Home

Well folks, we did it. My husband and I bought a house. I am so full of joy for this incredible gift from the Lord. We saved our money, waited patiently, and worked very hard to get to this point, but I still know the hand of God has been guiding us from the beginning. We did pretty good this time around as far as "trusting God" with this big life decision. I should remember this for future endeavors, because it really works better than the whole, "I'm going to do it my way and then make myself sick with worry," alternative. 

To recap from my last post, we put an offer in on a short sale in town and it was accepted. We decided to move in with my parents while we waited the 3-5 months for everything to go through the proper channels. We knew there was a chance something would fall through with the sale, but we also knew the longer we lived with my parents, the more money we would save for the next home that came along. Of course there was always the chance we would NEVER find a house, and live with my parents forever (a thought that terrified Zach), but we took a leap of faith. We packed up our tiny apartment and traded 3rd floor living for basement dwelling. My gracious parents became the live-in grandparents my daughter always dreamed of. It was a great time of bonding for my family, and I enjoyed feeling like teenager again in the house I grew up in. We seriously had a lovely 6 months there. 

On the perspective house front, the short sale fell through when the property suddenly went into foreclosure at the beginning of the year. My realtor frequently forwarded me new listings in my price range, and one day our short sale house was listed right there among the others. New listing. Price reduced. Foreclosure! My realtor called the listing agent in a panic, and he literally had no idea it wasn't his listing anymore. Funny how things work in the real estate biz. Or is it the banks? Or the government? Who knows why things happen the way they do, but suddenly our house was no longer our house after waiting 6 months for it. We had to put in a blind bid through HUD and hope and pray that if this house was meant for us, we would get it. Not too long after that our offer was accepted (truly accepted) and a contract was signed (truly signed). Anyone who has ever purchased a home knows the headache of inspections and contingencies and blah blah blah, so I won't bore you with the details ... but a month later the house was ours (truly ours!!!).

Since then our lives have been a hurricane of cleaning, fixing, and updating. My mind is now, and forever will be, flooded with paint colors, window treatments, curtain lengths, backsplash shapes, countertop materials and flooring textures. I have been to Lowe's and Home Depot more times in one month than my husband and I have been in our entire lives, combined. Okay, maybe not my husband; he used to be a contractor. But seriously, I've been there a lot. And everyone I tell this to agrees with me! They all nod their heads slowly as if I've been inducted into some hall of fame for homeownership. It's a fun crowd, I must say.

This house needed some minor repairs and a fresh coat of paint on ... everything ... but for the most part it was in good shape. The kitchen, however, needed a serious facelift. My husband was okay with repainting the cabinets and calling it a day, but the perfectionist in me knew there was much more to be done. The countertops were sagging and stained. The cabinets were falling apart and layout was not living up to its potential. We went back and forth on what to do, but in the end we decided to go for it and gut the kitchen. We got such a deal on the house that we knew any money we put into upgrades would be an investment. And why upgrade your home 10 years from now to help it sell, when you can spend that money now and ENJOY the perks of living there? In the "Love It or List It" show on HGTV, I'm always the "love it" girl. ;)

The work is nearly complete and I can confidently say we made the right decision. However, I will add that without my husband being who he is, this would never have been an option. Not even a pipe dream. There's no way we could have afforded someone else to do all this work for us. Zach is an incredible asset to my pursuit of home renovation. If you're lucky enough to have a "handy man" in the house, you know what I mean. I am in no way "handy," but I brought the design side to the project, and I think we made a great team. So let's talk business. What have we been actually doing for the last 5 weeks? Here are the highly anticipated photos to show our ongoing progress. Enjoy!

Signing the paperwork at our closing. Way to be, Zach!

The ceremonial "sold" pics.

We did the best we could with meals on the living room floor. Eliana didn't seem to mind.

Oh Ikea. We bought all our rugs and stuffed them into Karie's van.

Started work right away on Eliana's room so she would have a place to nap and play while we did the rest of the house. The black portion of the ceiling was fun to cover up. ;)

All finished. If you keep the lights dim, the pink doesn't look so Pepto-Bismol-y.

Painting the office a nice gray.

Bathroom didn't need much. Very happy we went with a curved shower curtain rod. Grayyyy everwhere!

Painting my bedroom. Thankful for my Dad's spot lights because our ceiling lights were broken. (Don't worry, Zach fixed them.)

Living room paint from blah to beautiful.

Doing yard work on the nicer days.

Look, I have plants growing! Who knew something nice was under a year's worth of leaves!

 

Here's us beginning the kitchen reno. That square thing in the back corner that looks like the chimney was, in fact, NOT the chimney. It was taking up precious countertop space, so it had to go.

 

Tearing up the many floors. The worst!

Wall's down! Time to put a new one up.

Cabinet time. Thank you Zach for your awesomeness.

Skim coating and sanding the ceiling is a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it!

Ready for countertops. So exciting!

They're here!

Finally looks like a kitchen! Now to put in the new floor. Hopefully tomorrow.

 

There's many little things left to do, and the dining room still needs to be painted, but I think we'll officially move in very soon. We've been spending a few nights a week here on days we work late, but it will be nice to get our big stuff here once the kitchen is done. I've really enjoyed choosing the finishes for this home. Maybe I'll do another post about that once things settle down. But for now, you've got the basic idea. Home = ours. Work = hard. Decisions = worth it. Life = good. Let me know what you think of our progress so far. And as always, you're welcome to stop by and see it for yourself! Thanks for all the kind wishes and happy thoughts that have been passed our way these last few weeks. We have been dreaming of a better place for Eliana to grow up in, and I couldn't be happier.

xoxo Liz