A New Home

We get it all the time. 24? Engaged? You bought a house? Aren't you guys a little... young?

I don't think we've ever followed what has become the "societal norm" when it comes to how we run our lives let alone how we've gone the course of our relationship. All of the little details aside when it came to the time where we decided we were going to look at houses we had been living together a year, we weren't engaged yet but we knew it was coming, we both had stable "adult" jobs, and we were paying nearly the amount of a mortgage into our apartment every month anyway. The Mr. has always wanted to own real estate and with the economy where it is and mortgage rates where they are it just seemed like an obvious next step... so step we did!

Photo from Realtor.com (the original photo that was up when we looked at the house)

I will say, we were planning to start looking at houses a bit later than when we actually found our house. We set up a time line so that we would have time to look at lots of houses, make offers, get rejected, etc etc and really wouldn't be moving until the end of our lease in May. Well here I sit, April 20th in the house we have called home for nearly 2 months now. Go figure.

Perusing the internet one day, he ever-so-excitedly was emailing me links to various houses on a daily basis "just to get an idea of what we wanted to look for". We knew we wanted at least 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, I wanted a fenced in back yard for Bentley, and he really wanted a 2-car garage. We didn't want it to be too old so that we'd be replacing all of the major money-eaters (roof, furnace, etc) immediately and doing a huge renovation... but we also couldn't really afford anything that was very new.

When we saw what would ultimately become our home on the internet, we knew right away that it was exactly what we were looking for... unfortunately it was a bit out of the price range we were going for. That is until however, Mr. got a notification that it had gone down $10,000 the following week. We had to see it.

The rest was sort of a whirlwind... all mashed together. We saw the house and knew immediately that we loved it and this could be the one. It had everything we wanted and then some! It was built in 1996... actually within our life time! Colonial style. 2 and a half baths, the fenced in yard and that attached 2-car garage. A full basement and an open concept main floor. Enough space to have an office for each of us AND a guest room. It needed some tweaking here and there but with the new price we could totally make that work. We had to put in an offer before someone else did! Two hours after we put in the offer we got a call that is was accepted (talk about quick...) and there it was. We had a house! 

Collage made on fotor.com by me with photos from original Realtor.com listing

Obtaining the mortgage had its hiccups due to Mr. not actually having worked at his solely commission job for more than two years, but we made it work and he rest is history. Somehow we made it out of our apartment lease without paying extra time. Somehow we actually moved during that weekend with the horrific snowstorm. Something was written in the starts for use with this house. We are absolutely in love with it and have really loved putting it together.

Over the course of the past few months this house has been completely repainted, floors have been refinished, lots of electrical nonsense (literally made no sense) has been moved around, walls have come down, cabinets have been put up, a "media closet" has been put together, new appliances and furniture has been moved in, and we are finally on the home stretch to having our house be fully functional and exactly how we want it. It's been a great journey thus far and we do have lots more to go but we are so so happy having done this when we did. A year from now we will be sitting in our home, about to be married, looking back on all that we've done thus far. We'll be nearly 25 and already comfortably situated ready for whatever else life has to throw at us. Together.

Before and After post to come soon(ish)! If you're reading please let me know!! I'd love to hear your comments =]