Before and After

I am feeling nostalgic tonight after looking through the pictures of our house that we just sold.  

Rumor has it that the power company has plans to tear it down.

I have mixed emotions. This house was never my dream house, but we have put our blood, sweat, and tears into fixing it up...one dollar at a time.  We had so many more plans that will never be realized.  

Going through these pictures has helped me to see that even though we lost all the money we put into it (due to the current situation of our local economy), we have learned a lot, and you can't put a price on life experience.

Taken the week we moved in.  July 2006

When we were getting ready to move here, we had a tough time finding a place to live.  I remember sitting in our Honda CR-V across the street, knowing that this was the house that Heavenly Father had prepared for us, but not being overly thrilled about it.

This is how our house looked after Todd pressure washed it to get it ready to paint.

This isn't a very good picture (taken with an old cell phone), but it shows the new paint, the new front door(s), and the window boxes that Todd made. 

 Although our new front door was a huge improvement over the metal, diarrhea brown door that the house came with, I've always regretted it.  I went into Home Depot knowing that I did not want a window in my front door.  I wanted a plain door so I could hang a wreath from it (centered in the window of the screen door).

Instead, I let the weird employee with velcro shoes talk me into a door with a window. 

 
Never listen to decorating advice from a middle-aged man wearing velcro shoes.