Jonathan and I are so excited to be new home owners! This week is filled with the inspection and appraisal, and we close on July 28th.
Oh, the projects that will follow for me! That is truly the exciting part! Here are the pics.
June 22, 2009
we bought a house!
Jonathan and I are so excited to be new home owners! This week is filled with the inspection and appraisal, and we close on July 28th.
Oh, the projects that will follow for me! That is truly the exciting part! Here are the pics.
June 16, 2009
buying a house
It’s not a perfect art. Or, so I’ve learned. Jonathan and I have embarked on the never-ending, stress-building, time-taking, exciting and exhaustive process of buying our first house. And what with it being an incredible buyers market right now, and Obama’s new home owners tax credit, we would like to make the purchase sooner rather than later.
I know I’m a picky person. I’ve always known this. So, when it came time to spending our entire Saturday driving around looking at houses with our realtor, I tried to prepare myself to be less than impressed. I think it’s just the delusional dream house concept that gets us all into trouble. It’s the one that makes you think that your first house is going to be the castle to your fairytale marriage. Not quite. We looked at some unbelievable houses, and some of which I would be completely happy with. However, it is all of the trade-offs that have come to stress me out:
...the bigger house is more expensive
...but it has X, Y and Z more
...and the smaller house really has everything we need
...but with no yard
...yet, it does have a fabulous walk-in kitchen pantry
...for which the bigger one has none
...and the bathrooms would have to be re-done in this
...yet it’s less expensive to re-do that
...but I like the location of this better
...if it only offered the better school district
And the list goes on and on and on. We narrowed the 10 houses we looked at down to 2 yesterday. Then when I called to see if our realtor could show us both of them one more time, she informed us that one of them already sold. (Sad face)
Everything happens for a reason. Maybe we weren’t supposed to live there.
The fun part for me is walking through each room and imagining where I would position furniture, what paint palettes to apply where, and prioritizing which reno projects to do first. Ummm- new chandelier here…refinish cabinets there…add crown molding everywhere…
Last night Jonathan and I both had a hard time falling asleep. About an hour after lights out, and not a word said:
Jonathan: I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about the house.
Me: Me too! I thought you were asleep. I keep thinking of how to decorate and paint each room.
Jonathan: Well, I’m thinking about how to pay for it.
We both couldn’t help but laugh. What stereotypical man and woman responses. We do make a great team!
To be continued...
I know I’m a picky person. I’ve always known this. So, when it came time to spending our entire Saturday driving around looking at houses with our realtor, I tried to prepare myself to be less than impressed. I think it’s just the delusional dream house concept that gets us all into trouble. It’s the one that makes you think that your first house is going to be the castle to your fairytale marriage. Not quite. We looked at some unbelievable houses, and some of which I would be completely happy with. However, it is all of the trade-offs that have come to stress me out:
...the bigger house is more expensive
...but it has X, Y and Z more
...and the smaller house really has everything we need
...but with no yard
...yet, it does have a fabulous walk-in kitchen pantry
...for which the bigger one has none
...and the bathrooms would have to be re-done in this
...yet it’s less expensive to re-do that
...but I like the location of this better
...if it only offered the better school district
And the list goes on and on and on. We narrowed the 10 houses we looked at down to 2 yesterday. Then when I called to see if our realtor could show us both of them one more time, she informed us that one of them already sold. (Sad face)
Everything happens for a reason. Maybe we weren’t supposed to live there.
The fun part for me is walking through each room and imagining where I would position furniture, what paint palettes to apply where, and prioritizing which reno projects to do first. Ummm- new chandelier here…refinish cabinets there…add crown molding everywhere…
Last night Jonathan and I both had a hard time falling asleep. About an hour after lights out, and not a word said:
Jonathan: I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about the house.
Me: Me too! I thought you were asleep. I keep thinking of how to decorate and paint each room.
Jonathan: Well, I’m thinking about how to pay for it.
We both couldn’t help but laugh. What stereotypical man and woman responses. We do make a great team!
To be continued...
June 10, 2009
the countdown
It was bound to happen. I always get a happy pit in my stomach about 2 weeks before I fly home to Anchorage. I miss seeing my whole family and being amongst the day-to-day ridiculousness that goes on there.
I’m especially happy that I will get to stay an extra long 16 days this time. Some of the time will be spent with wedding festivities, as I’m a bridesmaid in one of my best childhood friends’ wedding. Not to mention- my best friend Starr will be home for the exact same days. Jonathan will be joining me for the second week, and Dana and Tom will also be flying up from Houston. The whole gang will be home and ready to rumble! All 13 of us are planning a mini-vacation down to Homer as well where we’ll get our fill of hiking, sightseeing, fishing and camping.
Ten days and counting! See you all soon!
I’m especially happy that I will get to stay an extra long 16 days this time. Some of the time will be spent with wedding festivities, as I’m a bridesmaid in one of my best childhood friends’ wedding. Not to mention- my best friend Starr will be home for the exact same days. Jonathan will be joining me for the second week, and Dana and Tom will also be flying up from Houston. The whole gang will be home and ready to rumble! All 13 of us are planning a mini-vacation down to Homer as well where we’ll get our fill of hiking, sightseeing, fishing and camping.
Ten days and counting! See you all soon!
June 8, 2009
my domesticated mate
Jonathan is a strange animal. Fabulous, but strange.
Saturdays are his days for sleeping in, drinking coffee, surfing the internet, lounging about, and then- productivity mania! It’s usually around 12:30 that he plugs his ipod headphones into his ears and gets down to business. He cleans the dishes, scrubs the kitchen, does a few loads of laundry, takes out the trash, puts away the collection of shoes at the front door, changes Charlie’s litter box, pays bills, makes his half of the grocery list, and makes us both lunch. And if you aren’t impressed yet, here is the icing on the cake: This past Saturday, I walked into the guest room to find him ironing all of our linen napkins! (I won’t mention the dancing in place while doing so, either.)
I’m telling you- I have no idea where I found this one! He’s the rare unicorn only seen deep in the forest somewhere in the land of elves. I started laughing so hard and gave him a big hug. He said, “Why don’t you just remember this when you give me a hard time for not turning off the lights.”
Deal.
Saturdays are his days for sleeping in, drinking coffee, surfing the internet, lounging about, and then- productivity mania! It’s usually around 12:30 that he plugs his ipod headphones into his ears and gets down to business. He cleans the dishes, scrubs the kitchen, does a few loads of laundry, takes out the trash, puts away the collection of shoes at the front door, changes Charlie’s litter box, pays bills, makes his half of the grocery list, and makes us both lunch. And if you aren’t impressed yet, here is the icing on the cake: This past Saturday, I walked into the guest room to find him ironing all of our linen napkins! (I won’t mention the dancing in place while doing so, either.)
I’m telling you- I have no idea where I found this one! He’s the rare unicorn only seen deep in the forest somewhere in the land of elves. I started laughing so hard and gave him a big hug. He said, “Why don’t you just remember this when you give me a hard time for not turning off the lights.”
Deal.
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