Moving Up

While cooking supper the other night, I watched a TLC program called MOVING UP. A person/couple buys a house... the old owners buy a different house.. and that owner buys a third. They have 2 months to make their purchased property their own.

Then the old owners come back to view the changes.

I'm assuming that they get some discounts/gift card to do this. Whenever we moved, we didn't have a lot of cash to spend those first 2 months on remodeling.

Anyway, these people don't just paint/paper and change the window dressings. Often they tear out a wall, sometimes they completely gut a place. The old owners always have things that they think 'MADE' the house... and it's normally the first thing that the new owners remove. The changes are often dramatic, and sometime watching the old owners revisit their past places is a little sad. The best times they can say: this isn't my house anymore. I can live with my memories and know that this place is busy creating new ones.

Now we moved here 7 years ago. The house we moved from we lived in for 7 years. We custom built it from plans I drew up. When we built it, it was a dream house; by the time we left, it was a good house.

I have only been back to Cleveland in the past few years for funerals. No extra time to drive 50 miles across town to see the old house. But if I ever had the time and was in town with a car, I'd like to see what they've done with place. The only think I'd be upset to see gone would be the cherry cabinets in the kitchen. I'd be shocked is some of the carpet is still there.

So, if given the chance, would you like to go back and see one of your old houses? What would hate to see changed?? What would you be surprised to see unchanged?