Our New Home | Birchwood | Before

On Instagram I mentioned that Ryan and I moved!! It has been a stressful two month ride. Without going into too much (boring) detail here is how it went.

Early summer 2021, Ryan and I began thinking it MIGHT be time to move. Saint Paul is absolutely wonderful, but not a great school district and we ultimately wanted to be closer to my family in White Bear Lake. During the first after of summer, we looked at a few houses, but nothing felt right. We looked into building our dream home (think the Draper’s suburban colonial in Mad Men), but building a fully custom home was just out a reach, so we continued the search via our realtor Michael.

Late August, we stumbled upon a fixer upper in Birchwood Village. It needed major updates, including wallpaper, popcorn ceiling and carpet removal, but something about the house really clicked for me. I could see and feel the potential of her (the house. She’s a lady. Duh.) during our first showing.

I did have to talk Ryan into it a little, but after a few days, he  started to see my vision. We made an offer three days after we initial saw her and the sellers took at least another three days to get back to us with a counter. In the meantime, I did my best internet sleuthing in hopes to write the best Love Letter to them. and found the obituary of the woman who owned the house with her husband (still alive and in memory care). From the obituary, I learned she was a cancer surviver and an alum of the University of Iowa. I then sat down and wrote the best love letter I could, tugging at hearts strings and all.

 

So, we got the house! Sold our home in Saint Paul and moved into Birchwood just a few days before Halloween.  Like I stated before, Birchwood needs a lot of work, but we are excited to make this house ours. I’ll leave you with these BEFORE photos and share my plan for each room over the. next few months.

BEFORE PHOTOS