What We Never Expected
One of the biggest surprises in moving back home that we experienced was feeling sad to leave our rental - 1009 North Drury Lane.
Sure it was smaller than what we were used to, and felt cramped sometimes, and needed work to update it as all rentals do, but it felt like ours. It had been home for 13 months during a pandemic where we got to know every nook and cranny of that house. While we sometimes complained about the dishwasher being too loud or the office being drafty in cold weather or some of the kitchen cabinetry layout being a bit clunky, we also loved the square space in the kitchen that allowed us to cook together — in some ways more functional than our old kitchen — the living room area perched up higher than street level where we could look out over the street at neighbors passing by, the HUGE basement that served as pod, storage area and family room all-in-one.
The place had a simple charm to it and had become home - where we made memories for 13 months of living through a unique and challenging time. We made loads of delicious meals in that space, developed our whole Happy Boolo website concept and we had written loads of blog posts. We had many virtual meetings and calls with our design team about various parts of the house project; we had our weekly project status meeting on Friday mornings. We made loads of decisions about various house materials with our architect and design team continually dropping off loads of samples to check out. Later in the year we were constantly receiving items that we had ordered for the house. It always seemed there was some pile of stuff sitting in our living room/dining room related to our Happy Boolo Project.
Siding, roof and metal roof samples for final metal roof decisions - February 2020
Lighting fixtures arrive - August 2020
We had fun experiencing life at the north end of Drury Lane, getting to know various neighbors at the other end of the street - Erik and Asami, Linda and Randy, Josh and Christina, Mark and Karen. We had fun taking walks from a new starting point. We were super grateful we were only 24 houses up the street, so that we literally could walk or run down to our house renovation within minutes to check on something, take pictures, talk to the various trades experts on the job, with neighbors often asking how the project was going as we passed by. We enjoyed having my parents over a few times for a yummy meal and driving them down to see our house under construction. And it was super fun to have neighbors from where we had been living come by for safe “hello” at a social distance or to drop off a piece of artwork that made it onto our rental home fridge.
Brunch buffet set out for Mike, my folks and me featuring Dandelion Farro tart - my first food blog post!
Scallops, apple romaine salad with lemon vinaigrette inspired by Gordon Ramsay
Mom visiting house after brunch at 1009 North Drury Lane
Flowers from neighbor
Renovation rendering featuring Tyvek house wrap from an artistic neighbor
It’s funny to think about my original idea to unpack some of our artwork, to set up more of the living room, dining room area before the pandemic set in. But with the lockdown happening, it made sense to turn that main area of the home into Happy Boolo Project central, keeping the many files of various house related documents, architecture plans, lists of house to do’s next to and sometimes on top of our dining room table and covering the walls with our website plans and a storyboard for a Happy Boolo video still to come.
Website plans cover the walls of 1009
Part of our storyboard for future Happy Boolo video
it’s funny to think back to when we signed a 9-month lease with our landlord John - who also happens to be a builder. Clearly, he’s wiser than we were; he always suspected our project would run over, and perhaps it would have even without the pandemic and with the cushion time our construction manager had already worked in. But as no one planned for a pandemic, our project extended by four more months. Our bank account wasn’t too happy about that, but it was necessary. We were very grateful to have a flexible landlord and a cozy place to stay right on our street throughout all 13 months of the project. And we appreciated all the advice and tips John gave us during construction; we called him a number of times to validate various decisions we were making, and ideas we were hearing from our various project team members. He always generously listened and provided his perspective.
So when we realized we would do our move in two stages — one for the main house furniture and one a week later to move the garage and outdoor items — after our garage was outfitted by White Rabbit — and any furniture we had not sold — we intentionally planned to say an official “farewell” to 1009. In between moves, we were going back each day to do final laundry given our renovated home required new habits with an electric washer and dryer with a number of high-tech features we had to learn and to manage the selling of furniture that would not fit into our new configuration. We even showed the house to a neighbor whose mom was thinking of moving closer to her daughter during this pandemic.
So on one of our numerous final visits over there, we spent a little time in each room saying good-bye to it and reflecting on our many good memories of living at 1009.
Thanks for a safe place to rest our head every night!
Lots of thinking going on in this office
We loved seeing our Drury Lane neighbors pass by our front window
Thanks for many amazing home-cooked meals!