ok, this is soooo not going to become a blog all about our new house, but i do generally keep the topics on here relevant to what’s happening in my life at the moment. right now, my life is taken over by dissertation writing + the house.
and we all know the house is a much more fun topic, right?
so first, a couple details.
the timeline:
- june 4: we started looking at houses
- june 4: we first saw our house
- june 5: we went back to look at our house + one other
- june 5: we put in an offer on our house
- june 5: we receive a counter-offer
- june 6: we counter-offer back to them
- june 6: they accept our counter-offer
- june 11: home inspection goes extremely well
- june 19: we lock in our interest rate with mortgage lender
- july 16: final loan approval comes through
so, we took 3 days to house hunt + negotiate an offer on our house.
quick, huh?
it wasn’t a hard decision though. we saw about 10 houses the first day that we were looking and two really stood out to us. after we slept on it, we looked at them both again and our decision was clear. our house seems pretty perfect for us right now!
i’m not going to show a view of the front from the blog. if i know you in real life and we’re facebook friends, you can see the front on there!
i took all of these photos yesterday right after we got the keys, so what you see is what we got. we’ve got a little bit of work to do!
it’s a multi-level house, so you walk in on the “main” level with the kitchen + living area.
i’m standing across the living room from the front door in this photo. a coat closet is on the left, then stairs up to the bedrooms/office, and stairs down to the man room + basement.
[that wall is being painted next weekend]
this is taken from in the kitchen. you can see into that coat closet on the left, then there’s a little entry nook (maybe we’ll put a little table + a shelf there?) and the front door.
this is the kitchen! high on the list for this room are a microwave that is mounted above the stove, a new fridge that fits the space, and maybe a new stainless steel dishwasher so the appliances all match.
this is the rest of the kitchen area. we’ll put our kitchen table right there.
another view of the kitchen taken from the living room right in front of the patio door. you can see the door to the garage on the left, then the pantry.
this is a shot of the living room from the kitchen. there are two glass patio doors on the left that lead out to the backyard.
[jake and capone were playing & making themselves at home!]
here’s our yard! it’s fenced in, which was an important factor for us. we also like the deck and there’s some pretty simple landscaping around the perimeter.
now, we’ll go back inside and up to the top level.
the first door on the left is the guest bath.
[i apologize for the poor lighting in these pictures – i didn’t edit them at all]
if you keep going down the hall, there is a linen closet, and then the master bedroom.
it’s very red. that will also be painted next weekend.
the master has his + hers closets (which = yay!).
and then a small on-suite master bath.
it works.
on the other side of the hall from the master are the office + the guest bedroom.
office
guest bedroom
and that’s the top level!
now, we can go down two levels to the man room/entertainment space.
it’s a pretty dark room, but that’s because of the projector, so brad doesn’t want me to paint it. we inherited this sectional with it (so comfy! we’re getting it cleaned tomorrow.)
here’s another view. it has built-in shelves and a fireplace. we’re also planning to put our tv on the wall behind the projector screen. we’re not sure how much we’ll use the projector. at least right away.
and finally, the back corner has this mini-bar area with a keg refrigerator. brad is very excited about this space! 
there is also a half bath on this level. i didn’t snap any photos yesterday, but here’s one from our house hunt.
this red paint will stay for a while.
so that is all of the finished part of the house. if we go down one more level from the man room, we have our basement.
there’s not much to see there except lots of shelves for storage, our water softener, washer + dryer, sump-pump, furnace, etc.
and that’s it!
i’ll definitely keep you updated as we make progress on making it our own & decorating it. our apartment lease doesn’t end until the end of august, so we’re not moving for a couple of weeks. instead, we’ll get all of the projects that we want to do right away done before we’re living there!
speaking of projects, here are the short-term things we’re planning to do before we move:
- paint accent wall on main level
- paint master bedroom
- paint guest bath
- paint office
- touch up white paint throughout the house (lots of scratches + marks)
- have carpets shampooed and couch cleaned
here are some more short-term changes i’d like to accomplish within a year or two:
- replace or paint gold door handles/hinges/etc. (the top level has gold everywhere –not our style)
- replace refrigerator
- hang microwave above stove (need new microwave)
- replace dishwasher
and some long-term “maybe i’m dreaming” projects:
- tear down half wall on main floor to make it more open (not sure how much, if any, of that accent wall is weight-bearing)
- replace kitchen floor + carpet on main floor with hard-wood (or another non-carpet option)
- add an island with a breakfast bar w/ seating in our new open main floor/kitchen
- tear out more carpet in front of mini bar and add tile to make a more defined bar area – add a high top table and chairs for playing cards, etc.
- remove paver patio in back yard and pour concrete for a more level patio.
and there are so many more things we’d like to do with the house that we just be little extras! but really, we’re super happy with the house and know we’ll love living there. we’re only tackling some small cosmetic things right away because everything is in really good condition and there’s not much that needs to be done!
………………….
any advice for us from experienced homeowners?
what are your favorite paint colors?
we don’t know yet what colors we’re going to paint our bedroom, office, guest bath, or accent wall! we need to decide soon. we’ll be purchasing some paint samples tomorrow.
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