So you wanna buy a house.......

So you want to buy a house?! Congrats!! Here are some of my suggestions before you start looking.

1. Determine what you can spend.

There is no point in falling in love with something that you can't afford.

It would be like finding 'the wedding dress' and then checking the price tag. Don't do it. I recommend taking a hard look at your finances to figure out what your budget is, you won't be able to enjoy your house if you are stressed about making the payment.

2. How long will you be there?

When we starting searching we knew that we wanted a house that we could start a family in, we were thinking about 4 bedrooms but would consider 3 bedrooms also. At the time we were thinking we would live in our home about 7-10 years, now that we have so much blood sweat and tears into the place I plan on dying here.

3. Location, Location, Location

Growing up I had always pictured myself a city girl. Bright lights, busy streets, great social life.......then I remembered I don't like people. But we aren't the boon-dock types either, driving 20 minutes to buy groceries? No thank you. So we looked for a house in the middle, not down town where all the houses are two feet apart but not in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors in sight for miles. Also you will want to consider schools, even if you don't have kids now, you could sometime (yes, even if you aren't planning, condoms do break)

4. Must have list

Your must list should be realistic. I'm saying you shouldn't have big dreams about your new home, but you might want to separate your list into 'must-have' and 'would be nice to have'. A couple of our must haves where a decent sized yard and 3-4 bedrooms, which we ended up with.

Our would-be-nice-to-have was a garage and fenced in yard, neither of which we got.

5. Compromise 

Oh compromise, the story of adulthood, which is totally overrated.

If you have already started house hunting I'm sure that you have found that the dream house that you had in your head is either our of your budget or just doesn't exist. Unless you can build your own house you are most likely not going to get everything you want in a house. You just have to figure out what you are willing to compromise on, can you put up with an out dated kitchen if it means have a garage? Decisions, decisions.

Why I'm So Glad to be Moving!

1. More space
2. A yard for the dogs
3. Not as close to creepy people
4. Pretty sure the house across the street sells drugs
5. I can decorate anyway I want
6. Hopefully no more creepers watching me as I walk the dogs
7. SPACE!
8. I can have people over and actually entertain
9. No more lugging the groceries up steps
10. Being able to have a sit down meal at an actual table
11. I could put a Christmas tree in more then one room, not that i will. :)
12. Not having to squeeze in between the washer & dryer in the hallway anymore
13. Our own parking spaces, no more parallel parking
14. Having room to spread out my crafts/scrap booking
15. Room to exercise (cause i do that so often lol)
16. A kitchen that isn't the size of a closet :)
17. I can have a dishwasher!

We found a house!!

So i must have posted the right words in July about house hunting......

because, two days later....

We found a house!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can not tell you how excited I am!!!

So right now we are waiting, and waiting, and sending papers and waiting.......

the bid has gone through, the inspection and appraisal are done.....

closing date is September 23rd.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was trying to wait until some of the bigger stuff was done, I didn't want to get too excited and have it not work out.

Cause that would really, really suck. BUT it looks like everything is going to work.

The house is 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, far bigger then what we were hoping for! There is a dining room, and a small workshop area that I'm excited about for all my crafting projects :) and of course a yard for the dogs, I'm can't wait for them to be able to run around.

So I have started packing somewhat, I am trying to go through everything first so we aren't dragging any crap with us.

anyone have an advice on packing/moving?

my current plan is to clean the whole house on closing day and the move stuff the following two. I would like to be out of the apartment by the end of September to avoid another rent payment.  Does my idea sound good? and remotely possible? we really don't own that much stuff.

Any advice is greatly appreciated! :)

House Hunting

My husby and I are currently house hunting.

How long have we been house hunting?

FOREVER!

We apparently have bad luck at house hunting.

If we like it. Its gone.

As soon as we call about a house.

Its sold.

Ok, so maybe there have been a few that haven't been sold, those have been horrible or too small.

Or, they just have one tiny little itty bitty thing wrong with them and the financing won't work out.

Maybe I'm suppose to be learning how to be content.

Which is HARRRDDD!!

Somedays I feel the walls of the this small apartment closing in on me.

I honestly didn't think that finding a house would be this hard and stressful.

I know that God will work everything out, but sometimes its just hard to see it.

Sooo its back to square one (again)!