I’ve been thinking all day about what I wanted to write about. Nothing much came to mind. But, as I kissed my handsome man good bye for him to go help somebody move in, I realized I probably haven’t recorded my memories and thoughts about our first house. I started our family blog when my 7-year-old was about 9 months. We bought our first house when I was 7 months pregnant with him. In other words, it wasn’t on the blog, and I probably didn’t write about it in my journal.

So. Here we go. I remember feeling a bit shocked and spoiled that we were buying a house so early in our marriage. We were married August 22, 2006 and closed on our first house August 1, 2007- less than one year later. I did insist that we live in a nice little crumby apartment when we were first married, because “everybody has to have that experience as newlyweds!” And it was lovely. Located on 2nd East in Rexburg, just 2 blocks from campus; 300 square feet on the back of a house. It had a tiny hallway of a kitchen, and the smallest bathroom I’ve seen. The main room was wide open, but we tried to create a little bedroom privacy with the stand alone closet that was provided. It was perfect for us! I remember many nights after I got pregnant being so exhausted that I would go to bed at 7:00 while Brant watched sports. That was the only time we’ve ever had Cable TV because it was provided by our landlords. They were a nice old couple that lived in the main part of the house.

When Brant graduated from BYU-Idaho in May, 2007, he got a job in Idaho Falls. We were encouraged to buy a house because of the first-time home buyers incentive. We didn’t have any money for a down payment. But, we decided instead of throwing our money away to rent, we would buy and start to build equity. Looking back now, it might not have been the best move. But, that might be largely due to the recession and housing slump that hit shortly after we bought.

We drove around the area where Brant would teach, and decided against living there. It was scary, run down and not for us!

My dad wanted us to buy a house over on the West side of Idaho Falls, because he thought it had better resale value. (My parents came to look at a few houses with us. My dad owns many homes, and knew what he was doing… and happens to now be a real estate agent in St. George, UT.) But, we had found the right house for us!

It was a beautiful little white house with a white picket fence on one side of the yard. 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. A nice living room, small kitchen, and a wood stove. Built on 1/4 acre with a great backyard and big trees, including fruit trees, chokecherry bushes, grapes, strawberries and gooseberries. It also had beautiful pink roses in the front yard.

I LOVED the kitchen when we first looked at the house! These pictures are from when we were trying to sell the house, and so they don’t show how small it really was. It was perfect when we moved in. But, by the time we moved out, we had three kids and had definitely outgrown the kitchen!

We LOVED the wood stove. The first winter we lived there, our baby wouldn’t sleep unless he was swaddled pretty tight. But, we were new at burning wood in the stove to heat the house, so it often got SO hot that we had to open many windows to cool it down enough for all of us to sleep. :)

I won’t go into too many details about the basement remodel. Brant finished the rest of the basement while we lived there. It became a 5 bedroom, 2 bath home. He did a great job! (I think he made a blog about it on our family blog when he finished.) Here are pictures of each of the rooms. Not exactly the way I remember them, since we actually lived in the house. But, There are pictures on our family blog, of us living in the house, because I did blog for most of those years.

The owners we bought from had a $1000 carpet allowance as part of their selling point. We decided to offer a bit less and take that out. That was a mistake. This is the pictures of the new carpet that we bought, just before we moved out! :( We dealt with the nasty “white” carpet the whole time we lived there. We paid $124,000 for the house, which included closing costs and everything.

I painted this bedroom a couple months before Caleb was born!

The day we moved in, like I said, I was 7 months pregnant. The only thing I was allowed to carry was a pillow. ;) Brant moved almost everything by himself, and had help only for the washer and dryer. We didn’t own a couch. I think all we had was our queen sized bed, a glider rocking chair and a few boxes, really. It’s funny how quickly you fill up the space you have though!

All in all. I loved this house. We still own it and rent it out. This summer we had to go through and really clean it and it was so sad to see the way the renters had left it. Disgusting!