The Ultimate Before

Here's the story...

Our current house was weighing us down. We decided to sell. I was heartbroken because it meant leaving an amazing neighborhood, friends, neighbors. It was my first house to decorate and remodel with Neal, I had brought both of my babies home from the hospital to that house, I cut my teeth on some really bad paint choices and learned some valuable lessons. But, it was still a burden, so I knew I had to be willing to let go of the house and 'hood for the sake of our family's more financially-secure future.

I was desperately searching for a new house close by when the current house sold. I was starting to resign myself to the reality of not living where I really wanted to live...until a friend five blocks away from the current house told me about this "kind of funky" house I had to see....

Whoa. It was dated. It had a sauna. It had the ugliest roofline I had ever seen. It had a "front butt" of a deck. It was just plain weird. But, I was in love. The second I stepped foot into this weird, funny, ugly house I knew I wanted it. It felt right. The ceilings were high. It was a rambler. It had a "workable" layout. It was in the same general neighborhood as our current house, it still had private beach access, it was on a quiet cul-de-sac, set back from the street on a third of an acre.

And, thanks to some bad listing pictures, the price was right, and there had been no bites.

So, on September 5th, we moved in to this fabulously terrible house.