This little house

Part of our process of wrapping things up for our big move has been helping to get our house re-leased.  Unfortunately, back in April we signed a new lease that started August 1, and so we are in a situation of having to break our lease.  Our landlord has been pretty cool about the whole thing, and has even let us take the reins on advertising and showing the house.  But it's the showings themselves where I find myself having a hard time.  You see, even though we've only lived here a year, we REALLY LOVE this little crappy house.  It's very much been our home, and a place that we look forward to coming to at the end of each day.

So walking other people through my home and seeing them scrutinize every detail... it's tough.  From the outside, this little old house isn't much at all.  It desperately needs to be repainted, and the lawn needs to be ripped out and professionally re-done, much to the landlord's chagrin - he keeps telling me that if I'm adequately watering and fertilizing, there's no reason that the grass won't be lush and thick.  Yet we do these things, and it's still sparse and dead.  Boo.  And there are even little details on the inside that aren't the best.  There's a few problems with the flooring, and it needs to be repainted.  Despite all of its flaws, though, it's my beloved, charming little house.  I love our living room and its gobs of space.

Not shown:  A million cardboard boxes, storage totes, and our current donation pile.  Accounting may require full disclosure, but blogging does not.

I wouldn't ever say that I love our office, but I do sure love the view I have of our backyard from my computer.  Also, Ammon always has a million computer cords going every direction possible.  It's like a modern day medusa.  I'm also finding that now that we have packed up most of the stuff that was in this room and taken it out, there is so much room for activities.  We have become huge proponents of de-cluttering recently.

Our bedroom... This I might miss the most.  It's huge.  We can walk around the bed easily.  I have space on my side of the bed (the far side), which is a luxury I didn't have in our last home.  Our bed faces the window, which looks directly out onto our beloved apple tree.  Just thinking about walking away from the apple tree, it devastates me.  So does saying goodbye to my walk-in closet.

For the record, this closet isn't as great as the one that we had in our last apartment, but it's still pretty darn massive, especially since I'm now being downgraded to standard closets.  I think Ammon is doing a happy dance that I had to pare don my clothes so much, and is hoping that a smaller closet will mean that I buy less stuff.  Yeah, we'll see about that...

Then there's the dining/kitchen area.  Most of the time, the kitchen table is covered in crap and utterly useless.  It's been kind of fun having it look so cute and functional.  Also, who doesn't love it when your husband brings you home flowers on a random Monday?  I'm not normally a carnation girl, but these just really worked for me this week, and they really brightened up our space for showings.

Another thing I'll miss is this incredible stemware storage that Ammon installed over the sink.  The big gaping hole over the sink drove me nuts when we first moved in... it's sort of a sight line, but not at all?  Having the glasses there really makes it feel more intentional.

So that's it... a little house tour for you, a year later than expected, and just weeks before we move out.  We're only planning on being in our apartment 6 months, so we'll see if I get around to documenting that space before we've moved on...