I have so been out of commission on this blog for like the past half year. not only did I have a beautiful baby, but we also house hunted and bought a home in this time frame too.
this is our first home – we looked at over 400 homes, and went through around 75 in a 50 mile radius. we wanted to stay strictly under budget… so we could make ends meet, make payments, and still have room to be comfortable. It didn’t leave us with great move-in ready homes to look at. It was a long road and crazy to do with a newborn. We were out looking at homes when she was three weeks old. Anyway, we decided that if we were going to move into a home that I would want to decorate we would move into a home that we needed to do a lot of work on. And that’s what happened. We bought a hud home. A HUD home in layman’s terms is pretty much a government funded home and the owners defaulted and lost the home. Usually because it was government funded the owners don’t take care of the house… at all. We went through some homes that had vomit all over in the carpet, holes in walls, bathroom completely shattered or stripped. They were nasty.
Our house was just a happen chance home. It dropped into our price range on a Thursday. On Friday I was at my last straw on looking through the MLS system yet again. I vowed it would be my last time searching because we were so tired of the house hunt. I found this house, called my realtor who set up someone to come open the house for us, packed up the girls and drove the two hours just to look at this home. We walked in and we knew it would work. We knew it would work us too. Fortunately it wasn’t as nasty as some of the other homes we had looked at. Within two crazy months – hopefully I can post about what I learned about the home buying process – the house was ours. On a side note: our realtor hadn’t even seen the house. He just barely came this month (after us being here two months).
We moved in on November 16th… to an RV on the side of our home. We woke up the next morning and started working… and haven’t stopped yet.
So in this series, I plan to take you on our home journey. I hope to get up to date within a couple of weeks. But I want to talk about all the things we have had to do and all the project details. Maybe they can inspire you in the house you are in now, or for the future. I want to post about the ins and outs of purchasing and being a home owner… just from my perspective. I am sure I have had a completely different experience that everyone else who has purchased, so I will already say that, as a disclaimer, this is not the way it works with everyone else.
To start this out right, I want to show you some photos of what my house looked like when we came to see it the first time… thankfully I am saving you from the smell :)
the front living room
the entry way
looking into the dining area from the front door
the kitchen from the dining area
the pantry
looking down into the family room
the girls’ bathroom upstairs
the master bedroom
the master bathroom
the girls’ bedroom
the office/ third bedroom
the family room again
the main bathroom and wash room
looking into the basement
the playroom/nook
the guest/craft room
looking at these photos I am already amazed at our progress in the past two months… I can’t wait to talk more about everything we have done.
I'd love to see an updated tour of your house. You are super talented so I am sure it is gorgeous, and will become moreso. Becca (Watts) Coles, who also lived at our Glenhood ward, bought a house with almost the same layout. She has made it really cute, but I can't find any pictures on her blog... here is a link: www.ericbeccawillandluke.blogspot.com
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