Rain City Life

A little over a year ago my boyfriend bought a house. Built in 1947 and located just north of Seattle (although still in Seattle city limits – this was VERY important), our charming little rambler has yellow vinyl siding, is extremely outdated and is slanted. Yes, slanted. Should you decide to put a marble on the floor in the kitchen, it will travel all the way to the living room wall. But that is a problem for another day.

The couple before us lived in our house for about 50 years, raised a family and retired here. They are in their 80’s now and moved to an assisted living. When we first looked at the house it was obvious that there hadn’t been any updates in quite some time. It was as if it were stuck in the 70’s. From the terrible yellowish orange floor and wallpaper in the kitchen, to the wood paneling that lined a majority of the walls, the “forest” wallpaper (which was actually just paper stapled to the wall) in one of the bedrooms and the murphy bed bolted to the wall in another one – it needed a lot of help.

It was listed as a 3 bedroom, 1 bath, although some could argue the 3rd bedroom, or as we like to call it “the bonus room”, couldn’t possibly be counted as a bedroom. Not only does it not have a door (although there was some evidence that there may have been an “accordion” type door previously) it doesn’t have that bedroom feel. This most likely is due to the fact that this one bedroom is an add on and has this terrible hard floor that gives it a wonderful “jail cell” type feel.

When my boyfriend, Matt, began his search for the perfect house, it didn’t take long for him to come across this one and fall in love with it. I remember coming home from work one day and him saying to me “Jenica, this is THE house.” Shortly after that, he brought his mother and me over to meet the realtor he was working with and take a look inside.

“Try to keep an open mind,” he said as we pulled up.

Oh Lord what was I getting myself into? As Matt and his mom talked to the realtor in the backyard, I walked through the house trying to “open” my mind. I couldn’t quite see what he did but it didn’t really matter. Although he valued my opinion, ultimately it was his decision, his money and I trusted him. That night Matt put an offer down on the house and shortly after that, after a bit of drama of course, we received the good news. The house was ours. His. Whatever.

This is the house shortly after it was sold.

The night we got the keys we took his parents and brother over to take a look inside. Here are some pictures I took with my phone. As you can see below – the house was going to take a lot of work – and is still currently a work in progress.

We’ve done a lot of updating so far – stories I’ll tell in time. But we are nowhere near finished. Which is something that doesn’t really bother us. It’s an adventure and we love it. It’s just our life in rain city.