#62: What The New Owners Changed In The Old Houses

Watching your former homes get altered by their new owners can be tough, and we witnessed a couple of changes that bothered us more than we expected. So this week we are sharing how we got over those feelings and how to find the silver lining in seeing someone undo your designs. And back at our current house, we took a big step in making our driveway more kid-friendly that was long overdue and surprisingly painless to pull off. We also look at what items you should not be buying secondhand, why Sherry has been sentenced to more time in “tooth jail,” and how our beach house is having a brush with a true-crime saga.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you are reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player.

What is New

• Hallelujah, our driveway is paved! Do not mind the lighter and darker areas in the pic above (it had simply rained), but below is a snapshot of how out of control the weed situation was getting at the front of our driveway. Plus the kids longed for a driveway where they could scoot and bike, so we knew it would be an improvement they’d enjoy too.

• The crew we hired was especially speedy and we all had lively watching their progress throughout the afternoon. If you want to entertain your kids, get your driveway paved.

• And since we know you are all truly here to see Sherry’s mouth contraption now that her Invisalign has been extended, here is a GIF version of a video she posted to Insta-stories lately. She’s simply using the dog filter to distract us from the elastics.

What is Not

• Here is Apartment Therapy’s list of 8 Things You Should Never Buy Used
• And here is Kiplinger’s 12 Things You Should Buy Used that gave me the faker I used in Sherry’s quiz

Listener Question

• As consistently, you can tour our first and second houses if you want to see anything we referenced in those homes.
• And Sherry was right – we did talk about our first house being for sale again waaay back in Episode #13. I cannot believe I forgot!
• Below is our bedroom as we used it, including the built-in closets on either side that brought in some much needed storage to the room (you can read more about that project here). We do not have a photo of what it looked like once the new owners took out it, but it in short looked like our room before we brought in them (which you can see here).

• Below are some glimpses at the fence situation in our first house. On the left is the fence as we had it, which was fairly low-profile and kept the yard and the driveway feeling open to each another. On the right is a picture we took when we were invited back to visit our first house a couple of years ago with the kids (it was so much lively). The new fence is nicely done, but it certainly makes the yard and the driveway feel more separated.

• And as Sherry mentioned, we have had some second thoughts about how we would arrange our last home’s kitchen if we were to do it again today (namely the opening to the dining room, seen at right below). You can see it is “P” shape better in this post.

• And it turns out I butchered Kristen Bell’s advice to Chris Pratt and Anna Faris, but I captured the spirit of it….sorta…

We are Digging

• American Fire is the book I am loving lately about a long line of arsons on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, simply north of our beach house a few years ago. I have gotten deeper into it since recording and IT IS ONLY GETTING BETTER.
• The photo above is not from the book – it is a fairly shot Sherry took earlier this year in the county where all the fires had happened. It is like some of the abandoned homes that were burned in the arson spree. So sad!
• And is Sherry’s new go-to drink slowly and diabolically trying to kill her? Or is it as healthy as they say? Somebody tell her.

If you are looking for something we have dug in a past episode, but do not remember which show notes to click into, here is a master list of everything we have been digging from all of our past episodes.

Lastly, a big thank you to Grove Collaborative for sponsoring this episode. You can head over to grove.co/YHL to automatically get $20 off your first order of $40 or more AND to get our go-to natural cleaner, Mrs. Meyer’s All-Purpose Spray, thrown in for free!

Thanks for listening, folks!

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