Personal History: Our first house

I wish I had a better memory for all the details of our first year of marriage, but I don't remember much.  I do know that we were consumed with updating our house that we bought.  We bought our house in one of the worst housing markets ever.  Some of the houses we saw were literally uninhabitable, so when we found this one we were thrilled to find that we both liked it.  Really thinking back on our first glimpse of the house, I'm so surprised we bought it;  It was a dump, the people living in it had so much junk and crap and dogs.  GROSS.  We devoted our days and nights to cleaning, painting and dreaming of all that we could do with our house.  I wish I had more before pictures, but we don't have very many.  Trust me though this house has been a labor of love.  Some of the awesome stuff we got rid of:  pink shag carpet, pink paint on the walls, wood paneling in our room, 15 layers of paint on our kitchen cupboards, blue counter tops, false ceilings, crappy wiring, bad plumbing, desert landscaping, dog smells, cracked walkways.  We have endured some crazy stuff like a flooding basement, windows that leaked with each monsoon rain, and tons of other weird stuff. James has been amazing, with each house project. He tackles them head on, learns how to take care of it and does such a good job.  I'm so happy with how our house looks.  It is really a never ending project, but with everything we do we love the house more.