Same Time, Last Year

Last year, on March 31, 2010, Bill and I were signing a bunch of documents for our first house.  That's right, it's been exactly a year since the house was officially ours.  How crazy is that?  Time flies so fast.

So in honor of our one year anniversary, here are the top ten reasons I love our house:

1.  Location, location, location.  We are walking distance to local bars, restaurants, and hang outs.

2.  The history of our house.  It was the first house built on the block, a small farm house.  The river rock on the front was hand carried by the original owner's three daughters from the local river.

3.  I call it a love house.  Bill proposed on the front porch last July, carrying on the tradition of love.  The original owner's three daughters were all married in the house in front of the fireplace.  He even widened the stairs for their dresses to flow down.

4.  The front porch.  Some nights I love nothing more than sitting on the front porch enjoying the evening.  We light candles, watch neighbors pass by, and even get to watch the occasional thunderstorm coming in.

5.  The half bathroom.  It's so nice to have a bathroom downstairs that guests can use.  Especially when ours is a mess upstairs (which is most of the time, who are we kidding).

6.  Our brand new driveway.  When we bought the house, it was gravel.  Now it is a lovely asphalt drive and my tires now longer spin when going up it.

7.  The fireplace.  There's nothing better than on a cold winter night, snuggling up on the couch and having a wood burning fire.

8.  The removal of a few of our trees. 

9.  The hardwood floors!  I love them!

10.  Just the fact that it is our real first place, and we get to call it home.  It is our little oasis, that belongs only to us...as long as we continue to pay for it!!!


And here are a few things that made our first year a bit rough.

1.  Large branches falling out of trees, hitting the gutters and narrowly missing our cars.

2.  Water from our bathtub overflowing into our dining room below.  This was a very bad day for me.  The sound of rushing water into your house is not a good sound.  We ended up having a hole in our dining room ceiling for about a month...

3.  A lovely root ball in our main sewer line that cost us quite a bit of money and required ripping up part of that lovely new driveway I mentioned earlier...ouch!

4.  The hardwood floors!  I know I put this on the above list, because I do love them.  But I also fear for them.  Brooklyn's paws and nails are not easy on them, and I am consistently worried about them getting scratched.  They are also so hard to keep clean!

The good definitely out ways the bad!  We definitely feel like we've been initiated into home ownership this past year, but we still wouldn't change any of our decisions.  We love this house!