Our First House

We recently moved out of our little house in Mt. Lookout.  It was bittersweet to leave because I loved that house and all of the memories we made there. 

It was our first house as a couple (well technically Brian's first house as a single guy, but it became ours when I moved in). We were planning on waiting a few more years before buying another house. We were perfectly happy where we were and always assumed we’d live there even with one or two kids down the road. 

We knew when the time came to move, we would keep that house as a rental to generate some extra income.  The more we talked about it, the more it sounded like something we should do sooner rather than later.  We figured it would be wiser to go through the process of moving, preparing our home for renters and figuring out how to be landlords before we had kids rather than after.  We just naturally have more time and more disposable income now than we will when we have children, so we decided to go for it.  

We ended up finding another house quicker than anticipated and had an offer in before I was emotionally prepared for it.  I knew it was a good decision, but I was feeling nostalgic about our old house.  It took two glasses of wine and some coaxing from my husband and real estate agent (aka my mom) to get me to sign the contract.  

Within a few days my logical thinking kicked in and I felt assured that this was the right decision.  We closed just a few weeks after our offer was accepted, and were able to find awesome renters for our old house within 24 hours of advertising it.  December was a whirlwind of paperwork, holidays, packing and moving.  

I wanted to share a few things I loved about our old home and will post about the new house another time. 

Things I loved about our first home:

• We walked everywhere!  It was such a walkable neighborhood and during the spring, summer and fall we were constantly walking places.  We walked to the local parks, post office, restaurants, bars, friends’ houses, the farmers market, the library, the grocery store.  Seriously, like everything we needed was a short walk away. 
• The neighborhood restaurants- So much sushi!  We only moved like 20 minutes away so we can go back anytime, but I seriously miss walking to our favorite sushi places whenever the mood struck.  I also miss the fact that all of the nearby restaurants were cool local places and not chains like we have out in the ‘burbs now.
• It was close to work.  It was really nice being able to run home over lunch if I wanted to. 
• Our first year of marriage happened there.  We learned and grew a lot in that house.
• It had charm.  It’s a 1940’s cape cod w/ it’s share of quirks, but we found them charming.  With the older home charm we also got our fair share of issues, but we won’t be missing those because we still get to deal with them.  Just this week our renters called us to alert us of a plumbing leak.  
• We tackled lots of projects there together.  It really felt like our own because we worked hard to make it that way.  

I know there is a lot more I loved about that house, but those are the first that came to mind.  And now, a few photos to share.  Full disclosure: these were the pictures we used to advertise the house so it was exceptionally clean.