Happy Homeowners

Getting a house was Stephen's plan right from the beginning. He told me so on our third date, as we drove up to Salt Lake City.

I wasn't too crazy about the idea at first, but after a few months of living in a freezing-cold basement apartment with no insulation in the floors and some very hormonal upstairs neighbors, I was significantly more receptive.

We found our house in December, and after a week of thinking, we put an offer on it. Merry Christmas to us :)

{Then came that awkward moment when we had to move out of our apartment and we still had 4 days before we could move into our house....}

I don't know what we would have done without friends who let us stay in their house, use their truck to move stuff, keep our bed / dresser in their house, use their washer and dryer, use their tools, helped us fix something on the toilet, gave us a vacuum, etc. etc.

And of course, we can't forget all of Stephen's friends who pretended not to notice that he was, in fact, wearing the same clothes for 4 days in a row while his clothes were packed away somewhere and waiting to be moved into our house. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends!

We quickly learned the following about being happy homeowners:

1. We have way too many things. WAY TOO MANY. But we still need more things.

So many boxen.....

2. Home improvements are so fun!.....When you go to school all day and come home and see that something beautiful has been accomplished. They are not quite as fun when you are the one who stays home and accomplishes them.

3. Styles change. Light switch covers do not always change as quickly.

4. Poop-colored paint is never a good choice. But at some point, at least one person in this world thought it was.

Luckily, we saved this room from its poopy misery.

5. Cats are also never a good choice.

6. But the WORST choice. You can possibly make! Is putting up wallpaper.

Someone find the person responsible for inventing wallpaper, because, they need to be executed. 

7. In old homes, there is sometimes a mail slot in the door. If you are home alone during the day, you might become very afraid when the mailman comes to deliver your mail and it comes crashing through the slot in the door and lands on the floor.

8. Picking paint colors is haaaaard.

Especially when it comes down to a decision like this, I mean my goodness, what if you choose the wrong one??

9. The night that you move in, you may discover beautiful wood floors underneath the gross carpet. If you decide to rip up said carpet, on an adrenaline-fueled whim, and your bed is still at a friend's house, you should be prepared to sleep in the living room. Since you just pulled up all the carpet in your bedroom and now there's just a hardwood floor with hundreds of staples sticking up, and your air mattress is in very real danger of getting popped if you sleep in there.

10. Big windows are fun! If you can cover them. If you have yet to cover them, then it is less fun, because what is fun about having to wear clothes all the time when you're in your own house? Nothing.

11. Having basement renters is also fun! We are having a very pleasant experience with ours so far. They are very considerate driveway parkers, and not nearly as noisy as our previous neighbors.

12. Druggies exist, even in Utah. And one of them once stole a bottle of Bupivacaine from a doctor's office and hid it in the wood paneling in the wall next to the bathtub in the basement of our house.



I'll post later with more pictures as the beautification process continues. For now, all you need to know is that beauty is pain. Also, I will make a poem and some ice cream for anyone who will give me a dark brown kitchen table with 6 chairs.