Two Years Later: Before and After

Most of my readers who've been with me over the years know that in 2019 we made a major downsize, going from a large home and garden to living in a loft. I have no regrets, and am very happy with a downsized lifestyle. 

A couple weeks ago while walking in our old neighborhood, we ran into the wife of the couple who bought our former home. She invited us in to see what changes they've made to both the home and garden.  I thought you might like to see a few of the major changes they've made.

The Courtyard: Before and After

What the new owners did with the courtyard is tear out all the old brick pavers, plus lower the enclosing brick wall to open it to the adjoining landscaped yard. They put in a new bluestone patio, and added a pergola from the sunroom and family room French doors. They also took out the hot tub we had (not seen in the above photos).

Here's a photo of the wall and landscape as it looked before the brick wall was lowered, early May. The spirea had yet to bloom, and the bee balm was coming up along the wall, just to the right of the roses and iris. Black-eyed Susans surrounded my garden statue and were mid-summer blooms. All of those are now gone. I was happy to see the irises still remain, as do two of the three climbing roses.

Here's a couple photos of the courtyard while we were living there (below, in Fall). The brick wall not only provided some afternoon shade, but it also gave a lot of privacy.

The photo below shows the hot tub still in place.

These next photos are what really blew my mind. When we renovated the landscape back in 2004 we also had architectural plans drawn to renovate the unfinished basement, but that never happened. When we sold the house, we gave the architectural renderings to the new owners.

Basement: Before and After:

You could've used our basement as a skating rink, but instead I filled it up with storage for my Panoply antiquing and household goods. My picture below is after I emptied it, just before our move in 2019.

Here's what the new owners did with the space. First, they had the stairs finished in wood to match the first floor and stairs leading to the second level.

The photo collage below represents the basement space to the right of the stairs once you're on the lower level. It compares to the upper half of the unfinished collage photo above. They made a bedroom, and a full bath to the rear about where that window is in the unfinished space photo.

Next, coming down the stairs and turning left, this space is now finished as a family room. The fireplace was there before as you can see. They haven't decided on whether they'll install gas logs or not.

Gardening

In gardening, before we moved, I dug up several of my plants to share with others. My daughter had moved into a home the year before, so her garden beds were ones that I helped add to. Here's one of her flower beds pictured just a couple weeks ago, when her transplanted irises were blooming. She also has love-in-a mist (nigella) growing and yet to bloom beside the irises. Transplanted lavender is doing well in pots in the front of her house (not pictured).

Wow! is what I say, what say you? We had a lot of projects on our list when we moved that needed checked off had we stayed. The new owners were in a great position to get those and their own started. One thing I always wanted was to take out all the carpet upstairs and have wood floors to match the downstairs installed. They did that, and they're beautiful. I also wanted to ditch the hot tub (and install a she shed). They disposed of the hot tub, but I'm not sure if they plan to replace it with anything.

They say you can never go back, but it really wasn't hard for us. The first thing Mr. P. said when we walked away was, "I don't miss it at all". I don't either. It's nice to see it's being loved.

Have you ever moved and gone back to be able to see what the new owners have done to the property? 

Rita C. at Panoply

(A special thank you to Debra of Common Ground's All About Home #91 for featuring this post!)

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