One house. THE house.

Remember that one house I really really liked? Well.... it's well on its way to being mine. I put in an offer and the owner accepted. We've both signed the contract and tomorrow afternoon is the inspection. If everything goes well... the house is mine. They have an estate sale at the end of the month, and as soon as it is all cleared out, we can go in and start making the updates. I know a big part of this blog is to document the changes that I make, but at this point I'm not sure I have the time, experience, or extra willing hands to make all these changes real. So, I'm hiring my brother's business partner to redo the things that are too big for just one person. I'll go into more detail and post pictures once everything is 100% for sure and complete. Fingers crossed that it'll all happen the way it's supposed to happen!

4 more houses

I have now seen 9 houses. Is that normal? I've never bought a house. My parents moved into their house when I was 2 and the apartment was already ready by the time I graduated college, so I've been fortunate enough to not have to worry about finding a place to live.

So today I met with the realtor at 9:30 to go see 4 houses. The first one was close to the other house I really like, maybe a few blocks away. It was pretty cute. The rooms and closets were a nice size, the backyard was adorable, and there was a nice spacious family room that could be turned into a second master bedroom of sorts. It was a converted garage so it was pretty big, and since it had a closet it could be considered another bedroom. It had a window unit, and nice windows facing the backyard. The pantry was a pretty nice size. The kitchen itself was pretty small. The countertop space was about the same size as the apartment's, but it was open instead of a galley. There was a small island with a cooktop and there was a double oven. The shower in the master was quite small, but the other bathroom was fairly nice. I did like it and for the most part everything was up to date, but I wasn't completely sold.

Second house was a mile or so away from the first house (Double Oven), and was also pretty cute. The bedrooms were nice sized, the kitchen was galley and updated with a nice eat in kitchen area with built in china/plate shelves. The fire place was nice as well. It seemed like they hadn't opened a lot of their drawers in a while because they were very hard to open, like they got painted and then never opened again. The yard was cute as well. There wasn't much to fault, except minor cosmetic changes, but I wasn't really feeling the house.

Third house was one my dad and Dave told me was a foreclosure. The outside you couldn't tell but holy moly you could from the inside. Okay, it's not AWFUL but it wasn't great either. The floor was littered with small brown pellets I would assume were rat droppings. They were under all the furniture and in all the corners of the house. There were some dead pickles in there too, which made me super squeamish, even though they were dead. The bathrooms were pretty hideous and really tiny. The garage was CARPETED and had all sorts of junk in there - boxes, about three or four mattresses, a baby seat, among other things. There weren't any holes in the walls or wallpaper ripped up, but it was not well kept. I try to look past the ugliness but this one was just not the one.

The fourth house was really cute. I liked it a lot. It was a two story house with a really nice big open kitchen and a nice sized living room. There was a half bath downstairs and all four bedrooms upstairs. One bedroom was teeny, probably 8x8 or smaller, but it was being used as a study. The two other bedrooms were nice sized and so were the closets. The master was about the same size as my current bedroom and the master bath was really nice with a big tub and a HUGE closet. The backyard was on the smaller side, but was nice. Completely shaded and the back half was landscaped a bit. It was a really cute house. The downfall to this one is that it's in a gated community, which means the homeowners fees are a bit more because the city doesn't pay for street or sidewalk repairs, so that comes out of the higher fees.

I'm still on the prowl, perhaps I'll see more houses next weekend.

5 houses - one potential

I'll probably get creative at post names at some point, but as you can see it is past 1 in the morning. My creative juices aren't quite flowing anymore.

As of my last post, I was going to see a few houses. We saw three that day. The first one was near my old piano teacher's house. It was pretty cute - new dark hardwood (or maybe it was laminate?) floors throughout the whole house, newly remodeled kitchen and both bathrooms. Granite countertops, nice wooden cabinetry, hardware, etc. The front patio was super adorable and had French doors from the living room leading onto it. The kitchen was nice and open. The downfalls of Piano House - small bedrooms and even smaller closets. Upgrading to a house from my apartment, I'd hope that the rooms would stay the same or even be bigger, same with the closets. All the closets were about the same or smaller, and the rooms were smaller, too. My mom even said, "You'll only be able to have one roommate, because this third bedroom will have to act as storage for all your stuff!" In the kitchen, there were NO appliances. Apparently houses are supposed to come with dishwasher, stove, and oven, but this one was stripped of all its appliances. There was a tiny tiny closet in the kitchen for a stackable washer/dryer, but I was hoping to not have a stackable. I guess it's something I can live with, but not something I'd prefer. There was no bathtub, and after going several years without one, I was looking forward to a house with at least ONE tub. The yard would need a lot of work. It hadn't really been kept up very well in the front or the back. The house was small - I'm not looking for a HUGE house, but I am looking at something bigger than if we tacked a third bedroom on to my current apartment. This one was a little too small for me, as cute as it was.

House 2 was a couple blocks away and VERY similar. As in, the same builder built the two houses and/or the same person upgraded the two houses. The layout was slightly different - there was a game room or second family room in the back near the backyard. The whole place was carpeted. The kitchen looked nearly identical, as did the two bathrooms. This house, however, did have a tub. The yard was very well kept and the kitchen actually had all the appliances. Downfalls of Carpet House - the carpet was the really thick kind, that traps hair, food, spills, etc. The washer/dryer was outside in a tiny shed. With no cover. Sadly enough, that part was kind of a deal breaker for me. I hate having to go down to the laundry room here and this would almost be a step down from that. I know I could easily have a cover, but I do not want to have to go to a little shed in order to do my laundry. The rooms in this house were even SMALLER, if that's possible. The third bedroom was so tiny that it would be more suited for.... well, even a couch/love seat and TV would make it seem too crowded. Forget a full bed, much less a twin. The other bedroom was slightly bigger, but it would definitely be cramped in there with a dresser and a bed and nothing else. And with such small closets, I know Allison would want to bring her bookcase and armoir. Those would definitely not fit. And with the asking price as high as it was, we would really need a third roommate to help manage the rent.

House 3 was ADORABLE. I LOVED it. It was super cute from the front, with a 2 door garage and nice big windows and a cute little front porch. There were hardwood floors throughout the whole house. The bedrooms were a decent size, as were the closets. The kitchen was nice and open with nice countertops and appliances. The cabinets were painted a bright green that looks hideous in pictures but actually looked cute in person. The two bathrooms were not attached to the bedrooms, and the master had a shower/tub combo while the second only had a shower stall. The yard was adorable and well kept, with lots of old trees and shade and plenty of room for a pet or friends for a BBQ. The garage was large and spacious, with a work station in one corner and the washer/dryer in the other. The only downfall to the Cute House, sadly - and the deal breaker - was the front room, although called a 3rd bedroom, was actually a study. Probably 8x8 and with the NICE Elfa shelves along one wall that would come with the house, it had no closet and therefore couldn't actually be considered a 3rd bedroom. It wouldn't be fair to ask the 3rd housemate to live in a much smaller room with no closet, especially when it was less private because of the double doors leading from it into the tv room. This was also a case of the house being too much to afford without a third roommate. I'm sure we could swing it, but it wouldn't be easy. So, sadly, this house was a no. Even though I loved it.

The 4th house was in the same area as the other 3 but in a different direction. It was a lot more than the other three houses but was still within the range and super cute. Red brick, well maintained yard, two car garage, huge, gorgeous newly redone kitchen with a double oven, large laundry room with built in floor to ceiling cupboards. The bedrooms were decent sized, the closets were nice sized. The living room was nice with a fire place and the front room was large and nice for a TV room. The bathrooms were very nice - the hall bath had two sinks, which would be ideal for the two people not in the master. All in all, it was a really nice house. I loved the kitchen and utility room, but I just wasn't feeling it.

So over the next few weeks I kept looking at houses on realtor.com and weichert.com. And watching some of the houses I really liked in the pictures no longer be listed. As it turns out, not even a week after we saw the Piano House, it was taken off the market.

Then last week, a house became available. My mom plays bridge every Monday, and one of the ladies' mother-in-law passed away and her children were going to sell the house. We were the first ones she thought of. So we went over there last week. I have to say, I was ALL ready to NOT like this house. To find a reason to not like it because some old lady just died or just not like it on principle, hahaha. But I have to say, when I first walked in, I liked it. Even though it had ugly THICK dark green carpet and original appliances from the late 50s. Even though the back study and laundry closet weren't air conditioned and had a window unit. I liked it. It would need a lot of cosmetic work, but at the asking price it was well within my budget to add the necessary upgrades and still come out in the right bracket. We're holding off on anything since my parents are out of town. But I like it. A lot. There's a sun room in the back that can work just fine for now as is, but could potentially be enclosed later down the road. The back study could be turned into a laundry room/study/guest room. With updates to the kitchen, it would be adorable. The yard is well maintained, the neighborhood is nice. The front porch has a lot of potential for sprucing up. Since the negative things can be fixed without breaking the budget (whereas the other houses, buying new appliances, creating a new space for the w/d, putting down new floors, etc would put me way out of my budget), finding this house that is structurally perfect and just needs some cosmetic changes, is pretty perfect. The only downfall is the back study not being air conditioned. There'd of course be a window unit, which I'm not crazy about, but that's not a deal breaker. I like this one a lot and am hoping that something positive might come out of it.

In the meantime, I'm going to look at four more houses tomorrow. Well, I guess technically today. So I'm off to dreamland and then houses and then off for a busy rest of the day.

And the housing search is on

It really is on. Before it was more of a "hmmm, I really want to buy a house" but now it is an "I'm going to buy a house, let's see what's out there." I've been looking pretty seriously for a month or two, and been seriously thinking about it for about a year, but I'm just now actually moving forward with it. I also recently took a good look at my income and realized that I can actually afford a bit more of a house than I thought, so now I have a much wider selection.

In my search, I've come across some stinkers and some really adorable houses. One of the stinkers is what I call the Highlighter House. I have this deep disgust for yellow highlighter. Not sure why. Maybe it was all the highlighting I did in college, or that the bright yellow makes my eyes hurt. At any rate, I throw away the yellow highlighters whenever I buy a new pack, and at work I use green or orange to highlight stuff in Word or Excel. So this house on the outside was cute, nothing to sneeze at. The kitchen, however... all the cabinetry was painted highlighter yellow. Maybe this is shallow of me, to write off a house for something that's easily fixable, but I stopped looking at that point. But that's okay, I wasn't in love with the house anyway.

I did come across two houses, both of which I'm going to see on Sunday. They're very similar in style, with a cute little front porch. They're both 3 bed/2 bath with a backyard on the smallish side. They both have hardwood floors and an upgraded kitchen. I'm kind of in love with one of them already, just based on the photos. I'm hoping to take a bunch of photos on Sunday!

I'm also hoping to use this blog to document my search for the perfect house and any/all upgrades or updates I do to it once I've found the perfect one. Also of being a first time homeowner.