So Long 274

The sale on our first home is final! Today I'm reminiscing on the house that caused people to question our sanity when we bought it.

The picture above is what the house looks like currently (minus the snow). The portion to the right of the house was a 1000 square foot addition that my AMAZING husband finished while attending school full time and working as a machinist part time. We lived off of student loans and put every penny my husband earned onto the house.

I can't find pictures of what the house looked like when we bought it (they're stashed away in a box somewhere). Originally, the house was 500 square feet, had one bedroom, one bathroom, a small living room and a tiny kitchen. Everyone we knew (with the exception of a few) tried to talk us out of buying it (with good reason).

The project began in the summer of 2003 (one year after buying the house and one year after the birth of our first child, Gabrielle). In his "spare time," Noah put in new plumbing, new windows, pulled off the original shingle siding (see above picture) in order to re-wire and insulate the house (it originally had no insulation), and of course he added on 1000 square feet. When the addition was complete, he re-sided the entire house pretty much single handedly.

In the months before our second child, Alex, was born, Noah worked on the original part of the house: he ripped out more walls, put up sheetrock (instead of the existing lathem plaster walls), put up decorative molding (that he made himself of course), made a new entry for the bathroom, ripped out the old kitchen, put in a new one, pulled up the carpet and installed a brand new bamboo floor with his dad and brother. Our son was born less than a week after completing the renovation.

Noah didn't do everything single handedly though, we had so much help from family (particularly Noah's dad who is also quite amazing). We will never take anything of that magnitude on again! Thank you to everyone that helped, but most of all, thank you Noah for building me my miniature dream house!