming DECADES (because we’re not moving AGAIN if we can help it, have I mentioned that?), but we outgrew it long ago.

The new house is such a blessing to us, made possible by a sudden shift in the housing market and money left to us by Simon’s mom and dad – it will be their on-going gift to us for years to come and though they won’t see it physically, I know they are watching us and sharing in our joy. I cannot wait to share the new place with you – I just need to finish unpacking and my desire to unpack dwindled once I got the kitchen in order but we are nearly there – give me another week (or five) and I can share the final product with you… once we can actually park in our garage :). In the meantime, if you are local, please stop by for a visit and if you are not local – plan to visit soon! We’d love to have you and start adding to the memories of this new home.