Our Story of 1915 House

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 Let me tell you our story of 1915 House. Not so long ago, our family of six lived in a cozy little pre-fab house sitting on ten acres on the open prairies of southern MN. While we had dearly loved our four years on the farm, and raising all our animals, after the addition of our two youngest boys – just 15 months apart -we felt like we were bursting at the seams. I won’t go into all the details behind the “whys” of our move back to town, but when we started looking at houses in town, we knew we just. needed. more. space. We also wanted to be closer to our church and local Christian school. We looked at several houses, but the one that tugged at my heartstrings the most was an old 1915 Victorian that was way out of our price range and needed a LOT of work…

I trust you’ll be kind and realize that many of these “before”photos were taken long before a blog was even on my radar, and thus, they are less than stellar. You understand. 😉

Thankfully, none of the needed work was structural; no walls needed to be torn down and no gutting needed to take place. Just lots – LOTS – of wallpaper and fairy borders and glitter (yes, glitter on the walls) and crazy paint colors. But the bones of this house were solid and from the first moment I laid eyes on her, I knew I wanted to call her “HOME”. We knew the house had been sitting empty for a long time and that the owners were making two house payments. We decided to assume they were motivated sellers, and gave them a lowball offer (we were determined to stay within our pre-determined price range so as to not overextend ourselves as we had already learned that lesson the hard way on a previous house)- after some back and forth, and we were able to come to likable terms for both parties and came away with a signed purchase agreement!!!

After many, many complications and closing dates getting moved a bazillion aggravating times, we *finally* were able to move in on February 13, 2015 – on one of the coldest days of the winter, in -17 degree weather…yes, that’s *negative* seventeen degrees. We wanted “in” that badly. 🙂 Our two little guys were bundled up and watching the Polar Express on my kindle in the front room as everyone else hauled in boxes and furniture amidst lots of laughter and hot bowls of chili.

Despite the insane temperatures, I swear the house was smiling. After sitting empty for over 9 months, her walls were once again filled with love and laughter. I’m still as excited today as I was the day we moved in. The standing joke in our family, as we drive up to the house is, “Oh my goodness. Look at that house. Wouldn’t you LOVE to live there?!”, we all smile and someone pipes up,” Oh, wait…we DO! That’s OUR house!!” 🙂 We all love this place that God has so graciously given us. It’s been almost 12 months and I still have to pinch myself. It’s humbling to be given what feels like such an extravagant gift.

I hope you’ll join me as I share the projects we’ve done so far and those on the never-ending “to do” list. Giving our beautiful old home a face lift is pure joy, lots of learning and plenty of blood, sweat and tears. Well ok, not too much blood. So far. 😉

UPDATED:

Here are just a few of the projects we’ve done so far:

Painted Kitchen Cabinets (learned lots of lessons the hard way, here)

Painted UGLY old Linoleum Kitchen Floors

Updated an old refrigerator

and dishwasher

Gave a set of old dining room chairs a makeover

Made a DIY growth chart (every home needs one)

and made tons of Deliciousness in our revamped kitchen.

Welcome! I hope you’ll take some time to browse and stay a while. 🙂

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