I have been meaning to write for a while as many things have been going on lately. Shortly after my last post, my husband and I bought a house!
Of course this makes the process seem easy, and for the most part it was. I was actually surprised by how effortless it really was (except on our savings account).
We have been going to open houses whenever we felt like. It was mostly to see what things were going for and what to expect and look for in a house. Knowing our budget is limited for the area we work in, we were more than willing to put in the effort to renovate a house. We were not looking for granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. Our must-haves were:
-liveable conditions so we could move in without HAVING to do renovations first.
-a place for my husbands woodworking tools
-at least two bedrooms
The second weekend in January, I saw an open house for a few townhouses, one being within walking distance to the metro but also at the top of our budget.
Now I have to add a little bit of back story. My parents have a house that was built in the late 50's and most of it has been renovated except for one bathroom. Everthing in this bathroom is electric blue. For some reason, my dad loves it and that is why it hasn't changed.
*Not actually their bathroom, but it is similar.
Ok, now back to this townhouse. We walk in and see why it is in our price range. Not much had been changed since it was built in 1971. About all the owners had done was put in new cabinets and granite countertops in the kitchen but left the old 1971 vinyl floor. The basement was scary and half finished. But, given the awesome commute I would have my husband and I thought we could live with it and renovate.
Upstairs we went. I turned left and I gasped in horror. The SAME horrible blue bathroom my parents have stared back at me.
Needless to say, I came to the realization that moving to this house would not be possible. Knowing that this house was at the top of our budget and with that knowing we would not be able to change the bathroom for a long time. I couldn't do it.
However, out we drove to the other open houses. Of course these were not next to the metro, but were 50k less than the one we just looked at. Now I want you to understand that we have been to a lot of houses all over the county. We walked into the next townhouse and were told by the sign when we walked in to take our shoes off. The house had brand new hard wood floors and carpet. It had three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a basement that was half finished and half-unfinished with enough space for my husbands stuff and since was an end unit, we had an extra patch of grass for my garden. We put an offer in the next day.
Throughout the entire process I was dwelling on the fact that some horrible event was going to happen. I have watched enough HGTV to know that if the home inspection didn't turn up a horrendous rodent problem and mold growing in every crevice, that it would come in above the appraised amount and we would have to back out.
Surprisingly, nothing liked that happened. The sellers didn't give us everything we asked for (some credit money for some things to be fixed) but besides that, everything else was fine.
Twenty-five days after we put our offer in we were living in our house.
Now I don't know if I mentioned it in a previous post, but my husband and I before we bought our house lived for three years with our roommates and their daughter (who was born 3 months after we moved in together and is now 2 1/2). The arrangement worked out wonderfully despite friends and family telling me that it was a bad idea and would never work.
I will admit there were some difficulties. Two couples were never meant to share a TINY apartment sized kitchen and one refrigerator. We had very different diets so everything was separate and I got accustomed to having all of my groceries for the week fit on a single shelf in the fridge. There also wasn't much room to cook with the 2 feet of counter space I had that wasn't taken up by the toaster or microwave.
Now I have my own kitchen with more cabinets than I currently know what to do with. Hopefully that and my soon to be garden will mean more posts! :)
