New House

I have been wanting to buy a house for quite some time but it never felt right to Ben.  He wanted to wait to buy a house until we knew where we would be for grad school; once he got in at CU and we found we would be staying here, he was all for it and gave the OK.  I was so excited and immediately started looking but then got a halting NO feeling while praying about it at the temple. Ugh- I was so upset and frustrated because I really WANTED a house.  After a couple months I restarted our search and we started working with Lisa Rice, our relator and a friend from our ward.

I looked at a lot of stuff online but nothing seemed ‘right.’  Longmont was one of the closest places that we could afford but Ben was not keen on that idea.  I liked the idea of a ‘fixer-upper’ but with Ben so busy in school we decided to get one that was a little nicer and well cared for.  We wanted a garage, nice yard and were shooting for 3 bedrooms minimum.

 I found 3 houses and scheduled some showings all in one weekend.  One of the houses was sold before we saw it, which was good because it was a MAJOR fixer upper.  On Friday, the kids and I met Lisa at a house for a walk through.  It was very modern and not really in the neighborhood I liked.  Elizabeth loved it because there was a little girls room with fun toys (she didn’t really understand that we don’t get their stuff- just the house).  Saturday I dragged Ben to the final showing.  We liked the neighborhood; clean and felt safe (there were kids outside playing).  The instant I walked into the house I loved it.  It was more my style (country/homey) and was updated.  This house had been hit bad in the flood a couple years ago and so the entire downstairs had been recently redone, as was the kitchen.  We loved the backyard and the entire feel of the cute 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house.  We left with me feeling excited and positive but Ben was not so sure. He really didn’t want to live in Longmont so we decided to look online at other cities in our price point and pray about it.

We woke up Sunday morning and decided to put an offer on the house.  Ben warned me over and over not to get my hopes up because people very rarely get the first house they see, let alone the first house they put an offer in on. By Sunday afternoon, after a lot of paperwork, our offer was in.  Sunday after dinner I got a call from our relator. “You got it!” I was in complete shock.  What?  That fast? Yep, there had been 5 offers on the house and we got it.  We were floored a overwhelmed.  Lisa then added that the owner wanted to do a fast sale so, if we could get the loan quickly, she was ready to move in 6 weeks.  Wow! We got a house in a day and are moving in 6 weeks!?

We talked to our land lord and he said we needed to give him, get this, 6 weeks’ notice! Done.  (Oh and our moving date just happened to be the week that Ben was off of school between classes- yes!!) We talked to loan people and got things situated. Then we set up another showing and took my parents to see the house.  They loved it (except the cat smell, which we hadn’t noticed the first time, yuck).  As we were in the house looking at things the owner came home.  She was so apologetic and said that she thought we had already left.  She then told us that the day of the showings she had gotten there early so she parked down the street and watched people as they went in for their walk throughs.  She said she saw a young family with little kids and prayed that they would get the house.  She literally prayed for it.  And it was us! (She didn’t know when she accepted the offer).  She raised her kids in the house and had been there 30 years and she was excited to see another family would be moving in to raise their kids.  It was such an amazing story that is reaffirmed that this house was meant to be ours (if the ease and quickness hadn’t already).

We had the inspection and everything that we said needed to be done, was done.  The appraiser came in and actually appraised it for more than we were paying (which was quite a bit more than the asking price).  Everything went smoothly and we were so excited for our new house!!

BUT THEN… 3 weeks before our move I had a cholecystectomy (or gallbladder removal surgery) and our move became more difficult. However dear friends from our ward came and helped us pack and move (because I wasn’t able to lift anything).  People brought us boxes, meals, watched the kids and were so helpful.  We had a wonderful group of men from the ward come and load everything into the truck, in the rain.  We hired Rachel and our friend Wendy to clean, so I didn’t even have to do that.  I am still overwhelmed with gratitude when I think of the help and love shown to us during the move.

We signed the papers on a Wednesday (August 17) and, after some bad jokes to lighten the mood and handing over a check of our life’s savings (gulp), we were official home owners!! We went to the house and just stood, again overwhelmed, at the amazement that it was ours!!  We were going to move that weekend and so we had a couple days to clean and paint however I was still recovering from surgery, so my parents, Ben and Erica painted everything (mostly my parents).  The house was all painted in cool autumn colors, which I love and kept a lot of but also needed to change some. The main focal wall of the entire main floor of the house was a burnt orange, the master bedroom was a dark olive green and the kids room was a medium brown.  These three rooms got changed. The orange wall was the hardest, it took a good coat of primer and then the paint (after a lot of back and forth we chose a neutral beige).  The problem is that that wall if probably 20 feet tall and part of it hangs over a balcony but they climbed the precariously placed ladder and got it done!!

It was so wonderful to move into our new house and to see our stuff in there, it was starting to feel real.  But now the hard task of unpacking was upon us and I was a little lost.  Part of the problem with not packing your own stuff is that you don’t know where anything is.  I also had no idea how I was going to fit everything in the house (even though it was 3 times as much room as we had before).  I am a bit of an organization nut and I could not figure it out, I would put stuff one place and then completely move it the next day. I would like to say that it all miraculously worked itself out but that would be a lie and shamefully I will admit that I still have unpacked boxes 4 months later.

We also quickly realized that we had NO furniture.  So with the dear help of Mom, Erica and craigslist we went to work.  We got two big new rugs and an old used one, a couple of end tables, a nice white chair and a rocker, two couches, storage shelves for the toys, an entertainment center, armoire and a china cabinet, a coffee table, a kitchen table and chairs and a washer and dryer.  It was a LOT of furniture and slightly stressful to be constantly on the prowl for new deals but it was also kind of empowering knowing that I got a nice chair for $9 and two Italian leather couches for free!

I have always loved the idea of being an awesome home decorator, DIYer and home project fixer upper but… I’m not!  I hope that after owning a home for a while that I will get the knack or courage to do those things but for now, I just can’t.  When asked what style I like… umm, I don’t know.  I can tell you what I don’t like.  When asked paint colors, fabric colors, picture arrangements, or clock sizes…  I don’t know.  I like the idea of having a nice clean classy house but I have young kids (and I will probably have young kids in the house for a long time) so my house needs to be realistically functional.  My wishy washy non-opinion frustrated those trying to help my shop (sorry Mom and Erica) but I am happy with what we finally came up with and I am trying, so hard to figure out my ‘style.’

I had a couple projects that I wanted to get done; Hang some shelves and some pictures, build and hang some coat racks and towel holders, changing some door knobs, put together shelves in the garage (Stones parent’s house warming gift), make some pillows and cover an ottoman for the living room. Ben was back in school and so he had no time to help with these projects, when he was home it was late at night and we didn’t want to wake up the kids and when he wasn’t home working with power tools, with kids, was near impossible.  After a couple frazzled “help me’s” my parents came over one evening and we got a lot of the projects done.  I then changed a door knob by myself, yes, I am proud, and took down some old wood shelves and put up an entire new shelf in the garage by myself, yes, I am very proud of that one. 

Our poor ottoman sat, unfinished, in our living room for months.  Until this last weekend when, Mat and Andi came to visit and taught us to do it.  Mat and Andi love DIY house projects and they are awesome at it.  They have recovered, invented, refurbished and perfected everything in their house and they do it on a budget.  So, after buying the stuff for it, Mat and Dad taught Ben (and me but I wasn’t really paying attention- I blame kids) how to cover the ottoman.  It wasn’t too hard and it looks great. We will probably have to redo the cover every year but now that we know what to do and how to do it, we hope that we’ll be able to do it.  So, the living room looks a little more finished (I am trying to decide if I want to paint/stain some furniture but that will have to wait, probably until the next time Mat and Andi visits).   

We bought a house! We feel so grown up and it is amazing!