Soon to be a memory...

I waited eight years, living in what you could call a 2 bedroom apartment.  We enjoyed our life, counted our blessings...2 of them little girls to cherish.  The third blessing was on it's way...over due... and we were honestly thinking her little basinet could fit between the sink and the microwave.  My dear hubby was in school with a heavy course load, then we looked at one house.  We put an offer in, trust me, I was very surprised my hubby even went that far!  They took the offer on my birthday!  We could get the keys in 2 weeks...now hold off little baby, if you're not coming now, just wait until we are moved in ok?  Possession date was Sept. 16th...so we ran (or waddled) over to the house with our dear realtor and took a quick picture with the SOLD sign.  By this time, I wasn't feeling well and thought "this little one is going to pick tonight aren't they?"  Sure enough, our story was one for our realtor to repeat many a time.  We went to the hospital in the evening and at 00:55 we were blessed with our 3rd precious daughter.  Went home that same day to finish up packing (thankfully our church group came in and tossed everything over the balcony and carted it to our new home)...and moved in on Sept 18th, 2003.  Oh what a beautiful day!  Friends brought buns, cheese and chilli.  We slept on our mattress in the middle of the living room while they "quickly" moved a wall, made a closet and painted our bedroom.  What sheer bliss...sitting there, watching my earthly belonging carted into a new home by all our loved ones.  Maybe not the most recommended timing, but it was God's timing.  How I waited for, prayed for and longed for that home.  How we loved every weird little part of it.  Ok, we didn't love the 70's carpet, but we loved waving goodbye to it!
These pictures were taken after we had been away from our home in Manitoba for 1 year.  Not quite the same anymore, and now we will be revisiting this home to make into less ours, and very much more someone else's.  This is part 2 of my letting go.  Part 1 was actually leaving it and renting it out as we moved to BC.

I will go from East to West, these are the 2 sheds we would see from the kitchen window

Moving south of the sheds, into garden...yes, that was strawberries and flowers...ha ha

And yes, that was an outhouse, we turned it into my garden shed :)

Further south, the garden, row of red raspberries, red currant, gooseberry and a yellow raspberry.  There is a back alley on the right, so our property goes from street to back alley, to the other street.  3 lots in all on a corner by the last street in town on the west.

View of the south side of the house, the ripped up deck (to get the piano in).  The tree and deck will disappear and we'll put a new deck on.  The lean-to on the right is the kitchen, with the main entrance.

My computer is not loading anymore pictures, so I will update more later.  If you can, try to leave a comment and if you can't, email me or facebook me and I'll try to change whatever it is that I need to change.

Back yard, lined with big willow trees, sandbox....and....

Tree fort we started

Inside the West sunroom

Shelving in sunroom, door to living room area

Staircase up, of course, the walls will get painted

What color do you think?

Kate's old room, we're not going to bother repainting it...way too time consuming.  Painted floor in this room with a top coat.  The little knob on the left is for a little door for the crawl space AKA "secret passageways"

Ruth and Mei had requested a pink and purple room. They thought it was very beautiful...what color do you suggest for the repainting?  The floor is all orginal wood, so we'll re-do it.  It ends up a light color.

Other side of this room, they have lots of neat little corners, etc... but hard to photography unless you are a monkey!

Mainfloor livingroom projector screen, in wall speakers, etc.  The speakers are coming out and the wall repainted...hoping we have enough of the original color left!

When our renter was in, this is the living room, on the right is the projector wall.  We had completely gutted these rooms.  Put insillation in, vapor barrier, painted, redid the floor, etc.  Definately made the room warmer and less breezy.  There are pictures of that transformation on my link to an old fotopage on her.

Mainfloor masterbedroom, can't see the whole thing, but that is the color.  It has a small closet our neighbour friend put in for us the day Mei was born :)

There is another smaller room painted a pale yellow that we used as a baby room/office.  It shared a wall with the master bed and has a gross carpet.  Underneath is wood we think, so both these rooms will get the flooring redone.  Then the whole house will have NO carpet!

Oh yuck, a 6 foot something basement storage area...The basement will get a new south wall and some sort of fixing up.  Oak Lake battles water in the basement because it is built on an aquifer.  We only had water once...the pump usually keeps up!

This is the south wall on the right that will get replaced.  A cistern is on the left.  This was after a very wet spring.

Kitchen, this is unfortunately what you see immediately after entering the house.  I'd love to make an entry way on the deck area.  These cupboards will be painted, the floor laminate and that is about it.

Kitchen window, looking outside.  This was where we had our bench and table.  Wondering if putting in a new window would be worth it...time is important too.

looking from the kitchen, into fridge, storage and laundry room, on the left is the door to the bathroom.  The floor will get laminate, maybe some pantry shelving, but don't think we'll focus too much on this area.

To the right in the laundry room, the fridge goes on the right, the pantry shelving would go in this empty spot.

Oh ugly bathroom!  You shall be demolished and given a facelift!  Everything out, rearranged and happy!

So you can walk into our house, through the kitchen and laundry, into the bathroom, through the master bedroom, and into the living room.  Girls loved doing the circuit!

From the street, our house on the left, waiting for the Fair Parade to go by.  The house will be painted.  It has fake shutters ... Gregg wants them pulled off.  The house is white with black trim.  What COLOR do you suggest?

I'm up for suggestions...we want to do this fast, economically and with the most return of course...doesn't everyone?

We will be putting on a deck as well.  I was thinking white spindles like in the front of the other house we did in the previous post.  This house was built before the 1930's and added onto.

Thanks everyone!