Goodbye San Francisco

We spent the last 5 years living here in a 600 square foot apartment on the top of Nob Hill.  One closet, two people, and our dog Sierra.  My husband and I both grew up in Marin and it was no coincidence that we looked out our San Francisco bedroom window toward Mt Tam.   More often than not you could find us escaping city life and hiking on the very hills we admired from afar.  It was only a matter of time before we outgrew our 3rd floor walk up and traded in city life for more space and most importantly a backyard.  The road to Barberry Lane wasn't exactly what we had in mind, but now that we are here we couldn't be happier.

We moved out of San Francisco at 10PM on a Friday night last October.  We drove the contents of our life in a UHaul across the Golden Gate and into the driveway of my in-laws.  This was not meant to be our longterm solution, but merely a stop along the road as we moved our furniture into storage and eventually resided at my parents vacation home in Sonoma County.  It only took a few weeks to land back at my in-laws and while it was much better than one might expect nobody hopes to ever live with their parents post graduation.  The house hunt was on and unfortunately the housing market was off.  

By the middle of October we had put two offers in and watched two houses sell, each time wondering when we would finally have a house to call our own.  This may not seem like long to most, but when you life is packed in boxes and you have no idea where you will land next there is an undeniable pressure to keep moving forward.  We broadened our horizons and made a low offer on a house that needed more work than we thought we could handle.  The next thing we knew we were in a bidding war on a house that was barely livable.  Push came to shove and this lovely little fixer upper became our new home complete with asbestos tile, a sloping kitchen, and a combination of metallic wallpaper and duct tape holding up the bathroom walls.  

Despite the issues we moved in and for better or for worse Barberry Lane is our home.