Justin and I purchased our first house in 2003. We closed on it a week before our wedding. We know we were very fortunate to be able to afford to do this. Once we were confident the house would be ours, we purchased our first mailbox. Yes, the house did come with a mailbox, but we (actually, I) wanted one that was "ours." At the time, I worked for a gift shop that sold painted items. I asked the artist, Dawn, if she would paint the mailbox for me and she happily agreed. I love tulips so I asked her to include them on the mailbox. When she delivered the mailbox, she told me the painting was her wedding gift to us. I was beyond thrilled! It was beautiful!
The picture below is of the mailbox after it had weathered three years outside. It had faded a little, but still looked great. I probably should have washed the bird poo off before I took the photo.
I had to include this photo of our house. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was ours. I loved this house! We did some work in the yard so it actually looked better than it does in this photo. My beloved Explorer is also in the garage. I'll talk about her some other time.
I'll admit that I was not happy about selling our house on 48th Street. Did I mention that I loved this house? Well, I did! We got very lucky in that our house sold fairly quickly. We listed it in March '08 and we had a good offer by May '08. This was during the time when the real estate market was spiraling downward, so waiting six weeks for an offer was nothing.
I decided I wanted to take the mailbox with us, kind of as a memento of our first house. In reality, the mailbox probably would have stayed in our new attic or garage, but I still wanted it. I planned to tell the new owner we would leave the mailbox with him until he purchased a new one, but that I wanted our mailbox. Honestly, why would he want it? It had our name on it.
Closing was supposed to be on a Monday afternoon. We worked through the weekend and got our belongings out and the house cleaned. Justin and I walked around one last time before we left. It was just before midnight Sunday. I took off work Monday afternoon and Justin took off the whole day. The buyer's real estate agent made arrangements with us to give the buyer access to the house Monday morning so he could begin moving. We didn't have a problem with this. Unfortunately, closing didn't happen Monday afternoon. I was disappointed, but I understood. Justin and I signed some documents so we didn't have to come back Tuesday and he headed to Atlanta and I went back to my mother's house in Nashville. I did let our real estate agent, Melissa, know that I wanted our mailbox. I said we left it so the new owner would still receive his mail, but for him to let her or us know when we could pick it up. She said she would relay the message the next day at closing.
Tuesday afternoon came and went. I was really sad all day since I didn't want to let go of our house. Our agent called Justin to let him know that closing was complete. She also wanted to give him some news about the mailbox. She knew I was probably not the person to tell this information to. At closing Tuesday afternoon, she mentioned that we wanted the mailbox. The new owner said his young son was at the house Monday with him and was in the way. The son asked if he could paint the mailbox with some of the paint Justin and I left in the garage. The father agreed. Our beautiful mailbox was now a putrid green color. Justin told Melissa he would relay the message to me. I was so mad and sad. That was our mailbox. Our agent offered to buy us a new mailbox, but it wouldn't have been the same. People tried to justify it to me by saying that we did leave the mailbox at the house and it was his house. I politely informed them that when the painting occurred, we still owned the house. I eventually stopped obsessing over it, but I still think about it.
I drove by the house a year or so after we moved and the green mailbox was still there.
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