Ever since we've been married, I've made a point of doing a blog post with a "tour" of each home we lived in. I never got around to doing it with my Ogden house while I actually lived there, cause I pretty much hated it. However, I did live there for nearly 10 months, so it deserves to be documented.
Here is the girls' room. it was pretty crowded, but it was okay. I decorated in here because I wanted Lexsi to feel comfortable as soon as we moved in. It's really the only room in the house that ever got decorated.
Our bedroom. It was so tiny that all we could fit was our king-sized bed. Seriously. And yes, I had blankets up in the windows. it helped block the sun better, and I didn't want to have to buy more curtains and curtain rods that I'd never use again. So we went with this ridiculous look.
Here's our bedroom again, after we moved and it was all clean. Now do you see why I originally decided we should live in this house? When it's empty, it looks decent. Not awesome, but livable. But pictures don't accurately portray the size. Or the lack of circulation/insane heat (there was no AC, no swamp cooler and no screens in the windows). Or the smell.
This was the closet in our bedroom. It's not any bigger than what you can see here... literally the width of a standard door. And no rod in it to hang anything on... it was bad.
This is the third bedroom, which we turned into our closet. We had dressers in here, bought cheap clothes racks for our hanging clothes, and also had storage in here. It wasn't awesome. Mia also slept in this room for a while in the Pack and Play.
Upstairs bathroom. It wasn't terrible, but again-- no screen in the window and no fan or ventilation, so it got super hot. And I HATED the tiled counter.
The stairs going down to the main level of the house. Let's take a moment to recognize the lack of hand rail on a steep flight of stairs. And that purple carpet. I'd like to believe it was on an insane clearance, not that someone ever really thought it was a beautiful choice. It's so purple. And hotel-quality. Also, imagine my concern that these are these steep, railing-less stairs are the ones Lexsi learned to walk down on. And picture me at 9 months pregnant, carrying a 19-month-old Lex on my hip with nothing to hold onto as I walked downstairs. Yikes.
Okay now we're down on the main level of the house. This is the view when you walked in the "front" door, which was technically on the side of the house. We used the closet on the left as a pantry, the closet on the right as storage mainly for tools.
This room is to the right of the closets in the previous picture. The floor is totally uneven, the carpet is gross... BUT it was nice to have the big space as a toy room. We put down a big carpet we had that was leftover from our Spanish Fork house, and it covered the majority of the yucky carpet. The closet in the back of this room was a pretty big size, and was good for storage.
The utility room was in the toy room, and it just deserves to be documented simply because of it's ridiculously small size. The water heater is BEHIND the furnace, and to get to it you have to turn sideways, step over a pipe, duck under another pipe... it's stupid. And our water had issues lots of times there, so we were back there far more often than we should have been.
Thr view of the kitchen/living room from the entry way.
Here is the tiny tiny living room. I should have taken pictures before the furniture was all moved out. It is SO SMALL. And the weird, blocked off fireplace with one tile glued to the front is a particularly nice touch, don't you think?
View from the living room by the fireplace back toward the entry way.
Here's the kitchen. The cabinets are decent. The counter top is tiled and done terribly. It's totally uneven. Also the floor tiles were uneven and broken in some areas. All in all, not the worst room of the house.
Laundry nook off of the kitchen.
Teeny tiny half bath by the kitchen. Notice how low that mirror is hung. I had to stand all the way back in the kitchen before I was able to see my head in it. HA!
One last view from the entryway. This space was one of the most frustrating of the house. The space between the kitchen counter and the wall with the windows on it was just small enough that you couldn't fit a table in it, but big enough that it was too big to be just a walkway... it's just an awkward space. Also that door on the back wall is technically the front door of the house, but we never used it because our living room furniture was in front of it most of the time.
And finally, here's the exterior of the house.
After seeing these pictures, you may think I'm a total snob. I really don't think I am. The space was decent I suppose. It worked for us for 10 months. The biggest problems are that the space is cut up in choppy, weird ways that make it hard to use, and it's quite obvious that the owner doesn't care much about the property. The walls are plaster and have about a billion holes in them. Even if the holes were filled and a fresh coat of paint was put everywhere it would make a huge difference. The smell of this place was just... disgusting. Even after we had lived in it for a long time, the house smelled so gross. It was a combination of musty carpet, cats, and just plain oldness. Bad. And there were serious bug issues. Ants were all over the tile in the kitchen and I killed SO many spiders. The outside doors weren't tight in their frames, so bugs came in all the time. I sprayed bug spray around the doors, windows and base boards every few days. Not cool. I never really wanted people to come to my house, cause I wasn't comfortable in it. There wasn't space for entertaining. I usually LOVE having people come over! I love having parties. I became a hermit in this house because of it's weirdness. And I also was always worried when people smelled it, they would think it was MY fault it smelled bad. It's not. I mopped the floor at least once a day with bleach. I kept it clean. It's just a yucky house.
The house is on a really busy street, which is not awesome. It's also not in a good neighborhood. I've been very vocal about not liking to live in Ogden, and this is the main reason why. I never went outside with my girls cause I didn't feel safe, even in my own yard. Within a couple of weeks of moving to Brigham City, there was a drive-by shooting at the house next door to my Ogden house. You will never ever convince me that it's a safe place to live. Do I think there are better places in Ogden that you could live? Absolutely. Do I think you're a bad person if you love living in Ogden and want to raise your kids there and be there forever? Not at all! I don't like being in a big city. I LOVE Brigham City, mostly because it's nice and small. I recognize that this is a matter of personal preference. There are plenty of people (my own parents and siblings being at the top of the list) that joke about small-town life and wouldn't want to live in a small town. I'm fine with that. It's not for everyone, just like big cities are not for everyone, and that's fine.
This house really never felt like home. Any excuse I had to leave Ogden and go stay at my mom's for a few days I took. I always dreaded coming back to Ogden. I always knew that it was a temporary thing, so I didn't make a huge effort to make it my home. I'm grateful for experiences that I had while living there, but I'm so very very grateful to have moved to a place that feels comfortable, and most importantly, like home.
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