Month 1 of homeownership!

So it has been about a month now that we have owned the house and things are going great!  Of course there have been issues, like just now as I wrote that I hear Rob on the phone talking with Comcast telling them he isn't doing that great because our cable isn't working.  But overall we are very happy with our new home. 

A BIG thank you to Rob's mom Ann, step-dad John and Tom for helping with the transformation of our family room!  It was the first major project we took on because the wood paneling was very outdated and just make the room look very dark.  Along with the wood paneling, the built-in cabinets, baseboards and bathroom and pantry doors were painted white as well.  It was my first time painting anything besides small craft projects, so that was interesting.  I didn't mind the actual painting, I just always felt like I was messing up somehow, so that was frustrating.  But within about a week the family room was almost complete.  We even bought a beautiful area rug from Pottery Barn that matches the walls perfectly.  I'm not ready to post before and after pics yet because we still have some shelves to put back in the built-ins, but I will soon!

Another BIG thank you goes out to my mom and dad who helped us pack up and move all of our stuff two weekends ago!  Having 4 people to help instead of just 2 made things go much faster.  It was really Rob and my dad doing the heavy lifting, but my mom and I took care of the random kitchen and bedroom stuff and a lot of the unpacking.  After all of the moving was done they helped us finish up painting in the family room, take off the wallpaper and large mirror in the downstairs bathroom so we can re-do that room next, paint the inside of our pantry closet and sand down the door frame from the kitchen to the dining room. 

And thanks to my parents and Rob's Dad and Kimberly we now have a very nice new washer and dryer set that came today!  I've already done two loads and am really happy with the set we picked out.  A nice plus to this house is that the laundry is in an upstairs closet, so much more convenient that way. 

This upcoming weekend my mom, dad and Michelle are coming to visit for the Clemson vs Auburn game that is downtown at the Georgia Dome on Saturday night.  Michelle is turning 21 tomorrow (can't believe my little sister is 21 already!!) so we will definitely be celebrating her birthday this weekend as well! 

July 31st

This year July 31st will be an extra special day for us.  Not only is it our second wedding anniversary, it is also going to be the day we close on our first home!  And the crazy thing is that July 31st is only 2 days away!  We are very excited and can't wait to be done with the whole home buying process. 

It all happened pretty quick the second time around.  We made an offer and the next day we received a counter offer that we were satisfied with so accepted it and scheduled the home inspection for the following week.  The home was built in 1984 and has had the same couple living in it since (no kids), so we were hopeful that the couple took good care of the house and that the inspection wouldn't turn up anything too serious.  We were pretty surprised when the report came back and showed many similar problems (but to a lesser degree) to the last house we almost bought.  For a few days we really weren't sure how things were going to play out and didn't get our hopes up.  Throughout this whole process with this second home I really haven't let myself get excited about the house, which I think is the reason I still will not believe we are really getting this house until I sign the papers and have the keys in my hand.  But after speaking with the inspector more and negotiating with the sellers, who agreed to fix almost everything we asked for, we felt comfortable moving forward with the purchase.  We signed the final agreement paperwork just a week ago, so it is pretty amazing that we are still on schedule to close on the 31st.  Our realtor picked the 31st for our closing, I think to appeal more to the seller that we could close by the end of the month, but we really weren't in a rush to close because we have our apartment until the end of August.  I did take it as a good sign that our closing was scheduled on our anniversary though :)

There are a lot of things we want to do to the house relatively soon, like paint the master bedroom, remove some unnecessary doors on the first floor, paint the wood paneling and built-in shelves in the family room, install a light fixture/ceiling fan in family room, paint the kitchen cabinets, paint the wood trim white, paint some doors, update the appliances in the kitchen that are original to the house, buy a washer and dryer, and possibly take out a window that looks into the garage from the kitchen.  All of these projects are very doable, but still time consuming.  This is probably the reason why if I spoke to you about the 1st house we wanted to buy I sounded super excited and if I spoke with you about this house I sounded a little stressed out.  The other house was move-in ready, no appliances needed to be bought or updated, it was going to be easy.  But honestly from the beginning we have been saying that we were willing to paint, do updates as needed and put a little work in to make the house our own and better than when we purchased it and hopefully increase the value of the house.  So when I remind myself of that, I realize that this home is going to be worth it and will be the perfect home for us. 

The plan for Tuesday is to go to our closing at 3pm, give them a ton of money and sign our lives away in return for some keys, drive about 2 miles from the office to our new house, celebrate with some champagne (the champagne the Colonnade gave us on our wedding night that we still haven't drank actually), unload 2 car loads of our stuff we have already started to pack up today, and then go out to a nice dinner to celebrate our wedding and new home anniversary that night.  Finally, so close!

Update on the house search

The second time around, Rob and I are trying not to get ahead of ourselves.  This means trying not to fall in love with a house or deciding what kind of kitchen trash can we are going to need to buy until AFTER the home inspection is complete and gives us the OK to do so.  This is all easier said than done. Rob is already reading websites and blogs about how to paint kitchen cabinets, because the ones in the house we are in "like" with (for now) needs a major face lift.

But I figured I would give you all a little update on the house hunt as it stands right now.  We moved our search to another suburb of Atlanta further east and looked at about 10 more houses this past week.  One of those houses we have seen twice now and decided to put an offer on today.  We are hoping to hear back from the sellers tomorrow, but we are familiar enough with the waiting game now that we know it might take longer than that.  The house is pretty different than the last house we almost bought, but it's a good house and with a little TLC it could be a great house.  It's in a nice neighborhood and only about 3 miles from Rob's mom's house.  And it is a traditional brick front, two-story home with shutters, much more appealing than the very yellow house we almost bought.

Back to square one...

Well, the home inspection didn't go as we had hoped.  I said at the beginning of the negotiation process that I would much rather lose this house because of a bad inspection report than because we couldn't reach a monetary agreement with the sellers, because the reality is I don't want to buy a crap house.  I think I jinxed myself.  The inspector found foundation issues- mainly a cracked and sagging girder (which is what was making the dining room floor slanted), and there were moisture/water problems that affected some of the siding, roof and attic.  We started out thinking the inspection had gone OK, and that if the foundation/girder issue was fixed that we would still buy the house, but as we read the full report together last night my heart began to sink.  There were just too many problems.  We sent the report to my Dad, Rob's Dad and step-Dad, and everyone said basically the same thing, we should walk away.  So that's what we are doing. 

I know what people will say, because I would tell others the same thing if they were in my shoes...It wasn't meant to be, the right house is still out there, there are always new homes coming on the market and you will find one even better than this one, at least you found out about these problems now and you won't be paying for them down the road.  While I know all of those things are probably true, it doesn't take away the fact that we spent almost a whole month of time and energy on finding a house that we won't get, the $400 we spent on the inspection, the countless hours Rob spent on paperwork and phone calls with our realtor, lenders, etc. and the fact that we fell in love with the house and now have to say goodbye to it.  We are disappointed and discouraged and the last thing we feel like doing is starting all over again, but that is really all we can do.  So, back to house hunting and looking up homes online...can't wait!

We found the house!

The positive news I was hoping for is here for me to share! The house that we first saw almost two weeks ago, that was at the top of our list before we even saw it in person based on online pictures alone which are sometime pretty deceiving, was our favorite out of all of the houses we looked at. It even beat out the home we liked in another town that we almost put an offer on. We went and looked at the house a second time two days later and put an offer on it the following day (this was two weeks ago). The let's make a deal part of buying this home was stressing me out big time. Putting in an offer and not hearing back from the seller for 36 hours is not fun, especially when the counter offer you finally receive is much higher than you were hoping for. We began to think we weren't going to be able to reach an agreement, but 5 days after our initial offer the sellers agreed to our final counter offer and we are on our way to buying our first home!
I have to tell you that I am in love with this house. My feelings may change after the home inspection on Wednesday, but let's hope not. The things we like best about the house...

-Great location/easy access to the highway/not too far outside of the city/close to LOTS of shopping/2 miles from Roxanne's favorite dog park

-It has 4 bedrooms. Originally we said we would be ok with 3, but once you see a house with 4 you really don't want a house with 3.

-Though we would like wood floors throughout the whole first floor, this house has wood in the entryway, kitchen and eating area which is nice, and really decent carpet throughout the formal dining, family and sun rooms. A lot of the carpet in other homes looked like it needed to be replaced sooner than later, but this carpet is actually fine looking.

-Nice sized kitchen with stainless steel appliances (besides the dishwasher)...down the road replace the laminate counters with granite and it would really look nice.

-No formal living room! Most homes we saw had one and it felt like a waste of space. This house has a family room and off of that is a sun room we would use more like a second family room with a couch and smaller tv.

-No major projects before we move in! Sooner than later the pink princess room will need a new coat of paint, but that will be easy enough.

-Huge, fenced in backyard with a nice deck, and there is even an apple and a pear tree back there!

-At the end of the street the house is on is access to a nice walking/biking path that will be perfect for Rob to run on.

The only two things Rob and I both weren't fans of was the curb appeal/exterior of the house and the development the house is in. The house is a two story, two car garage, very yellow home. Yellow is not and will never be one of my favorite colors, and while I know it is just paint it still took me a minute to get past that. Eventually far down the road we would probably paint it a different color. The white painted trim around the windows and the white painted garage doors need to be touched up as well. The part of the development that the house is in is ok, and the house is on a cul-de-sac which is nice, but other parts of the development are not as nice and frankly it looks like a bunch of people just need to man up and do some yard work or even just cut their lawns. But I realize no matter where you live you are going to have neighbors that just don't take care of their home like you wish they would. Even in one of the newer, cookie-cutter, homes close together developments we looked at, where the front yards all looked pretty nice and well groomed you have to deal with it. We looked at 2 homes in that development that were actually only 2 doors down from each other, meaning they shared the same neighbor in between. We walked out onto the back deck of the first home, looked to the right and said 'whoa-what is up with that neighbor's back deck/yard?' They had so much junk and who knows what back there that it really was unpleasant to look at. A few days later we looked at the house down the street, went out back and turned left and were like 'oh my gosh, it's that neighbor again, ugh.' So we decided given all the things we love about the house that we could compromise on a yellow house and a development that wasn't as pretty as we had hoped for. If the inspection goes ok then we are scheduled to close on the house on July 25th...fingers crossed!!

House Hunting

I owe our fabulous European vacation a blog post of its own, because it was one of the best trips I have ever been on and we did and saw so much. I don't have the time right now to do that blog post justice though, so I'll leave you with a few pictures from the trip instead.



We decided right before the trip that we wanted to buy a house this summer instead of renewing our apartment lease or moving to another apartment complex. We had many conversations about it and came to the decision that now is a great time to buy with prices and mortgage rates so low, and we know we want to stay in the Atlanta area for the foreseeable future, so why not move out of this sub par apartment complex with its falling down walls, messy hallway painting jobs and questionable residents?

Within a week of getting back from our trip we started the house hunting process. It started out pretty exciting and fun- looking through pages and pages of homes online, deciding which area we wanted to live in, and imagining all of the extra space we would have compared to our current apartment. But I have to say, the process has become increasingly less exciting and fun. I think Rob and I would both call it stressful and time consuming at this point...and it has only been 2 weeks.

We have seen about 15 homes so far. Out of those 15 we have been grossed out by one to the point of not wanting to go upstairs, pulled up to and turned around without exiting the car of another because of the neighboring homes and area, seriously considered 4 of them, fell in love with 2-3 of them, were about to put an offer on one of them until we found out the elementary school was no good, and put an offer on one of them. Everyone tells you not to fall in love with a house before it is officially your home, because there are many obstacles along the way that will prevent you from getting the home, but that is easier said than done. I am a pretty emotional person I would say, at least when it comes to certain things, and so it is no surprise to Rob that I am not handling this house hunting business as well as he is. I have probably shed tears over homes 2 times over the past 2 weeks. Once was over a house that we did not even go inside of, only saw online, a house that we talked up in our minds so much for a week only to find out the day before we were going to go see it that the bank was asking for best and final offers already.

One of our biggest frustrations is that our realtor was not kidding when she said inventory is low. Sure you can find plenty of homes online in the surrounding Atlanta area to buy, but not within our budget, our preferred location and with good schools. I know you must compromise on some things, but those 3 are very hard to compromise on. We would much rather compromise on the inside of the home, maybe a house that needs new floors or updated kitchen counters, than buy a home with bad schools or is further outside the city. When we do a search it literally feels like 75% of the homes we would be interested in or want to go see are sale pending.

So for now we will just keep on keeping on, remember what everyone keeps telling us- what is meant to be will be, the right house for you will come along, and hope for the best! Hopefully my next post is sooner than later and has some positive news to share.

March/April Recap

I know it has been a very long time since I last blogged, so let me catch you up...

March was a pretty busy month for us. We flew to Boston for Chris and Jane's wedding over St. Patrick's Day weekend. We got in Friday and spent the evening with Rae, James and Jo out in Framingham, and all of us drove out to Salem, MA the next morning for the wedding. Jane was a beautiful bride, it was so much fun to see all of my Delta girls (and their men) again and it was quite the party with the wedding starting at 2pm, followed by reception, wine bar and then dancing at a club. It was also the last Delta wedding I have on my calendar, which means we will have to plan some other trip/reunion because I really got used to seeing everyone a few times a year for the past few years!

At the end of March we went to San Francisco for my college friend/roommate Jessica and Nick's wedding. It was such a fun trip, just the two of us, exploring a fun city on our own. We stayed at the Westin on Market St. which was a great hotel because of how close it was to everything. We rode the cable cars, went to Fisherman's Wharf and shared clam chowder, toured AT&T Park, got lunch at the Ferry Building, went to Coit Tower, did some shopping and enjoyed some nice meals out. Saturday we switched hotels to be closer to the wedding which was in Berkeley. It was a beautiful ceremony- everything from the bride to the vows they wrote themselves. It was the first Jewish wedding we had been to, and Rob really got into the traditional dances at the reception! Everyone had a great time and it was really nice to see Jess again since we don't get to see each other very much living on opposite coasts.

I spent one of my days off visiting Michelle at Clemson last month. It's a little less than 2 hours away, so a nice day trip. We went out to lunch and did some shopping, and I realized we hadn't seen each other since the week before Christmas. So it was great spending time with her, and Rob and I are actually planning on going up next weekend for an afternoon too.

We spent Easter at Rob's mom's house. John's daughter Sarah, her husband Keith and their two kids were in town visiting from Michigan, so it was nice seeing them again. The kids did an Easter egg hunt on Saturday and then on Sunday Ann made a delicious Easter dinner and a bunny cake for dessert.

This weekend we didn't do too much. Rob has his last week of classes this week so he has a final project and test to study for, and I am trying to get over a bad cold/cough so I've been drinking a lot of tea, taking vitamin c and cold medicine. We did take Roxanne to the dog park yesterday where there were quite a few kids running around, and luckily she did not bark at any of them! Last night we tried a new Greek cafe- Taziki's- for dinner. It is a chain, but this is the first one in Georgia, and lucky for us it is in walking distance of our apartment so we were able to enjoy the nice weather and walk to dinner. It was good food at a good price so I'm sure we'll go back.

The most exciting news I have to share is that just 3 weeks from today we will be in Spain (we=me, Rob, Mom, Dad, Lisa & Michelle)! This is the trip my Dad surprised my Mom with for their 30th anniversary and invited us on. We couldn't be more grateful or excited to be going on this trip, especially because it will be me and Rob's first time in Europe. We all fly out of Atlanta to Madrid where we will stay at a hotel for 3 days, and then we take a train to Barcelona where we will stay at an apartment we are renting for 4 days before we go on a 7 day cruise! Our cruise leaves out of Barcelona and goes to Naples where we are doing a "Flavors of Sorrento & Pompeii" excursion, Rome where Rob and I are going to see the Vatican and the Colosseum, Florence where we will go to the Cinque Terre, and then Cannes and Provence France. Though we will be spending the majority of our time off of the ship, the ship itself is pretty exciting too. It is the Norwegian Epic and it will be the newest and largest cruise ship I have ever been on, with a Blue Man Group and Cirque shows onboard. Today Rob and I went shopping for a new camera to bring on the trip, and tonight hopefully I'll get to look through the tour guide books Rob bought for Madrid and Barcelona.