The One-Year Mark

One year ago this past week, I signed on the dotted line and took possession of my little house. The day after I received the key to the back door, we were ordered to stay home. Needing to move my belongings out of the rental Angel Baby and I were living in, I spent the next three days loading boxes filled with stuff into the Jeep and made as many trips as I could each day.  My landlord let me borrow his truck to haul the large pieces of furniture, and with the help of Lovely Beautiful Daughter and Angel Baby, we managed to get everything moved in those three days. It was my fourth time moving in as many years, and I truly hope it will be my final move for the rest of my life. I have not regretted the decision to buy even one nano-second through the last 12 months. If anything, each day I fall deeper and deeper in love with this house that has stood on this plot of land for the last 103 years. 

The moment I stepped through the door the day the realtor was hosting an open house, I knew I wanted to live in this space. It was like slipping my hands into gloves that hug my hands just right. The house and I fit together. 

So far I've updated the electrical box, removed the old water heater and replaced it with a tankless water heater, installed a vent-free gas fireplace insert, had ten tons of gravel laid on the driveway, had two problematic trees removed along with a stump from which quite a few suckers were growing, and fenced in the area behind the garage. I hadn't planned on doing the tree work until summer, but the locust tree was popping and groaning after the ice storm we had in January then the snowstorm we had in February, so it forced my hand. It was a large tree, and with it gone the landscape has certainly changed. Initially I thought I'd be sad over it being gone, but now I'm thinking about planting flowers along the side of the garage where it used to be too shady. Opening the area up will allow lots of sunlight. I'm thinking lilacs.

Next on the to-do list is paint the house. I'm wanting to do the work myself, so this could turn into an all summer kind of project. I'm a slow, slow painter. Given I'll need to scrape first and I want to do three different colors, I can see me painting right into fall. I'm perfectly fine with this. Why rush?

Smaller projects I'd like to complete over the next few months are replace the back door and the front door. I'd love to find doors that go with the time period and architecture of the house. Presently, both doors are metal, the back door without a window. Both are hideous. I don't understand why anyone would put those doors on this house. Makes no sense to me. Along with putting proper doors on the house, I'm hoping to find some old French doors to install in the smallest bedroom, which is my yoga room. The room currently has a small window overlooking the space behind the garage and field beyond. I'd like to take the window out and cut the wall to put in the French doors. This is a big undertaking and might have to wait, too. 

In between the large projects I hope to get a garden going as well as rework the flower arrangements around the house. I'm not sure what the previous owner was thinking when landscaping, but it seems like there was very little thought put into what went where. I definitely want to replace the birch that died and had to be removed, so that's on the list, too. And then there's the swings . . ..

I'm going to be busy for quite a while.

I found this tree yesterday on the way home from town.
It's absolutely gorgeous. As you can probably tell,
I couldn't resist playing with the image in the photo program.