Home is obviously where the heart is, but it’s still a physical building where you spend a large portion of any given day. A few years back, I drove by my childhood house- where I spent the first 18 years of my life & wished I’d had photos to supplement my fading memory of all the love & laughter that occurred in those four walls.
The Duplex
My first real place of my own. After growing up in suburbia, I decided I wanted to move back into Houston- be close to downtown, the parks, the museums, the people, the restaurants, the shops, the inner-city. My parents grew up in the Heights, I grew up going to church down there, my grandparents lived in the general vicinity, & the Heights just has such a great eclectic, hippy personality. I lived down here for almost a year & loved so many thing about it- the farmer’s markets, the jogging trails, the uniqueness, the proximity to the heartbeat of the city.
Our First Home Together, 2005-2010
In the summer of 2005, I quit the duplex living & moved back home with mom (I’m sorry!) for a few months before finding a house in their neighborhood. I really wanted to be closer to my family, closer to work, back to having a running buddy & get some room to share with . I lived by myself (with Zoe of course), for about a year until H moved in after we were engaged in the summer of 2006. After the wedding, we really started painting & redecorating around the house, which continued for the next 3 years. Shortly after we’d finished our final project, we decided it was time to move on! There were so many memories of the early years of our marriage, of family gatherings, of hard work making it our own place, that I was very sad to leave our beautiful home.
Our Current Home, 2010-Present
A week after we returned from New Zealand, we closed on our first married house that we bought together- away from the freeway & with a little more space. We dove right into renovations- including a total remodel on the kitchen, sprucing up the living room, adding some color to my office & the yard. In the first two months weeks we started demolishing the kitchen, kitchen chaos for a few weeks,
kitchen remodel week 2, kitchen week 3, and finally the finished Remodeled kitchen & Remodeled Living room. I painted my office pink in June, but it took me a few months to finish accessorizing everything with the floors & chair rail/trim molding, shelves, & decor. Right before our first Christmas in the house, we painted the sitting room area blue & silver.
Next project was the yard, where we started with Phase 1 (rocks & walkway for the dogs) in August and Phase 2 in December (major overhaul all flowerbeds). We hope to do Phase 3- flagstone on the patio & gate/fence sometime in 2011.
