Our House

After the sale of The Bungalow and the house my husband owned when we started dating, the deal on the new property fall through due to a sticking point of repair after inspection.  It literally left us homeless. We thought it would a very temporary issue, hah, yeah right.  Ten long months of living in an extended stay hotel with the majority of our stuff in storage ensued.  I easily looked at over 150 houses, we wrote 7 offers, and I was beyond frustrated.

I was looking for a house that met our basic criteria in terms of room sizes and layout that was priced far enough under market value that I could justify the work I'd want to do before moving in.  I have to be honest, I don't think 'move in ready' will ever exist for me.  There will always be something I want to change.  Need to change to make it my own.  I mentally start remodeling and redecorating almost every building I walk into.

I looked at our current home while my husband was out of town on business.  He made the offer on the house sight unseen.  It had his big sticking points and I was confident the price was right for the work I'd want to do.  The downside? It was a short sale.

We made the offer in May.  And waited.  I continued to look at other houses.  And waited.  I bugged the bank and listing agent.  And waited.  Finally we had all the approvals we needed.  We closed on the house on August 1st of last year.

Behold the builder beige that was our house when we looked at it:

The dumpster was delivered the day of closing and we hit the ground running.

In eight short weeks we remodeled the kitchen, two of the bathrooms, installed new flooring through the entire house, new base and casing and had everything painted top to bottom (including all the stained pine woodwork that remained).  Clearly this was not a DIY project but a race to the finish to get out of the hotel!

The afters start tomorrow........