Our Needs: We were looking for our starter home in a central location to our engineering jobs in opposite directions of NJ. This home would have to be big enough for us to eventually start a family in. We wanted it to be a part of a HOA and have exterior maintenance taken care of (lawn services, snow removal, building roof and siding, etc).

Afterthoughts: Amethyst served us well from 2007 to 2015, and, dare I say, had the most critical learning years of our lives in that home. I (Lígia) eventually became a stay-at-home mom as we grew our family by two babies. Through those years, we also slowly renovated each square inch of that home. We retroactively blogged about those years at Amethyst on these four short blog posts.

Below, enjoy the rough “before” and “after” photos from two youngsters who barely owned a camera those days prior to smartphones and did DYI on the weekends and during baby naps for fun!