I'm baaack!! Did you miss me?
I know it's been a little over a month since my last post about Advocare, but I've had some big things going on in the past month, and I didn't want to blog about it until I had more confidence that everything was going to work out the way I wanted it to.
Get ready, I'm about to enter a whole new phase of crafting because….
We bought a house!!!!!!!!
Jake and I had been casually looking for the past year, but haven't found anything that we loved. While we have been tired of apartment living for the past 2 years, we didn't want to feel like we were settling when it comes to such a huge investment. At the end of January, Jake was perusing Realtor.com and a cute home with some good specs caught his eye. I had seen the listing before and bookmarked it, but never thought to go look at it for whatever reason. Thank goodness Jake pulled it up when he did! We contacted our wonderful realtor, and set up a time to go view it. We quickly fell in love. It had everything that we were looking for at a great price and in a great neighborhood. We had set a goal of finding a house by the end of spring 2013, since our apartment lease is up July 31. Even though we found our house earlier than anticipated, it really could not had been better timing. I'm so excited to have all summer to work on the house!
Some of the "must have" qualities that were on our list as we looked at homes were:
*3+ bedrooms and more than 1 bathroom*
Our house is a 4bed, 1.75 bath
*2 car garage*
Check! And it's attached. In our area, 2 car garages are hard to come by, especially ones that are attached. Many have either a 1 car or a 3 car, but not 2. For anyone who has had to spend numerous mornings scraping snow and ice off your car in the morning, you'll understand why this was a must have for me.
*Fenced in yard*
Ours is a nice sized backyard with a chain link fence surrounding it. We eventually will turn it into a wooden privacy fence, but for now it's just want we need. We can't wait to have a yard for Buckles to roam!
*Finished basement*
We were willing to buy a house without a finished basement, as long as it allowed for the opportunity to finish it in the future. Our house is a 4 level split. 3 of the bedrooms and main bath on the top floor, the kitchen and a living room on the main-2nd floor, another living room or den on the 3rd floor, and the final bedroom, 1.75 bath, and laundry room on the bottom floor. Each level is at most 5 or 6 steps from the next level.
*Newer big ticket items*
Our house has a brand new roof, furnace, painted siding, and appliances. The last thing we wanted was to drop a bunch of money on a new house and have to put in a lot more on costly repairs. While we know that anything can happen at any time, this minimizes those chances.
Following the initial house tour, we arranged for Jake's parents to come look at it with us a second time the next week, to make sure we weren't overlooking anything because we had stars in our eyes. It met their approval and we put in an offer the next day. After a little back and forth negotiations, we landed on a final purchase agreement and suddenly, we were one giant step closer to being homeowners.
We quickly moved forward with getting things set up with our mortgage lender, scheduling our inspection appointment, and setting up our homeowners insurance. With all of those things ready to go, we are now eagerly awaiting move in day. We close on March 19th, and get possession of the house on March 21st. The countdown is now to 25 days. Aside from waiting for our wedding day, this has felt like the longest wait ever.
Pinterst as become an instant obsession and I already have so many ideas swirling in my head for what I want to do to make the it feel like OUR home. If only I had an endless bank account! Keep on the look out for house updates, as there are certain to be many of them. Once we get moved in and settled, I will be sure to come back and post some before and after pictures.
Until then,
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