Our First House

To say that we are over apartment living would be an understatement.  Not only am I ready to not hear my neighbors sneeze, chop vegetables, and flush the toilet, I am also ready to not have to make two trips up and down the stairs and across the parking lot to unload groceries, and to not have to limit my picture hanging because we don't want to put too many holes in the walls and risk not getting our deposit back.   

I realize all of those are unimportant, even silly things, but they all reflect the same truth, we aren't truly settled; this place isn't really ours.  The last three and a half years of life have been a mish-mash of here-and-theres.  It has been a lot of fun in a way: New states, new cities, new apartments, new friends.  But if I'm being honest, I'm looking forward to planting some roots and knowing that we are where we are for the foreseeable future.  For me, there is something peaceful and comforting about that knowledge.   

Of course, with that peace and comfort comes things like broken water heaters, and leaky faucets, and lawns to mow.  But I think we are ready to take the good with the bad. 

Back in November we began house hunting.  Our lease will be up in February and we weren't sure how long the whole thing would take - we are rather picky. :)

As it turns out, not so picky that we couldn't be won over by the third house we toured.  I had already fallen in love with it online and hoped it was as perfect in person as I imagined it to be.  It was.  

It checked nearly all of our boxes.  The location was great: right in between the cities we each work in, the price was right, it was an older home with some character, and it was, without a doubt, a fixer upper.  

We had an awesome realtor and just an awesome home buying team in general.  I feel as though we bough a house with our smart phones.  We barely had to sign anything in person until the day we actually closed.  Maybe that is just how things are done these days but we both felt like it was smooth sailing and completely painless. 

Our offer for the home was accepted at the end of November, on Simon's birthday as a matter of fact, and we closed on December 23rd.  Quite the Christmas gift!!

This, along with a beautiful Poinsettia, were waiting for us at our house after we closed. :) Told ya we had a great team.  

We will not officially move in until the end of February, when our current lease is up.  We want to get a lot of the messier renovations completed before we move in any furniture, just to keep it as simple as possible.  

We have a lot of projects planned over the next week or so, taking advantage of our holiday vacation time.  The timing is such a blessing!  We each have the next week off and can really dedicate a lot of time to getting things done.  I will post lots of updates so you can see all of the craziness we are undertaking.  Hopefully nothing too shocking will come up, but in an old home I guess you just have to expect the unexpected;  It is all part of the adventure, right?  

Wish us luck!