Our houses that have been HOME

With the sale of our home, and my recent trip to Utah, I have been thinking a lot about what makes a home and all of the places that Grant and I have lived since we have been married. Here is a little walk down memory lane of our residences in the last 7 years!

When looking for housing as an engaged couple, we decided that a furnished apartment would be the best option, since neither of us owned any furniture. We found a place that supplied everything we needed, with the option of them taking it out when we no longer wanted it. This worked perfectly for us, as it gave us a year to accumulated the needed furniture to move to an unfurnished place. And this is where we decided upon...Branbury Apartments. It was combo married housing and student housing, which might not have been ideal, but we really enjoyed it. We had awesome neighbors and met a lot of great friends that year.
The door on the 2nd floor was ours...we enjoyed the second floor as it was insulated requiring less utilities, isn't too many stairs, but you still get a balcony. This is the only place we have lived where we had a land line phone...it was included in the apartment, so we used it...but haven't had one since! While in Utah last month, my sisters and I were reminiscing about the time they came to visit before EFY and 8 people stayed with us in our 1 bdrm apartment! There were people sleeping everywhere (including in the closet)!
After a year of living there, we decided to move to a newer, unfurnished place. We bought our first couch (which we still have and I love) and moved into this cute, but small, 1 bedroom, at Parkside Apartments. Again, we lived on the second floor (middle balcony pictured below). We absolutely loved this apartment. Our good (great!) friends Jenny and Sean lived right above us (the landlord asked if it would be awkward for them to live above us...haha), which made life so fun. And, when Grant's brother Tim got married that summer, him and Tricia moved into the building in front of us. Surrounded by people we loved!
We had a park view, underground parking, a washer/dryer and a nice cute place. The kitchen was a big upgrade from a very old Branbury and I finally was able to start enjoy cooking. It is crazy how many good memories you can have in 600 sq. feet :)
We loved our apartment and loved our ward...but happened upon another place, only 2 blocks away, which was still in our ward and next door to some friends, the Romneys. It was 2 bedrooms, covered parking, near the park, and utilities included. It was almost the same amount we paid for our small 1 bedroom...so after only a year at Parkside, we moved again, to this 4-plex, where we lived the remainder of our time in Provo (2 years). It was in this condo that our creative juices started flowing. We painted the entire apartment tan, did an orange venetian backsplash in the kitchen, a faux finish in the bathroom, and a green wall in the bedroom. It was also here that we spent hours watching HGTV, getting ideas of what we wanted to do to our future house when we moved to Kentucky. We spent 2 years here...and again, I loved it. Having 2 bedrooms, we felt like we had a real home where people could come visit, etc. There were a lot of stairs from where we parked up to our condo, but it kept us fit :) (Our apt was top left pictured below)
And then...in April 2008, we bought our first house...and moved to Kentucky! I have written plenty about that experience, but it was definitely fun to have our first house, and learn so much about the buying process, what it means to be a homeowner (good and bad), and remodeling. Although in Lexington for 4 years (1 more to go), we only lived in the house for 3 (obviously since we just sold!) I guess we can't stay put for too long...don't want to get too comfortable with several years of Navy service ahead.
And for those of you who were feeling bad for us that we left this beautiful home to go back to a life of renting...feel bad no longer. We are lucky to be renting a beautiful home from our friends and have graduated to our first house with a 2 car garage (which Grant continues to love and talk about on a nearly daily basis). We got a new grill (after 7 yrs the other one had seen better days) and have been enjoying the patio, and I'm excited for the built in space heater in the giant master bathroom this winter.

And hopefully in about 6 months we will know where our adventures will take us next and can start looking for our next HOME :)