"To know where you are going, you must first know where you have been"

I have lived on my own for over 10 years now. In those 10 years, I have moved 8 times.....EIGHT. and almost none of those moves were "temporary" moves...every time I moved, I set up house...I settled in....I decorated...I gave the place every ounce of house love that I had......only to have to leave a short time later. I went from my childhood home to 4 different apartments...a town house...my first house...another apartment...the rental home that stole my heart...and I am getting ready to move to my last home for a while. After this move, I am throwing away the boxes. It's time for me to settle in for a bit, make myself comfortable and enjoy my space for as long as I want. 

But like I said...I loved my homes. and you can't appreciate moving forward without looking back every once in a while. 

So come with me on a little tour of my past homes...and some of my favorite spaces.

(please excuse the quality of these photos...some came from my camera...some from my phone and others were scanned in)

The Coppell House

This is the home I grew up in...it was built in 1992 and I lived there for 10 years. It was the classic "red brick" suburban house...3 bedrooms....3 bathrooms...a true formal living and dining room...a study with a big oak desk...and an entry with green marble floors and a huge gold and crystal chandelier. Oh. So. 90's :)

The Red House

My ex husband and I bought this house when we were 23 years old. I got the idea one day that I was going to call a realtor and figure out if we could get a rental house because I was sick of living in apartments....a young realtor and his wife showed us two houses....this was the second one...in less than a month, we went from apartment renters to home owners. It was a whirlwind of an experience, but that was kinda how our life was. I loved this house. It was in a "planned community" that had 3 HUGE swimming pools with water park style water slides, caves, splash pads and more...huge parks....a club house with a work out room, media area, and tons of community events. The only problem...it was about 40 minutes outside of town. The Red house was a builder spec home when we bought it...just over 2200 sq ft...4 bedrooms, 3 baths, a formal dining room and a huge game room upstairs. (I still own this house and I'm currently renting it out to a quiet, lovely, older couple....I now refer to this house as my kids college fund LOL)

The Apartment

Leaving the red house was the start of my new life....from here I moved in to a cute 2nd story apartment in the town I live in now. It was a beautiful space...hard wood floors, spacious kitchen with stainless appliances...lots of upgrades and a view of the upscale shopping center below. But I'm a Texas girl...which means I need some room to breathe...and a second story apartment felt like a boxed in prison cell to me. But in the 15 months that I was there, I did my best to make it mine ...like by creating my own little "CL-Office" (closet office)

And my craft closet

But I could only take so much...so I told the nerdy boy it was time to find a home. some how. some way. it had to happen. So I got a new (totally awesome) realtor...who had saint like paitience while he took me to look at about 25 different rental houses....and I found a problem with each of them "I don't like the neighborhood" "its too dark" "too much brass" etc. Then I came across my little rental.....it was the strangest place I had ever been in....it had really strange paint colors (think highlighter green bedrooms, a red wine dining room and a black kitchen) and an even stranger kitchen........but something about it spoke to me. I HAD to have it. and so started my 16 month love affair with a house :)

The Rental that Stole My Heart

 It's nothing fancy...or incredible...but it was home. I spent the last 6 months attempting to get the nerdy boy to just let me rent this place forever(even though we pay WAYYYY too much in rent and our landlord is absolutely impossible to deal with) but after finally coming to terms with the fact that there were some pretty serious foundation issues...and some bad plumbing and heating issues...the house that had my heart started to look more and more like a giant money pit. 

I hate that I am just now posting this today...when more than half of my house is in boxes...all the pictures are off my walls...and its just not my pretty little place anymore. But I did manage to salvage a few face book pics to show you a few of my favorite spaces

Like my entry way 

And our "command center" 

And my office

With my little craft nook

Sigh...isn't it dreamy? 

 And finally...after being moved twice within her first year of life...my little Skylar had a room of her own <3

Every one of these places holds a place in my heart and lots of fond memories. they were each stepping stones in my life path to get me to where I am today...and I can't wait to leap to the next stone.