Tin Anniversary

I owe you a tour of the inside of the shed and the garage and I have a surprise project to reveal that I've been working on since March. But today I want to write an update reflecting on our TEN YEAR anniversary in this house. On September 15, 2009, we closed on this place and became first-item home-owners. We walked into this place and started painting, decorating, organizing, and making it feel like home. And we haven't stopped since. D called this update "our blog clip show" so there's no new content, but tons of links and looks back to how far we've come in a decade. I hope you enjoy. I certainly had fun perusing old posts to find the appropriate links.

We started immediately by changing the locks and painting pretty much every room we intended to start living in except the kitchen. We painted the living room, guest room, office, and first floor bathroom. We put up new lighting fixtures everywhere, always at the mercy of whatever wiring existed in a 60-year-old house. We installed fancy shelving. After the main floor was mostly finished, we headed upstairs. We painted the hallway and what became our master bedroom. Much later, we painted the future kids' room. Our attempts at decorating and redecorating, as well as organizing and reorganizing, have been endless.

We got an energy audit and made changes to help our home conserve energy. We replaced our windows upstairs and down. We tweaked our heating (oh so many times), installed a nest, and replaced our air conditioner. We dealt with surprises like asbestos, leaks, failing sump pumps and, most dramatically, a tree falling on our house.

There was a robbery and also some stolen mail that prompted us to make our house more secure, with a ring doorbell, an auto lock, and other cameras.

Outdoors, we tackled major projects like removing unseemly amounts of liriope, cutting old trees and planting new ones, and creating a functional backyard from a land filled with ivy and overgrowth. We put up a swing set, planted a garden, and plants countless plants and flowers in the front and back yards.

And finally, let's look at the big projects. We redid our upstairs bathroom and our kitchen, added an attic, converted our sunroom to a family room, and now most recently, acquired a shed. Every year or two, it seems, we get bored enough to do something dramatic. I wonder what it will be next. I guess you'll have to stick around and see.

It's been quite a decade.