my husband and i just bought our first home, at first we were really excited about not having to live in an apartment anymore and having a backyard for our son to play in.
The most adventurous part was the house hunting. It was exciting and disappointing at times because when we got to the property it was a total disappointment and sometimes when we got to the property it looked wonderful but it was just missing something,,,i could not put my finger on it but it was missing something.
After many many months of house viewing and internet searches we came upon the perfect house or so we thought.
This was a 4 bedroom colonial with formal dinnig room and a newly renovated kitchen.The house was in great shape and everything about it was great. Except for one thing, the house had a share parking lot. Which we later found out this was the main reason why the house was for sale.The house was on the market fot 130 days and had not been sold. So my husband and i decided to pass on it.
A few months later i came across another colonial and i scheduled a showing.
This property is in a great area it also has 10,795 sf. and a beautifully landscaped yard. The house has 3 bedrooms, a country style kitchen and a very large living room, a formal dining room and 2.5 bath.The outside features a covered porch and a green house(ha ha, i laughed when i saw it because i never thought about owning a green house).
When we went inside it was a disappointment in someways but the house had something, something that made me want to call it HOME. My husband felt the same way, he said this would be our home.
Inside the house has a very lovely living room, very very large.The dining room has a built-in china cabinet in great shape and the kitchen is very charming and family oriented. The kitchen has a breakfast area and the cabinets are original(from 1920's) they are also in great shape, natural wood not painted over.The second floor has a full bath and 3 bedrooms which are huge and very inviting. We automatically fell in love with the house.
The negatives were many, wallpaper in every room and water damage in the kitchen, dampness and a leak in the basement and two ceilings needed replacing. My husband and i did not have a lot of money for repairs but we decided to make an offer anyways.The agent said that the asking price was $249,900 and that an offer for $220,000 was refused. So my husband and i decided to make an offer of $225,000.
A few days later we got the news that the offer was rejected and if we wanted to make another offer.we decided to go as high as $229,000 and later that afternoon we heard back from the agent,she said "Congratulations your offer was accepted". My husband and i were so excited.
Many complications later(such as closing being delayed because it turned out that the house was an estate sale and we had to wait for court approvals etc.) It took a total of 3 months for the closing.
Finally we got into the house and we decided to do the work ourselves, so that way we could save some money. We removed all the rugs and garbage that was in the house. Then i decided to remove wallpaper and my husband started working on the electrical wiring.We paid a contractor $250 for the two ceilings that needed replacing. We had the kitchen tiled and that cost us $1200. Only on paint we spent about $500. Electrical supplies and other misc. supplies we spent about $2,500.
After 2 weeks of work we finally finished and we started moving in. My husband and i had no help, only my mom helped occasionally. After it all we were so tired yet we were still excited about living by ourselves and owning our first house.

We are finally in the house and i am still organizing things.
Its been 3 weeks since we moved in an i would not trade the peace and the tranquillity of living in your own one family house and fixing things for yourself. When you do things yourself you appreciate them more and you take better care of things because you know all the work that went into it and you just appreciate it more.
The only minus is that i had to quit my job, because my boss is ( i wont go into that right now) maybe i will post about her later:-)

Well thank you for taking time to read my XOMBYTE next time i will make it more exciting.
and remember that "there is no art in finding the minds construction in the face"