Goodbye Northbridge (all one word!)

My mama did it; she sold her house! It closed at the beginning of September and Carma and Jack and I made the trek over that morning to help my mom say goodbye:

I'm really impressed with my mom; this hasn't been an easy journey over the last year as she's made the decision to leave the house she's lived in for so long and start a new adventure elsewhere (elsewhere being into a beautiful house out here in Nampa that she's in the process of buying, hooray! Keep your fingers crossed the process goes smoothly, the house is wonderful!)

A few months ago I recapped phase one of the 'getting-the-house-ready-to-sell' adventure (in case you missed it: every item in the house was packed, trashed, sold, or donated. Main bathroom was remodeled, financed by Sam's rent contributions and labor donated by Don, Sam, Chuck, and Cody. Carpet was replaced. Kitchen counters and sink were redone). After Sam and Terri headed back to Utah in early March, phase two began - starring none other than my amazing husband Chuck! 

You might not know that for a year while Chuck and I were dating and engaged, he worked for a painting company doing interior and exterior residential painting. He might not want you to know that, haha. But my mom and I were very aware of this and he was quickly recruited to PAINT EVERY WALL AND CEILING IN THAT HOUSE. Oh, and the baseboards. Ohhhh the baseboards. Grateful I'm still married...

Didn't he do an incredible job?? The lighting is special in some of these, but the bedrooms are all a caramel color and the main living areas were all a wheat-y kind of color and all of the baseboards and trim became white. I think the worst part for me personally was when he had to do that back bedroom that I lived in during my teenage years - I don't even want to know how many hundreds of pushpin holes he had to spackle (I liked to put up posters...) or how many coats of paint it took to cover my cool blue and yellow sponge-painted walls. Sorry again honey!

Quinn came up for a couple days at the beginning of May to help and Chuck entrusted us grunt laborers with the easiest task - painting doors. It suuuuucked. (obviously not as much as painting everything else, I know, I know)

 We did find the time (I think it was around midnight??) to take some pictures of ourselves. REALLY flattering pictures...

Chuck and I put a few more hours in and then concluded our participation (just in time for Carma to come a week later!):

My poor, patient boys!

My mom and Larry and Iris then put in their fair share of blood/sweat/tears doing all the finishing touches as the house officially went on the market that month. Why none of them thought to document their work as diligently as I did mine, I'll never know ;).

Here I am, saying one last goodbye to the aforementioned teenage bedroom :). 

I anticipated being reeeeally emotional that morning on the last walk through of my 'childhood home' but I had a better grip than I thought I would. [Full disclosure: I hate change. When I was like ten we got rid of the horrendous yellow/orange shag carpet in that house and I definitely cried.] It's really just a house. Everything that made it a 'home' - all of the trinkets and treasures that I mercilessly made my poor mom justify to my satisfaction so that it would be packed instead of donated - will be in my mom's new house, including, you know, her! The house on Northbridge (all one word!) was great, and now it's become someone else's home and that's great too. [as long as I don't think about all of the remodeling that they began immediately that rendered my thousands of paint strokes on closet doors pointless... :) ]