Anchorage Home

Since we will probably move quite frequently, I decided to make little photo booklets of each house we live in.  I think it'll be fun for our kids way down the road to see where we all lived and where they grew up.  I'm still working on the Anchorage house, but this is why I made it a point to take lots of pictures (like I did for our first Houston house).

It all happened so fast I don't think I got to say a proper goodbye to our Anchorage home.  The movers didn't leave until late in the evening the last day and we frantically had to deep clean the entire house and rush off to meet the person to ship up my car before leaving for our flight the next morning at 3am.  It was not a restful, let-it-all-sink-in type of farewell.  

But here is our (old) home.  Isn't the exterior lovely?  It was actually the first house we looked at in Alaska and I was not a fan.  The curb appeal is terrible.  It looks purple (though it's really grey).  And every single house in the neighborhood is exactly the same.  But then we looked at about 40 more homes and I realized it wasn't so bad compared to Alaska standards.  In hindsight, it's covered with snow 8 months of the year anyways, so what does it really matter? :)

Let's take a tour, shall we?  

We rarely used our front door.  Except for guests.  But that's probably pretty normal.  Matt re-did the entry way (aka - arctic entry...keeps the cold air out).  Isn't it so welcoming?  He did a good job.

Our family/dining area.  We had to make sure our furniture fit in whatever house we purchased, specifically our large dining hutch we had just bought (can see in picture below).  Our living room was quite cozy.  I spent many a cold days on that couch sipping hot tea curled up next to my space heater (we owned 3 by the time we left).

I loved how open the downstairs all was.

Our formal dining furniture worked well for everyday use thankfully.  But now that we are back in the south it will probably have it's proper home outside of the eat-in kitchen.

This kitchen was more updated than 99% of the homes we looked at.  It was a bit smaller than what we had before (thus we had appliances stuck in various closets throughout the house).  I baked a lot of goodies in here.

And now for upstairs.  Our guest room with the bright orange wall I painted in the middle of winter.  Good thing I still liked it when the sun came back. :)

Maddie's nursery.  I'm going to miss this sweet room.  Hopefully we can duplicate it in our new house.

The landing.  The last two bedrooms are behind you (along with the stairs) and the master is down the hallway with the second bath on the left and laundry on the right.  I loved having the laundry upstairs.  So convenient! 

The guest bath (notice the second space heater).  

Our master.

And the lovely bathroom remodel of the master bath (which I guaranty helped sell the place and keep our marriage sane).  (And there is the third space heater in the bottom left.)

And then our back patio that we got to enjoy for, eh, 3 months?  

 In reality, here is what is looked like half of the time. :)

It was a great house in a great neighborhood. Sure, it wasn't my dream home, but we made it our own and made lots of memories there.  It will always be our first home purchase as a married couple.  The place we lived our first big adventure together.  Where we learned to endure negative temperatures and 20 hours of darkness a day.  And of course, where we brought our first baby home to.

I'm thankful God gave us a great house in Anchorage, made the choice so clear and blessed us again with a quick sell when it was time to leave.  It's been a bit more challenging this time around, but I'm confident He has something else great in store.  I'm just really learning patience until then...