Apartment Days are Gone

Our first year of marriage, Michael and I lived in a cute one bedroom apartment on the south side of Charlotte. It was a blessing to find a home close to the seminary and convenient to our tutoring gigs. However, after a year, we really wanted to find a house. Unfortunately, houses for rent in Charlotte are hard to come by in our price range, but God is gracious and provided us with the perfect place!

Several members of our church urged us to look at a couple of rental houses in a neighborhood just north of Uptown, called Biddleville. We were hesitant at first, the neighborhood doesn't have the safest reputation. However, we gave it a whirl. We were quickly swept in by the community of Uptown people living nearby and were convinced that we needed to live in Biddleville. Within a couple of weeks, we signed the rental agreement and began to prepare for our move.

The rental house was in pretty rough shape at the initial viewing. But I was confident it had potential.

Here are a few pictures of what it looked like before we moved in (please forgive their poor quality...I am not a photographer...at least not a good one): 

The Living Room.
The people living here before us were not what you called organized...or clean.

Another shot of the Living Room
This couch is in front of a door that goes out to the screened-in porch...not as convenient as one might think.

Dining Room

I love the HUGE windows in this house. The entire house has beautiful natural lighting.

Bedroom #1

I don't really have words for this yet. 

Bedroom #2

Bathroom

Kitchen

1/2 of the Bonus Room

In real life, this color is BRIGHT BRIGHT red.

The other 1/2 of the Bonus Room

And this color is NEON blue.

Well, as you can see, the work was cut out for us. The colors we atrocious and the place was a mess. But is was worth it...especially since our landlord graciously offered to have the whole house repainted!