Home 2.0

We only were in our first home for a year and a half before a new job took us to a new town and the opportunity to house-sit for Blake’s parents, but we learned A LOT in that short amount of time of first-time home ownership. Consequently, we were more reserved and cautious going into the home-search process the second time around. No longer were we eager to find just “a house” that was better than our 600 sq. ft. cinderblock married student housing apartment that had no AC, noisy neighbors, and a mini oven. Because it really wasn’t hard to find something better than that! Although we loved our first house and the friends we made as a result of it, and we wouldn’t trade the lessons learned, we realized we may have jumped into our first home a little quickly. We didn’t want to make that same mistake again. So we took our time. A long time. Our realtor laughs with us and says that we are her longest clients. We’ve been looking at houses for over a year and half. She has been patient, gives just the right amount of opinion and is above all: honest! She totally saved us a few times from making a big mistake by revealing information about a house that a realtor just in it for the money probably would have kept to themselves.

During this year and a half process of looking, we would think we’d found “the one” and then there’d always be “the catch”. Some things were just us being picky: like no master bathroom (which is a big deal to me) but others were serious problems like the sewer line not being properly attached to the house resulting in the basement flooding with sewage. And as much as we thought this house was “the one”, we had to say goodbye. It seemed time after time we were left disappointed and feeling discouraged. Would we ever find a house?

It just goes to show that the Lord is really involved in all aspects of our lives. We had our hearts set on a short-sale property that we thought was perfect for us. There were a couple things that weren’t quite right, but we figured we just needed to put in an offer anyway. Months went by with no word. But we weren’t worried. We had time and were certain this house was it. However, only a few weeks ago Blake and I both felt like we needed to looking at other houses again (we had stopped looking once we placed this offer). Our realtor took us to a new listing that seemed too good to be true! We fell in love with it, placed an offer and after a few negotiations we are under contract!! In the meantime, we found out our offer on the short-sale property didn’t go through. Good thing we didn’t put all our eggs in one basket, eh?

A few of you have asked for some details on the house. We only have these pics since the current owners still live there. I'll post interior pics once we get settled in

Look at those trees! They are along our fenceline and provide complete privacy from our neighbors and completely shade the backyard in the afternoon. I think we may trim them though. I am little worried that they are SO tall.

It is a tri-level home, meaning you walk in and there is a formal living room, kitchen, and dining room on the main floor. A few steps from the main level upstairs are 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. A few steps from the main level downstairs is a 4th bedroom, a family room, laundry room, and fireplace. We have a few projects we need to work on. First being painting. Right now the kitchen is red and there is a soccer mural painted on one of the bedrooms—not really my taste. Second, we are going to replace the carpet throughout. The carpet was last updated 10 years ago, so it’s worn and time to replace it. Other than that, it’s perfect! We love the neighborhood, the mature landscaping, and the fact that it is in a good part of town where people buy houses to settle down and raise their families. This house was definitely worth the wait! And we'll be moving in just in time for Blake's parents to return from their mission.