The New House

Whew! A lot has happened in the past few months. I suppose I should start by saying that Greg and I bought a house in North Denver. It's in an area called Sunnyside, near the newly popular areas of Highlands and Berkeley. When I was a kid, the area was just 'Lakeside', and we were warned to stay away. As a result, exiting onto Federal from I-70 still feels like I'm breaking some sort of rule. Federal as a street is known for its crazy Cinco de Mayo chaos and Lakeside was once supposedly disputed gang territory. I'm definitely wondering if there was ever any truth to these stories, though - there are beautiful parks, adorable houses, and at least three coffee shops within walking distance of our house (only one is a Starbucks). The neighbors are friendly, the kids play in the street (one family on our block has quintuplets), and the trees are big. We're just 10 minutes north of LoDo (Lower Downtown) Denver, and easy to get to from all sides. Sunnyside used to be an Italian neighborhood and our back yard was full of grapes about a month ago. We also have an apricot tree and a cherry tree. They both need some care, but hopefully will produce fruit next year. The yard is generally fantastic and has a huge covered patio with doors to both the kitchen and the master bedroom. It's a two bed, two bath house, but it also sort of has two living rooms since the basement is finished and just has one room. Not a lot of storage, but its working out for us. The floors are beautiful wide oak planks. The majority of the walls are, unfortunately plaster, but we're working on painting. The kitches was a very tomato-soupy red and is now much brighter in cream with a dark purple accent wall. Next to paint is the bedroom. Then curtains. We've already had some major plumbing issues fixed, put a new roof over the front stoop, had the sewage lines cleaned of roots, and replaced every window in the house. And to think - this house was 'move-in ready'! I can't imagine what it would be like to move into a fixer-uper! I know these pictures aren't the best - and they're a little dated. I will try to get more up soon so you can all get a better sense of what its really like.