I realize I have not posted much about our new house.  I tend to keep quiet about things when we are in the stressful middle of them, and I have just not gone back to the subject after moving in.  So I have a few posts planned to tell you about this little cottage of ours.  This post just gives a bit of background. 

Dude and I loved this house the first time we saw it.  We were driving around looking for houses to add to our must-see list.  This one made it to the list, but at the time we were looking in a lower price range (I had fantasies that we could live in a decent house for 50-60K -- wouldn’t it be nice to have such a small house payment! ha-ha-ha). 

After 3 months of looking with no luck, I added it back to the list (now were were looking at homes in that price range).  I learned that most of the homes in the 50-60K range needed another 50K of work done to them (not really a savings). 

I had done so much work and research looking for houses, requesting paperwork, re-working numbers and payments -- cleaning up old items on credit report.  By January we were exhausted -- tired of looking.  Nothing was right for us.  Dude wanted us to just go ahead and make an offer on this tiny house on 5 acres (great land) -- but the house had NO CLOSETS AT ALL.  The master bedroom was like a side porch or something -- awful. 

Our goal in buying a home was to save money.  We were paying too much in rent for a really large, really in-efficient home.  Our utility bills were outrageous and seemed to be getting worse every month ($500 in the summer, $400 in winter, $250 in between!).  The landlord was unwilling to replace the ancient system, so we began looking for a home of our own.  We wanted to take advantage of the buyer’s market and low interest rates, and we wanted to put ourselves in a better financial position, where we were not dumping most of our money into a bad rental.  We were looking at homes anywhere from 1300 sq ft to 1700 sq ft.  We wanted smaller, cozier, more efficient. 

I think it was New Year’s Eve that we made a last ditch effort before giving up for a while.  I sent our real estate agent a list of homes we had been interested in at one time, but had ruled out for one reason or another.  This house was on that list (because of the price). 

This was the second house we looked at that day.  We drove up, and Dude said: “Oh yeah.  We loved this house.”  It was like we had forgotten all about it. 

We walked through the front door and we knew.  This was our house.  It was just a feeling.  The house felt cozy, and we loved the rounded doorways, the wood floors, the glass doorknobs..  As we walked through we both kept saying to our agent: “this is it..this is THE house.” It is a little over 1600 sq ft (not too small and not too big).  It had two full bathrooms! (and we had looked at so many that only had one).  We loved everything about it (at the time). 

We closed at the end of February and the house was FINALLY ours (but we couldn’t move in for 2 weeks).

Fast-forward to March when we actually get to move in.  Lots of drama in between, but it finally happened.  The house did fulfill its purpose of saving us money ($300 per month just in the payment alone -- not to mention the huge utility bills we were paying in that inefficient 2500 sq ft home). We slashed those in half (and this summer is way hotter than last).  We negotiated a price that was in our mid-range, and we only had to bring $52.00 to the closing table (thanks to a local county grant for first-time home buyers). 

By the time we moved into our house, we were even more exhausted than before.  We were right in the middle of a really busy time of year for work and school, had some family drama with one child (who promptly moved out), and we had also been trying to get pregnant. 

Just 2 weeks after moving in, we found out we were pregnant (yay! and yikes!).  So all that to say that we moved in, and I settled into the bedroom pretty quickly.  Dude went back to teaching full time and being a grad student full time.  Not much got done around here as far as organizing or making things cozy and comfy. 

After being confined to the house for a (long) while, I discovered that I loathed the salmon / desert-y color of the walls.  The kitchen was all salmon..the dining room -- all salmon...the bathroom half salmon.  I also discovered I hated the color of my bedroom (dark green almost to the top then a strip of light green).  The house felt dark and oppressive to me. 

So we set out (starting on Mother’s Day) to change some things and make it feel brighter and cozier around here.  We have had help along the way, and because of that, we have made real progress this summer

I want to share a few posts about the improvements happening around here.  They are all small adjustments really -- but they have made a big difference to the feel of our home. 

This post only has pictures of the outside of our home (the most unimproved area).  The outside needs a paint job (desperately), but that probably won’t happen until next spring.  Our yard is suffering  (like everyones I assume) from the heat, and it looks terrible as well, but you can get an idea of the style of the home from having a look at the outside.  We are considering painting the brick (not sure yet) -- and we really don’t know what colors would look good for the trim (we are not going to go with the fluorescent orange though).  If you have any ideas -- please share :)

front view (above)

front porch (above)

side yard (above)

back patio (above)

We also have a fenced in backyard, but it is in such bad shape right now, I am too embarrassed to show it. The title picture is our front door (I love the color of the door -- not loving the color of the trim).

Stay tuned for a post about the kitchen!

All the best - Sadge