Our San Diego Final Home Tour

Hi friends!  Well, the papers are signed and the ink is dry- we sold our home!  It’s very bittersweet, this is my favorite place that we’ve ever lived.  The home itself is wonderful but more importantly it’s the first place where we’ve had an actual community and it changed our lives entirely.  A few days after moving into this house we found a pink flamingo in our yard with a balloon and a note inviting us to go door to door to find the person responsible for putting it there, and promising a prize when we did.  We were SO SUSPECT!  WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE we asked each other.  A few weeks later the woman who lives directly across the street, Bev, knocked on our door with homemade pesto and sausage to welcome us to the neighborhood.  She said “No one has ever taken so long to come to collect their prize before!”  HA!  We were definitely not accustomed to friendly neighbors and we took a moment to warm up to it.

But warm up we did.  Bev hosted movie nights in the canyon, a large projector set up and an open invitation to the entire neighborhood.  She hosted block parties and rented a bouncy house for the kiddos.  She introduced herself and us to every single person who walked by our houses.  As the weeks and months passed we found ourselves friendly with nearly every neighbor on our street and many more from the surrounding neighborhood.  Now more than a couple of them have become close friends.  And neighbor friends, in our experience, are another level of friend.  At least ours have been.  They’ve taken part in our daily lives, we see them nearly every day even if only for a two minute catch up chat.  We share all aspects of life together.  We’ve met each other’s extended families, we love and look out for each other’s children.  It allows for a closeness that seems difficult to achieve without proximity.  It feels somehow closer to family than friendship.

It’s hard to express how this changed our lives, but it had a profound impact on our happiness.  We went through some very challenging times in this house, primarily surrounding my health, and our neighbors helped carry us through it.  I remember coming home from the hospital with Teo just raw from trauma and bursting into tears each time I saw one of their faces.  They took care of our animals during my month long hospital stay, they drove me to my doctor appointments so that Lou could stay home with Teo, and they surrounded us with the love we so needed during that time.  I am not sure how we would’ve managed without them.

All of this is to say that I now know that this is the way I want to live.  Here, in another house, wherever we may land in this lifetime.  I want to meet the people living around us and I want to get to know them.  We may not have a ton in common, they may not, at first appearances, be “our people” but I know well that that means nothing.  They may, like we were, be skeptical about neighbors who push to be friendly.  But like Bev wore us down, I intend to wear them down.  I’ve got big plans for delivering cookies and meeting everyone, hosting neighborhood parties and recreating this at our next house.  I’ll report back on how it goes- wish us luck!

Now, I want to share our final home tour (these photos were taken by the talented Amber Thrane on behalf our amazing realtors at Shelter Residential and I love that although the house is styled for showings and the sale, it wasn’t as fussy as it would have been had I been styling it to shoot.  Meaning, it’s closer to what it looks like regularly.  And at the very bottom of the post are the before photos.  And honestly having someone else’s perspective on the house was SUCH A TREAT!  I fell in love with it all over again when I saw the photos.  We didn’t spend a ton of money fixing this house up- paint, light fixtures, and few cosmetic updates here and there- but it looks like an entirely different place.  It was such a fun project for us and I like to think we breathed new life into it!  I’ll always be a little gutted that we didn’t get to remodel the kitchen and baths (I had already mentally designed them and it’s a bit sad that I won’t get to see that vision come to fruition).  But the next owners will carry the torch for us and I know this house will be loved and appreciated for many years to come!  I included links to past posts of the house and it’s so fun to go back and see the progression of the house!

I’ll share more about what’s next for us and why we decided to leave this beauty very soon.  Until then, go make friends with your neighbors if you haven’t already!!  xx- Sarah . {all sources listed below}

Living Room Sources:  Couch, Rug, Ottoman (custom with this fabric), Rocking chair (vintage via Nok Nok Living), Chairs, Round mirror (discontinued), Floating credenza (designed by me, built by Greg Coleman), Throw pillows, Juju hats, Plant pot, Art: Kevin Appel.  See past photos of our living room here, here and here.

Dining Room Sources: Table, Chairs, Chandelier, Mirror, Pillows, Art: Sanna Annukka . See past photos of our dining room here and here (makes me wish we had left it styled like it used to be!)

See past photos of our kitchen here and here.

Nursery Sources: Daybed, Crib, Rug, Dresser, Llama, Mirror, Mobile (gift from friends This Must be the Pace), Art: Max Wanger and Kevin Appel, Bedding, Ottoman, Pillows (here and here), Plant pot, Book Shelves.  See other photos of Teo’s nursery here  (pre daybed!)

Guest Bedroom Sources: Bed, pillows (here and here), Rug, Smokebomb print, mirror, Planter, Blanket.  See past photos of this space here and here (remember when it was my office?!)

Master Bedroom Sources: Bedding, Side Tables, Poufs, Bench, Lights (table and wall).  See past bedroom photos here and here.

See more of the exterior and the backyard here.

Last but not least in the longest post in the history of this site, here are the BEFORE photos!