Five Years in Dodge and a New Hope

Well, not quite Dodge, but it sounded good anyway. And no, this is not Star Wars.

This post was meant to be published in April, but the mad-rush of garage sale plans put this post on hold. The month of April marked five years...five years...in this little house. Five years of rent payments. I made the mistake of doing the math. By now our rent payments almost equal what our landlord paid for this house. But there's a good reason why we're still here...even though we may not know what that is right now.

For fun I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison of what the house looked like as we were moving in, to what it looks like now. Or fairly recently, anyway. The house is currently in the midst of further purging projects and different stages of packing.

Excuse the quality of these photos. The "before" photos were taken on an old cell "flip" phone so Eli could show me our new home. I was like, "Welp, looks like there's a roof...I guess it'll work." They masked a multitude of things that needed help.

The previous renter had ripped out all the carpet because of allergies, so the dining room floor was plywood. There was no baseboard, and our landlord gave me permission to paint over the canned pea green and harvest orange walls. I went with a darker color over the green just so I wouldn't have to apply so many coats. In my mind this house became "The Skittle House" because of the multitude of colors in such a small place. The bathroom was the only white room, and it was all white. The kitchen was a sunny yellow, living room was a sage green, the boys room was electric blue, and our room was bubble gum pink. In this photo you can see a bit of bluish-green on the side of the upper kitchen cabinet beside the window: that is green marble-patterned contact paper that was meant to mask nail holes and other imperfections. I peeled it off, liberally applied wood filler, sanded, and repainted it yellow to match the walls.

In the 8'x12' kitchen, the stove was butted up to the fridge, leaving no room for the baker's rack, so I slid it over against the north wall. The baker's rack was essential for shelving, but also for the microwave, spice rack, and coffee maker, which don't fit in the narrow space on our counter tops. In 2012 I painted the flat white cabinets gray because they always looked dingy and were impossible to scrub clean. 

The living room walls were a pretty sage green, but made this north-facing room too dark. I repainted it in Dakota Ranchwood. The hardwood floors were covered in paint drips and were eventually carpeted.

Looking from the living room back through the house. Baseboard and carpet wait to be installed. If you look closely on the top right you can see a sliver of the bright blue walls in the boys room.

For a whole house tour, Read "Tour Our Bungalow", here.

And finally, since the proverbial cat was already let out of the bag on social media, we have found another big beautiful old farmhouse that we pray becomes our own this time. It would be less than five minutes from work for Eli. We were preapproved for a home loan, an offer was agreed upon, mortgage papers are into processing and we are waiting on the appraisal. If, and with us it always seems to be a giant if, it really does become ours, I will share details. Until then, here is a sneak peek.