Our Ohio Home-The Befores

 We moved here to Ohio during the last week of March. I never brought out the real camera so I never showed you the before pictures of our place. I thought I'd go through the fuzzy smart phone images and give you a quick run-down of our move and some glimpses of our house before we settled in.

We arrived in Iowa during a cold spell. We were there to get our things that had been in storage for seven months. We had two days to unload this storage unit into a moving truck.

We used ABF, for anyone interested, and we really liked our experience with them. It was far cheaper than renting a UHAUL and driving it a couple states, plus you get more space. ABF drops off the trailer portion of a semi-truck. You can take as long as you need to fill the trailer and call them to pick it up when you're ready. They take a few days to drive your load to your new place, then drop it off for you to unload.  

Loading was hard and muddy and the last day was stressful, but we were done in plenty of time thanks to volunteers from our church who came to help. If you were one of them, thank you so so much!

 Another storm came in on the day we left Iowa. We were ahead of most of the snow and never had really poor driving conditions.

We spent one night in a motel because we were in no hurry. It's always nice with little kids to break up the drive into more manageable portions.

It was still snowy in Mt. Vernon.

We enjoyed the architecture of the old buildings!

 Deciphering the circle at the center of town wasn't as enjoyable.

Not far from town lies the campus of Mt. Vernon Academy. Next door is The Hill Church with which we share a driveway.

Here is our awkward little home! At the left of the above picture is the playhouse, then the main house. The master bedroom is the one with the window AC. The window right next to it is half in the stairwell and half in the boys' room. Downstairs from left to right are the guest room, bathroom, awkward-and-useless front door, and kitchen window. The building on the right is a one-car garage. In between the house and garage is a mudroom that I'll share with you eventually.

Here you can see the entrance a little. The window downstairs with one shutter is over the kitchen sink. The upstairs window is in the boys' room.

 Mudroom

Door to garage from the mudroom.

Dining room and living room. The kitchen is to the left.

 Kitchen (click here to see "after" pictures of the kitchen)

Living room

 Non-working fireplace but a mantel to decorate!

 Main bathroom

 There was a lot of mold and it was really grody, but it cleaned up pretty well. I would like to re-caulk the tub before sharing pictures with you, so keep waiting!

 Empty guest room (updated guest room can be seen here)

 

Not sure why I didn't take a picture of the stairs, but you get to enjoy the mauve carpet in the master bedroom without any distractions!

Josiah in the master bedroom.

Tiny, funny, ugly upstairs half bath.

Someone want to sponsor a half bath remodel? I just need $200 to spend at Lowe's and a few afternoons of my husband's handiwork and you wouldn't recognize this space!

 The boys' room (that's the window on the side of the house).

 Boys' room (window on the front of the house). Please, please can we rip up the carpet?

Looking out the upstairs window to the front of the house. We have a circular driveway!

Looking back down the driveway to the church.

 Playhouse from the living room window.

The next day most of the snow had melted and the boys explored the playhouse. It isn't really finished and has some hazards to deal with, but it held so much promise for me that first day. I was seeing that my kids would be taken care of and that they would have a safe place to play outside! Yay for answered prayers!

 Two days later our new friends (thank you, Sam and Dan and Benny and Chris and Mr. Hall!) emptied out our truck....

 ...and our house was no longer empty! (mudroom)

 (dining room)

 (kitchen)

We celebrated our first sit-down meal in our borrowed home in Ohio with a glass of sparkling grape juice we got from Navarro back when we were in California. Yay for feeling settled!

Hope you liked this tour of our house when we moved in! It's always kinda scary and overwhelming yet exciting to see an empty house and wonder where will our stuff go? Have you moved lately?