Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged! I think I say that every time I do a new post!=) There has been a lot going on in our neck of the woods. We have taken some big "grown up" steps in our lives over the last several months, one of which was purchasing a home! Looking back, it's kind of crazy how everything fell into place. We had been in our apartment since we were first married, so it was close to three years. During that time we were able to pay off Joe's school loans, pay off our car, and get out of debt, which was a huge weight lifted. We knew we wanted to get into a home this year when our lease was up, so we could start investing in something. Last February I found out I was pregnant, and would be due the first week in November. Our lease was up in October, so we knew we'd want to purchase a home before then. It's been Joe's dream to buy a home. I swear he's been getting daily emails of properties that have gone up for sale for at least two years now! =) So, one weekend when his dad and Sharon were here we thought it would be fun to get out and go look at some that were having open houses. Joe found some that were in the area we were wanting to live, and off we went. We fell in love with the first house we saw! It had just gone on the market, and was the first open house they'd had. We compared all the other homes we saw that day to the first one, and that remained our favorite. We told ourselves that it wouldn't be there anymore when we were ready to get serious near the end of the year, and kind of forgot about it. Well, fast forward to May...... I ended up having a miscarriage on the 21st at 15 weeks, and became an emotional basket case. After a couple weeks of feeling the most down and sad I have ever felt, somehow we started talking about homes again. I quickly became obsessed with looking online every day. I had never had as much interest before, but I found that it gave me something to keep my mind off of losing my baby. Instead of sitting there, replaying everything over and over and over again in my head, I now had something to stay focused on other than my miscarriage. Joe had talked to his brother and realized that we would have two months before we had to start paying the mortgage after we bought the home, so with our lease up in October we could technically close in September and not overlap payments. It was June then, so we would have a couple months to keep looking at homes to see what was out there, put in an offer, and set a closing date. We quickly realized that the house we had fallen in love with was still on the market!!! We still wanted to compare it to others and make sure that we really loved it. I would look online, forward the ones I liked to Joe, and if he liked it then I would add it to my list of properties I wanted to see. Then I went out with our realtor and looked at the ones we had liked online. If I liked them, or thought Joe would like them, we set aside a day with Joe to go see all the ones that were maybe a possibility.
This was in the yard of one of the homes we looked at! Seriously! We had to get a picture.
Then we went back and saw the one we loved the very first time we had gone out looking. We still loved it the most. We gave it a few weeks, and then decided to submit an offer. This is Joe signing the papers to submit the offer. I loved the negotiating part. We went back and forth a couple of times, and they ended up coming back lower than what Joe and I had talked about wanting to be at. The inspection went well, and everything just kind of fell into place. I have often wondered what would have happened if we hadn't lost the baby. I don't think we would have really been serious about looking until several months later, and by then the home may have sold. I feel like this is where we are supposed to be, and God knows where we need to be better than we do. Things just have a way of working out, even if it's not how we originally planned.
And we tried lots of sample colors!
We started downstairs since that's mostly where we'll spend most of our time now. We put plastic over everything before we started painting, then taped everything off. Who knew there was so much prep work to be done?!
Joe had to prep the fans, take down vents, unscrew electrical outlet covers, door stops, take down blinds....the list goes on and on!
Then the fun began! We started with the ceilings. Then the trim, and finally the walls. Let me tell you, that it quickly became not so fun anymore!=) My entire body was sore after the first day, from repeated motions with the paint roller, looking up at the ceiling for so long, climbing up and down the ladder a million times, etc. We kept plugging along, and working all day every Friday and Saturday for several weeks.
We decided we could save lots of money by just spray painting our vent covers instead of buying all new ones! Spray paint is a miracle worker. One of my best friends in life!=)
About 2 weeks after we started painting, I found out I was pregnant again! As soon as we found out, we knew that I shouldn't be painting anymore. Hopefully what I did do, didn't screw up our kid too much!=) I quickly became very very sick with nausea, and Joe was incredible and got so much done without me. He had a couple amazing friends that came over and helped him on several occasions. Knowing how unpleasant painting is from what time I had spent doing it, my heart went out to him every night that he would come home from a long day at work, then head over to the house to paint. I don't know how he did it, but I am SO grateful! He ended up getting almost everything done downstairs. Then, one Saturday he decided he wasn't going to pick up another paint brush!=) We had gotten a quote from a couple different companies after the first couple days of painting, but it was going to be several thousand dollars. With all that we (Joe) had gotten done, it wasn't going to cost too much to have them come in and just finish everything. Best decision ever! Take it from me..... if you ever want to paint your entire house, including ceilings, trim, baseboards, and doors....HIRE SOMEONE TO DO IT FOR YOU!!!=) What would have taken weeks longer, only took them a few days!
We moved in at the end of October. THANK YOU SO MUCH to our friends and family that helped us move! It would have taken SOO much longer without their help! We had issues getting our carpet from Jacks Carpet (just found out they are filing bankruptcy) but luckily we did end up getting it(just about a month after they said we would)!
We are loving our home! We don't have to worry about walking lightly, or turning the tv down, vacuuming or doing laundry past 8pm, etc. We were out working on projects in the garage last weekend, and it was SO nice to have our own space to do it! Once we get some projects done, and decorating done I will post some before and after pics! Here is just a little sneak peak of the wall where I painted all the samples =) Yes, I need a big mirror or something over my little table, and no that chair in the corner is not staying there. We just had to move it for Christmas when we had to rearrange furniture to have room to set up tables for dinner. It's a rainy day today so the lighting isnt the best, but I can tell you that I LOVE the grey much better than the yellowy color that was there before!
There is still a lot we want to do to the home and it will take years to get it all done I'm sure because we aren't in a rush to get into debt again. We'll just do things as we can afford it. I'm excited to be able to decorate and do new fun projects! I had pretty much filled every wall in our apartment, so it's fun to have so many more walls to fill now!=) We love our home! Being a grown up isn't so bad after all!=)
