Old House Vacant and Ready: Before-and-After Photos and Moving Day Notes

We promised photos of our old house emptied and ready for its new owners, so here they are. I’m sharing these from a Panera while we borrow WiFi — we won’t have our service at the new place until tomorrow. We had hoped to post sooner, but coordinating a domino closing (where one sale funds the next) proved more complicated than expected. The buyers of our house hit an unexpected delay, and we did too, so we didn’t actually close yesterday. Fortunately everything finalized this morning, and the sellers of our new house kindly handed over the keys early since we had nowhere else to go and a truck full of belongings. That kindness made a huge difference.

As if the timing wasn’t dramatic enough, a surprise snowstorm added another layer of adventure to the move — it made moving furniture and boxes from one house to the next considerably more interesting. More details on that snowy saga to come when we have a moment to collect photos and write it up.

After hours of unpacking and settling in, we finally collapsed onto our mattress on the floor around 1 a.m. Even though we were exhausted, we couldn’t stop grinning. There’s something special about the first night in a new house — it felt both emotional and exciting. Clara and Burger seemed to agree; both are handling the change like pros so far. We’ll post more about moving day and photos of the new house as soon as we can organize them, but for now enjoy this look back at our former home — Casa Petersik — in its final empty state alongside some early photos from when we first moved in.

Here’s the living room when we first moved in:

And what that same space looked like the last time we closed the door:

Here’s the kitchen when we moved in:

The kitchen as we left it:

The den when we first moved in:

The den as we left it:

The master bedroom when we moved in:

And the master bedroom as we left it:

The office/guest room/playroom when we first moved in:

And that room now:

The formal dining room when we moved in:

We left that space set up as a nursery, after removing Clara’s beloved light fixture and curtains — the only fixtures we felt we had to take with us:

The sunroom when we moved in (apologies for the awkward angle — we didn’t realize we’d want a perfect before shot):

And the sunroom as we left it:

It was bittersweet to close that door for the last time — surprisingly, I didn’t cry — but it was equally wonderful to open the door to our new home. We’re excited to begin this next chapter and to share more photos, details, and the moving-day story (yes, including the snow) as soon as we can get everything organized.

P.S. We still need to update our site header and rename the House Tour tab to “Old House,” and add a new “New House” tab with befores. Hoping to find a moment to do that in the next few days.