• a bittersweet finale

We finally finished the Birdhouse. And then we sold it. Actually, we sold it and then put the absolute last finishing touch on it about five minutes before the gal came over to get the keys. It was bittersweet. 

When we bought the Birdhouse we thought we'd fix it up, live in it, and then rent it out while we kept it as an investment and bought another house. For a variety of reasons we decided just to sell. Looking back at all the photos and video I took over the four years we were there, I can't believe we did everything we did to that place. Wow! 

If you haven't been reading this blog from the beginning I'll give you a recap. We bought the foreclosed townhouse in July of 2009. Right away I nicknamed it the Birdhouse because it starts with the same letter as the street it's on, Bendix, (thanks alliteration!) and because it's much cuter than saying "townhouse" all the time. :)

Walking in the first time it looked the same as it probably did when the first owner walked in 30 years before. The entire place needed updating, including the kitchen and bathrooms, which were not usable at all. We had one month left on our apartment lease and spent the entire month of July fixing everything we could so we could actually move in and live there. 

After owning the place for just two days we had scraped the popcorn off all the downstairs ceilings and completely ripped out the kitchen. By day five all the bathrooms were gutted and we had to get my cousin's company to come haul away all the junk we had accumulated. After working 12-hour days for seventeen days straight, we did take a quick 2-day staycation at Hotel Valley Ho, where we were married, and then got back to work. A couple weeks later we finally moved in on August 1st! We did most of the backbreaking work that first month of ownership in order to move in, but thankfully we had lots of family members and some friends who enjoyed joining us in getting dirty! Over the next months and years we chose different projects to work on to get our Birdhouse beautiful. Four years later, just about every square inch of that place was lovingly worked on, updated, and fixed.

Fast forward to May of 2013. We found a new place about four miles away and beat out everyone else that submitted an offer! Yes! Once we bought the new place, we put the Birdhouse on the market, and within a day or two had a few offers. How's that for awesome timing? So, a month later our Birdhouse was going to belong to someone else. That meant in between trips abroad we had to get our stuff packed/moved and finish those couple of items that we just hadn't found time to do.

Now, months later I finally sat down and put together a montage video of our Birdhouse from start to finish with before, sometimes middle, and after photos. Enjoy!