It’s crazy to think we’ve owned our home for one year! Last year at this time we were signing the papers and getting keys. Right after that, literally that same day, I came up to the house and started picking out exterior paint colors. We’ve always had big plans for this house. From the first time walking through it, as dirty, dated and disgusting as it was, there was always potential. There was always a solid foundation we knew we could make even better. 

Because today marks such a big day, let’s take a peek down memory lane and see just how far we’ve come in the first year of owning our home. Right after we bought the house, I walked through with my camera and took a video. I should have shared it then, but I never got around to publishing it on the blog. I can remember taking the video like it was yesterday, knowing one day soon everything about this house would change drastically… that it wouldn’t be recognizable when we were finished.

I’m sorry for the poor video quality, and how fast I went from room to room… hopefully my video making skills will get much better!

As I was putting the video together, Todd and I both sat back and watched in complete amazement at how bad the house was when we first bought it, and how far we’ve come in a year. I’ve mentioned this before, but sometimes I have a bad habit of not thinking we’re making enough progress and I sometimes getting frustrated with all the projects that are still left to be finished. Do I want the house to be completed overnight? No, of course not. Doing it in stages is half the fun, but I would like to complete some of the projects we’ve already started. Seeing this video gives me perspective. We’ve come so incredibly far in one year. 

This summer we’ve shifted our entire focus to the exterior, knowing we can work on all of those inside things once the weather changes and we don’t want to work outside as much. We both want grass so badly, but before that could happen, we needed to install a sprinkler system and remove the old, overgrown and neglected landscaping. Our list has been long this summer and we’re only a few short weeks away from hopefully having grass ready for the front yard. Driving up to this house has changed, even in the last week. It will change again at the end of this week once our new back patio is installed.

Knowing our one year home-anniversary was coming up, I walked through the house again and took another video. This is where we’re at today… still making our way through boxes, and we just started to hang things on the walls. Every day I walk around and get new ideas on how to improve the house, or new projects I can’t wait to start on. One step at a time…  and maybe we should finish our unfinished projects before starting on anything else….

I hope you enjoy the new, updated video tour!

If you want to catch up on our remodeling process so far, click here.

What was once the worst house on the block has quickly transformed into something amazing. And we’re just getting started. I don’t want to wish time away, but I’m already looking forward to seeing everything we accomplish in this next year. Let’s make this blog post and video a yearly thing, ok?