A Tribute to a House

Please forgive my personal indulgence today, but I need to write a few things about our old home.

As I mentioned before (or for those who are visiting this blog for the first time) we listed our house last month and it sold in two days. It’s been a crazy time filled with lots of emotion.

I was doing another cleaning a few days ago with Dave and all the memories kept washing over me. I realized how I stepped down the hall while I swept was an innate movement; one I’d done a thousand times. Every step was the same as it had been for the last seven years.

Our home had been the ultimate safe haven.

We found it as an empty bank repossession that hadn’t sold in two years. It wasn’t surprising that people weren’t jumping to buy it. It was a wreck. But we were looking for a place to recover from the Recession, and it was cheap. I had confidence in my vision and Dave’s skills.

We let the kids take part in the renovation. It still has all of our youngest’s drawings under the paint. I look at this picture and can’t believe she was in diapers when we moved in.

We had national forest a quarter mile behind our house, and I memorized every corner of every trail. I ran countless miles on them. We hiked our hearts out with the kids too. Ever fall we found the bushes filled with wild raspberries in the high country.

And Miss Mimi aged from a wild 3-year old pup to a wild 10-year old guardian with a white face.

As I was cleaning our bathroom, I thought back to the time our son made a day of squirting alizarin crimson juice from pomegranate seeds all over the walls, ceiling, and floor. He followed up his performance by carving a giant “x” into the wood top of the vanity with fingernail clippers. My jaw dropped to the floor when I came home to the mayhem. I was able to wash the juice out of the white roman shade, although I wouldn’t be able to tell you how now.

Our girl’s bedroom was featured on HGTV and Houzz multiple times.

The kids’ bathroom with the drawer step stool was as well.

We wore through the stain on the floor in the kitchen from so many meals. It was there I shaved my head for Kaycee, and we cried together as a family when we had to tell the kids she wasn’t going to win her battle with cancer.

We have since scrubbed away the paint on the floor in our office, where I built my interior design business, figured out how to overcome depression, and started slowly painting again. It may sound cheesy, but it’s where I discovered my life and soul.

Don’t get me wrong.

We are thrilled to move into our new place. It holds so many more opportunities for us. I pinch myself every time I look out at our horses or watch the stars at night from the living room.

I simply needed to say thank you to the Hand that wrote that chapter of our lives, to our family that got us through an excruciating time financially and emotionally, and to a house that kept us warm and protected while we fought our way back.

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”