Welcome to Granimal House!

 Welcome to Granimal House

We’ve decided to start blogging to keep everyone updated on house/ life goings-on with the Williams! Just to give you some context for the madness which is about to ensue...

In October, we were getting ready for Peter to leave for 6 months of training with the Army. The week before he left, I saw the cutest house for sale (while trolling on real estate sites - because I do that) - and I couldn’t believe the price for the location! We weren’t looking to move, but I e-mailed our fab realtor friend, Michelle, just to see if houses in that area were usually that price. She responded that we needed to look at the house that week.

Tour day! Who wouldn't fall in love with this house?

So the day before Peter left, we went to look at the house. It was impossibly cute. It ticked all of our boxes: Cape Cod with shakes (me), white and black exterior (Peter), giant corner lot (Gracie), adorable 1940s charm throughout (humans), plenty of corners in which to sniff (Gracie). We made an offer that day. Peter left for training the next morning. The offer went through about a week later. We were set to close in December!

Our landlords let us break our lease early - and found renters immediately. I packed in two weeks and headed to my parents.

At this point, I have to mention that we have awesome friends and family. All-caps AWESOME. Truly amazing and outstanding. We are so, so blessed.

Our friend Paul and my dad basically moved our entire apartment into a truck, then my family unloaded all of our belongings into their garage for the duration of my stay. I have to reiterate that this meant none of my family got to park in the garage for that time - during winter in Minnesota. Now THAT is love.

In a joint show of their awesomeness, a group of over 20 friends and family helped me and G move into the house just before Peter came home for Christmas. They cleaned my dirty refrigerator and maneuvered our giant sectional into the basement. They assembled bed frames. My friend Sarah and my mom stayed until the wee hours meticulously wiping each and every cabinet of the kitchen out, then helping me fill and organize the cupboards.

I didn’t take a single photo all day.

BUT - when Peter walked through the door two days later, the most important stuff was unpacked (kitchen, bathroom, bedroom) and all he had to do was marvel at the fact that we had significantly upgraded our living conditions since he had left.

The best moment was putting up the tree together in our first home. G refused to participate because we had a fire going in the fireplace (fact: Gracie is afraid of fires of any sort).

First Christmas! The tree was literally the only furniture in the room.

Obviously, we’ve been making a few changes, doing some tweaks, and majorly overhauling a few things since then and since we’re really proud of ourselves, we thought we’d share.

The front door’s open. Come in to the mess!