Finally. But if you're on Facebook, this is old news. :)
So...we have a new house. As of today we haven't moved in but we've already been doing several updates inside. For photos of the place as it was the day we bought it, visit this album.
Not that I have any right to complain at all - we've always had a place to stay, a nice one at that. We're warm. We're fed. We have clothes. SO many blessings. But it's still been hard to feel like we were in unknown transition stage for so long. We moved here between June 30 & July 3 and have been looking for a house since then, but were in transition as of December 2007 when we decided we were coming back to Grand Rapids from New Mexico. From December '07 till the end of June at least we were more or less living life "as usual" in New Mexico. We were packing, doing house repairs/improvements, had our house on the market and open for showings, I was pregnant & had Anson brand new, but we had the same work & friends & church family that we were used to.
Even coming here in July was fine - it was warm & relaxing & exciting and felt like a long vacation. By August we were restless and starting to get a little stressed out.
Soon enough Adam got a job and we started to develop some routines, but all the while we're living in this huge, beautiful old place that's not ours. For a while it was really fun & exciting to brag about "our" huge, lovely place, but it got a little tiresome after a while since it isn't/wasn't ours and couldn't be. We have been trying to have as little impact as possible on this house while here - which is literally impossible with two kids, two cats, and...well...Adam's not gentle on things either. :)
By the beginning of November we had a new President(-elect), it was my birthday, AND we'd closed on the sale of our New Mexico house. Our prospects for feeling at home here began to brighten, and we ramped up our search for a house to buy. We got realistic about our price range, we pestered our real estate agent to show us houses way more often than we should have, I became addicted to open houses, and we felt like "home" was just barely beyond our grasp. This made it excruciating.
We came close to putting offers on a few. A couple we found out were beyond our range once we got pre-approved. We let them go. Another we really liked, but the sellers had turned off the heat and NOT the water, so a pipe froze & burst & the kitchen ceiling collapsed to the floor, taking lots of water & dirt & ceiling with it, and freezing. Bad news. We interpreted that as a sign saying "don't buy this house!" The last one we almost bought was really beautiful and in a perfect neighborhood. The price was actually well BELOW our price limit, which made it extra attractive. It had been completely redone inside, was clean & new (feeling) and we loved it. It was a little small, but we were at a point where we thought we'd just do it anyway and look again in 5 years or so.
But then Adam said, "you know, we have all these houses on the NW side that we haven't looked at but are on our list. Why don't you call Rob & go look at least one day. See what you can see and if anything compares, and if you don't like anything that one day we'll put an offer on this little SE-side one."
I said okay.
The day I went out w/ Rob to look on the NW side I told him, as he fumbled with the stiff key and old door/lock on the front porch of the first house in bitter bitter cold, "I'm only looking because Adam was more drawn to the NW side and we haven't spent much time looking at any of the ones on our list. We're 98% sure we're going to put an offer on the other one."
We only got to three that day because we spent so much time at the third house. Our house.
Fast forward.
We closed on it last Friday, the 20th. Saturday morning we started making it ours. Stay tuned for "after" pictures.
And next Saturday, barring a huge blizzard or massive rainfall, we'll move in and become the 3rd owner/occupants of the new house, and we'll live there forever, happily ever after.
Not that I have any right to complain at all - we've always had a place to stay, a nice one at that. We're warm. We're fed. We have clothes. SO many blessings. But it's still been hard to feel like we were in unknown transition stage for so long. We moved here between June 30 & July 3 and have been looking for a house since then, but were in transition as of December 2007 when we decided we were coming back to Grand Rapids from New Mexico. From December '07 till the end of June at least we were more or less living life "as usual" in New Mexico. We were packing, doing house repairs/improvements, had our house on the market and open for showings, I was pregnant & had Anson brand new, but we had the same work & friends & church family that we were used to.
Even coming here in July was fine - it was warm & relaxing & exciting and felt like a long vacation. By August we were restless and starting to get a little stressed out.
Soon enough Adam got a job and we started to develop some routines, but all the while we're living in this huge, beautiful old place that's not ours. For a while it was really fun & exciting to brag about "our" huge, lovely place, but it got a little tiresome after a while since it isn't/wasn't ours and couldn't be. We have been trying to have as little impact as possible on this house while here - which is literally impossible with two kids, two cats, and...well...Adam's not gentle on things either. :)
By the beginning of November we had a new President(-elect), it was my birthday, AND we'd closed on the sale of our New Mexico house. Our prospects for feeling at home here began to brighten, and we ramped up our search for a house to buy. We got realistic about our price range, we pestered our real estate agent to show us houses way more often than we should have, I became addicted to open houses, and we felt like "home" was just barely beyond our grasp. This made it excruciating.
We came close to putting offers on a few. A couple we found out were beyond our range once we got pre-approved. We let them go. Another we really liked, but the sellers had turned off the heat and NOT the water, so a pipe froze & burst & the kitchen ceiling collapsed to the floor, taking lots of water & dirt & ceiling with it, and freezing. Bad news. We interpreted that as a sign saying "don't buy this house!" The last one we almost bought was really beautiful and in a perfect neighborhood. The price was actually well BELOW our price limit, which made it extra attractive. It had been completely redone inside, was clean & new (feeling) and we loved it. It was a little small, but we were at a point where we thought we'd just do it anyway and look again in 5 years or so.
But then Adam said, "you know, we have all these houses on the NW side that we haven't looked at but are on our list. Why don't you call Rob & go look at least one day. See what you can see and if anything compares, and if you don't like anything that one day we'll put an offer on this little SE-side one."
I said okay.
The day I went out w/ Rob to look on the NW side I told him, as he fumbled with the stiff key and old door/lock on the front porch of the first house in bitter bitter cold, "I'm only looking because Adam was more drawn to the NW side and we haven't spent much time looking at any of the ones on our list. We're 98% sure we're going to put an offer on the other one."
We only got to three that day because we spent so much time at the third house. Our house.
Fast forward.
We closed on it last Friday, the 20th. Saturday morning we started making it ours. Stay tuned for "after" pictures.
And next Saturday, barring a huge blizzard or massive rainfall, we'll move in and become the 3rd owner/occupants of the new house, and we'll live there forever, happily ever after.
1 comment:
WEeeee! It all sounds like SO much fun! (sarcasm) Just think, as soon as you're moved in, you can help me and Andy move in to our new home (after WE go through all this...)
:)
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