I Guess This Means We Live Here, Now

It’s been 1402 days since we closed on the house we currently live in. More than enough time to do some projects and make it our own.

And our house still has that new house smell.

I swear. It really does.

I mean, we have done lots of projects, but there’s been one criteria for nearly every project we’ve tackled, and it’s this: ‘only if it adds value to the house’. The criteria has never been: ‘do it if it makes you happy and increases your joy in living here’.

And I can tell you exactly why. This is not our forever home.

Let me be clear, I love love love the house we bought. And we have amazing neighbors. But this is not the final stop for team Keiser. And I knew that when we moved here.

But I was sold, on the sunny day we walked through the door. Gimme all the damn windows and light. ALL.OF.IT.

The house was new construction. And 100% finished. Sitting empty. Someone else was supposed to buy it, but that had fallen through. They had chosen all of the finishes and upgrades, and honestly, where it mattered, I was pretty stoked about the choices.

The house had one of those keyless systems on it, so we called a number to get the code to enter. No realtor, no sales agent, no one else. Just Keith and I to walk around and get a feel. It didn’t hurt that our home back in Cincinnati was already under contract and we needed to find something STAT.

This was that.

So we moved in and promptly did nothing to the inside of the house. But why would we? I was all fresh and new. And all that light streaming in was a welcome change.

Sydney’s bedroom was the exception. We wanted her room to have some color and to get her mattress off the floor, so it got some love, shortly after we moved in. And then last year, we gave it a little update, with the custom build of a loft bed for the room. Because, loft-ing the bed gave her more space for the tweenager-y stuff that tweenagers like to do.

Outside we’ve tackled a good amount of projects: fencing the backyard, building a raised bed garden, staining a 100 ft retaining wall, and landscape projects every year. We’ve yet to figure out how to make things grow in this clay, and it doesn’t help that every time we try to dig a hole, we hit rock.

But every time I even thought about touching anything inside the house, I stopped myself. I don’t want to change the color on the walls because they’re perfectly neutral and isn’t that what buyers want?! No images or artwork hanging on the walls because if I don’t put hole in the wall, the next owners will have a perfectly beautiful blank canvas to work with. Hell, aside from a sectional sofa we haven’t purchased any furniture or rugs for this house. Almost everything we have, we brought with us and have made it work in the space.

Our house was move-in ready. And we’ve just been maintaining it for the next owners. I’ve had one foot out the door from the day we moved in. And after three and a half years, I could finally admit, it might not be the healthiest attitude.

To be clear, I’m not a believer that ‘stuff’ will make me happy. Quite the opposite actually, and another excuse I’ve used to avoid making this house our home. I love that our home isn’t overrun with furniture we don’t use, or vignettes of rooms that are never lived in. Because we live in our house, work from home, and homeschool Sydney from here, it’s nice to have ample space ~~for when we need to get away from each other~~ that functions well.

But our house had zero personality. There weren’t things on the wall that had meaning. No images, no artwork that we fell in love with. No rugs that we bought to fit the new spaces, and virtually no color. Anywhere.

And the thing about color is that I really like it. Not to wear though, I’m a black and white and blue jeans all day/everyday kind of girl. But I like to see color. Color makes me happy.

We are a family of makers, and we thrive when there is a project at hand, so it seemed like maybe it was time to start making our house our home. Which is how our chevron wall came into existence. Night after night, our evenings ended in our family room, all together, watching a show. Surrounded by a soaring ceiling, and entirely blank walls.

Keith and I agreed that we could tackle a feature wall, and after a week on Pinterest, settled on a chevron pattern, in a whitewash finish. And as I was having a panic attack, questioning if it was adding to or subtracting from the value of our house, Keith was quick to remind me that it didn’t matter. As long as it added value to our life. As long as it made us smile and enjoy living here more.