Buy a house and turn it into a home

“We moved into our house about two months ago and I swear my brain unlocked a setting I didn’t have before. The first week was excitement, boxes everywhere, eating on the floor, talking about paint colors like it mattered. Then something shifted. Now I walk through my own house like I’m doing an inspection I didn’t ask for. I notice a tiny crack in the wall and suddenly I’m wondering how long it’s been there. The floor makes a slightly different sound in one spot and I step on it three more times to “confirm” it. It’s not even big things, it’s constant small awareness. I’ll be sitting in the living room and hear the house settle and instead of ignoring it, I pause like I’m supposed to interpret it. The other night I got out of bed because I thought I heard something in the kitchen, and it turned out to be the fridge doing a normal fridge thing. But now I know the exact sound it makes at 1am, which feels like information I didn’t need.”

“One year ago, we bought a house. Matt and I embarked on our first experience as home owners, and we began the first year of turning our newly purchased half acre and 1940’s house into a home and an urban farm. [...] When everything finally worked out, and we got the keys, we had less than 48 hours to move out of, and clean, the apartment. The first night we were in the house I got super sick, and spent the next day of trying to move and clean while throwing up and with a fever. Our house had renters for a few years, until it was put on the market, and we bought it. During this time, and probably long before it, the half acre of land basically sat abandoned. Blackberries, weeds, and naturalized bulbs took over. Rose and fruit trees sprawled unpruned. Sheds rotted and leaked away. But the weekend we moved in the yard was beautiful, despite its neglect. The fruit trees had started to bud and everything was green. I looked past the flaws and saw the vast open space and visualized what the yard could become. Since then, we’ve cleared, built, removed, trimmed, and generally made a mess. Its a constant work in progress, and while I wish that magically it was “all done”, each day brings us closer to what we visualize.”

“When we bought the house, it was painted a color I could only describe as “1000 Island Dressing” and HATED it with every fiber of my being. I tested several shades of grey before settling on this shade, which is Mercer Charcoal from Sherwin Williams, the trim is Swiss Coffee. The front door is Queen of Hearts. I still have to finish the trim, and there are sections on the back and side that need to still be painted grey, but I don’t see the hideous color anymore when I pull in the driveway, so I’m significantly happier. When we bought the house, we were told their was maybe hardwood under the boring beige carpet. Quickly after moving in, I pulled a corner up in the guest room closet, but only found pressboard. But then, while rearranging the furniture in the living room, I noticed a small slit in a carpet and peeled the corner back, to see the seams of hardwood. Unplanned chaos then commenced as we procedded to rip out all the carpet, revealing mostly hardwood- there are a few sections of pressboard and plywood.”