Appliances

We've been researching appliances for a while now. I have actually enjoyed this part :-). After carefully considering all our options, we've decided that we'll go ahead and purchase the entire suite now. I searched tons of stores and tons of brands. We looked at the crazy expensive stuff & the super cheap stuff. We decided to choose something in the middle. We chose a stainless steel Maytag suite. I read reviews, looked at pictures & compared prices for nearly 2 weeks before deciding on these appliances. I thought we would just go in a store & pick them all out in one day. It definitely hasn't been that easy. 

I'm a bargain shopper so I've been waiting for a deal. Home Depot has 10% off Energy Star appliances right now. You can get an additional $400 off Maytag appliances (the more you buy, the more you save). On top of that, our credit card has a 5% cash back reward on home purchases through June. I shopped at Home Depot through the Chase website and I'll get an extra 3% back for that. We'll just pay this off when our statement comes in & we'll still get to collect the rewards! I also found a coupon code online! These promotions combined saved us close to $700! That means technically the dishwasher & microwave are free :-). They will be delivered Saturday. I can't wait for them to come in! Josh pretty much let me pick all the appliances out. His only requirement was that I didn't pick a fridge with the freezer on the bottom :-) I originally really wanted one of those but after doing a little research I decided against them really quickly! That's a good thing, because they're more expensive. 



This is the fridge I decided on. I really like side by sides because I think the freezers are much easier to organize.

This is the stove I chose. I love it! It's a convection oven & the baking element is hidden, so it should be a lot easier to clean!

I'll just post pics of the dishwasher and; microwave when it's all installed, they're not as exciting ;-) I think putting these in alone will improve the appearance of our kitchen a LOT. It will definitely improve the function!

Another exciting thing...we have our final walk-through tomorrow. This will be the last time we see the house before we move in! I can't believe we'll be homeowners in less than 48 hours! 

We Close in 3 Days!

These past few months of house hunting have flown by! We'll begin moving in to our new house this Friday. We are waiting on the results of the final inspection (which is scheduled for today). After that, we're all set & we just have to wait. Hopefully everything is good. If not, I'll probably panic a little, so keep your fingers crossed for us.


We already have tons of plans to make our house a home. I'll be sure to take tons of before & after pictures along the way. Here is a brief tour of the house as it is now.

 This is part of our front yard. I'm not sure how much you can tell in this picture but there is no grass. The green is all weeds. We'll be tilling up the front yard and laying sod so we can actually have some grass this summer. There's a small flower bed around the tree. It's mostly weeds too. I haven't decided exactly what I'll plant there, but I have it narrowed down to either planting Hostas (like the ones in our back yard, a few pics down), Gerbera Daisies or Dahlias.

The front of the house. We were originally planning on changing the color of the trim. It's a process I don't really want to go through with the HOA right now. We'll revisit the idea when it needs to be touched up. I don't mind the green though. 

When you walk in, the half bath is on your right...this is the only picture I have of it right now. I love this mirror and the sink, we'll probably just paint in here for now. We'll eventually change the floors though. The next door on the right is the coat closet, the garage door is on the left (I don't have pictures of all of this right now). 

If you keep moving forward, you go into the den...this will eventually be the man cave/game room. This is a pretty large room.  

Josh has also decided he would like his office to be down here. It will probably be in the corner near the glass sliding door.

 A bunny outside!

 This is what our patio currently looks like. The previous owners covered up pretty much the entire back yard with this stuff. We'll keep some of it for this summer (we'll get rid of the weeds & pressure wash the concrete pavers), but we plan on replacing it with something a little more attractive eventually. We'll also be removing about half of them so we can have some grass. 

This is the back view of the house. We'll remove all the dead shrubs. We will eventually build a deck from the second floor (off the kitchen) and fence in the back yard.

If you go up the first set of stairs, you go the kitchen & living room on the 2nd floor. I've already posted pics of the kitchen so I left those out this time. The laundry closet is also on this floor.

The living room/dining area from the kitchen. 

 The living room

 From the living room. We haven't decided if this area will be used for dining, or if we will extend the living room.

One of the many ugly fans in the house. This will be leaving this weekend! 

Next, is the 3rd floor, which has 3 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms. I just realized I don't have any pictures of the master bedroom. 

 Looking out the master bathroom window.

 These cabinets will eventually be stained darker and we will likely change the fixtures. We'll also put tile down at some point. 

 Notice the lack of shower head. This won't last long. 

We'll be replacing this ugly row of lights with something a little more appealing. I just have to decide what I want for sure. We'll also be taking the huge mirror down and replacing it with two smaller, more attractive mirrors. 

This hideous seat cover (if not the whole toilet) will be leaving soon.

 This is in the hallway area of the 3rd floor. This ugly light will also be leaving this weekend. I'm not sure what to do with that space above the linen closet. I'll eventually find something decorative to put up there. 

 This will be my craft room until we have a human baby.

 Guest bedroom (I love that it has a bay window).

 Guest bedroom again.

 I think we will eventually stain all of the railing a darker color too.

This is the ugly guest bathroom as it is now. It needs a little TLC. Don't worry...this is at the top of our to do list :-)

The House Rollercoaster

This whole house thing has been a whole mix of emotions for us. It's been super exciting, scary, stressful, fun, annoying, tiring...you name it, we've probably felt it. We put an offer in on the house I posted about a while back. We couldn't come to an agreement with the sellers so we just decided to walk away. At first I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do but I'm so glad we did now. It was a pretty annoying situation at first but now I'm so glad we didn't go for it. I'm a very emotional person and it's not always a good thing. Luckily, I'm married to a very logical man. We talked about how much faster we could reach our goals if our mortgage was a few hundred dollars lower. I decided to ignore my heart and go with my brain when Josh asked me what I wanted to do.

We went to look at houses again on Friday and we found one we love! The appliances need updating and there a few minor things we want to do but it's move in ready. There's nothing that needs to be done now. We will need to fence in the (very small) yard and we want to build a deck eventually. There's a patio already so we would have an outdoor area to begin with. Anyway...we put an offer in today! I'm over getting attached to homes. I'll be extremely happy if we end up in this house, but I'll be fine if we don't...I know we'll end up right where we're meant to be :-)

I don't want to post too many pictures now...it's part of the not getting attached to the house thing ;-) But here are a couple teasers.

I'll obviously want to make some changes in the kitchen but I really like the layout.

If you were to come visit us...this is where you would stay :-)

House Updates...No Disappointments This Time :-)

I mentioned that we've had a slight change in direction concerning the house hunt. From the beginning we've been focused on whether we wanted a town home or single family home. We've changed our mind a few times. There are things we like about each of them. We were also set on the fact that we would not pay as much for a town home as a single family. Earlier this week we saw a duplex that we both LOVE. It has the same floor plan as the single family home we liked that sold. There are a few minor differences that make me actually like it better. One of the big ones being that there is a half bath on the main floor. Anyway...we're considering putting an offer in on it! Today we're going to look at a few more to see if we have a change of heart. We don't want to rush into anything but we don't want this house to slip away like the other one. We've looked at a lot of houses now and we know what we're looking for. This house has it all :-) I didn't take any pictures. I'll post some from the listing if we end up moving forward.

We've also finally officially decided on our agent. Nice big check.

We've decided on our lender and we got pre-approved. We're all ready to make an offer :-)

House Disappointment Numero Dos

Still trying to play catch up here...

Josh and I did get a chance to look at houses before we went home for the wedding. We got to go last Wednesday, the rainiest day of the week. We still enjoyed ourselves though.

We found a house that made me forget all about favorite house #1. It didn't have the ginormous walk in pantry, but the rest of the kitchen definitely made up for it. It has a ton of cabinet space! There's even more to the left in the top picture, along with a pantry. I don't think I have enough stuff to fill them up!

The granite was amazing. I didn't take a close up picture but I absolutely loved it! Anyway, I was ready to pack my bags and move in. The yard was TINY but I kept making excused...less grass to cut, etc. haha.

As it turns out, the main road leading to this house is a traffic nightmare. I hated to let this house go because it was pretty much perfect (except the price...but there's always room for negotiation!) I know I would go insane sitting in crazy traffic trying to get to & from work every day though :-/

I'm remaining optimistic. We're meeting with a lender today to get the pre-approval process started. We have a few more documents we need to gather but he said we can just fax them to him. Hopefully this part of the home buying process will go smoothly for us. We'll be looking at more houses this week. We also have yet another possible change in direction...no, we're not leaving MD...just a slight change. I'll post with updates later :-)

First House Disappointment

First, a few updates. When we first decided to buy a house up here we were planning on buying a townhome. We've decided that it's worth a little more money to us to be able to get a single family home. A yard is important to both of us. Up here, townhomes with a decent size yard really aren't much cheaper than a single family home.

We've been to look at houses a couple times since we've been back from vacation. We had a favorite that I haven't had a chance to post about yet. It was in a great location, it had a great yard & an AMAZING pantry! The storage was wonderful. Of course there were a few nit picky things we didn't like. The only real downfalls were that there was no bathroom on the main level & the basement didn't have outside access. It was also a little over our budget but it had only been on the market for about 2 weeks. We were confident that the price would come down since the comps were a little lower.

I fell in love with the house. I pictured exactly what I was going to do with the kitchen, how we were going to arrange our furniture, everything. I had it all planned out.

I checked online every day to see if the price dropped or if anything else changed. It went under contract last week. I was SO disappointed. We don't have long at all so I was sure the house would still be available.

I kind of expected something like this to happen. I guess I just hoped it wouldn't. It's ok though. I've moved on. We just weren't meant to be in that house. We rode around yesterday & found a few houses we want to look at with our agent. We'll be going home next weekend for a wedding. Hopefully we'll get a chance to look at a house or 2 before we go home.

Russett

Josh and I had a great time looking at houses with our real estate agent this weekend. We had lunch at Chik-Fil-A in a shopping center near a neighborhood called Russett that we really like. They had a hostess who cleaned tables & got you refills. I've never been to one with a hostess! Anyway, we really like that area & we even saw some houses we liked a lot. Of course, these won't be available when we're ready to make offers. It's still a ton of fun though! Here are some of our favorites...

This was the favorite kitchen. I LOVED this townhome. The bedrooms were huge & the master suite took up the entire top floor. Of course it couldn't be perfect...the living room & dining room were tiny & the only outdoor area was a very small patio off the dining room.

This was one of my favorite bathrooms. I couldn't pick just one :-)

This is the other favorite bathroom. It's in the master bathroom of the townhome with the favorite kitchen.

We got a little lost because the GPS couldn't find one of the roads. We saw someone getting arrested! I've never seen anyone get arrested so I took a picture.

Our favorite overall house was the last one we looked at but the area wasn't our favorite. My camera died right after we walked in the door (I forgot to charge it like always).

Staying Put!

Not too long ago I mentioned a decision Josh and I made recently. We've decided that we're staying put for a while! We plan on staying here for about 7-10 years so we're planning on buying a house! We've decided to stay & buy a house for several reasons.

* Josh has a great job with great benefits
* He makes much more money here than he would in other places
* There are many other opportunities for both of us up here & he can advance quickly
* I found I job I love
* We like it here...no reason to rush out
* Throwing away rent for 7-10 years is absolutely ridiculous
* Market is down = great time to buy & it's a great area to invest in real estate
* FL is pretty much opposite of the above right now...you can get a house dirt cheap...but the jobs/opportunities just aren't there

So...we're both very excited. We actually went this weekend to look at a few models. We found one we both LOVE but the location is just not good. The commute to work could almost double depending on traffic & we have some concerns about industrial zoning nearby. Although I LOVED the house & the community...I know it's not the best decision for us. After all of the upgrades we want it would be at the VERY top of our budget...actually a little over. Anyway...at the time we were really excited about it & we were seriously considering it. Then we had to drive home from it. Josh's job is on the way so we saw how long it would take without traffic. Definitely not cool with it. So here are a few pictures...
Sitting area in the master. I would personally prefer to donate a little space from here to each of the other 2 bedrooms...but it's cute. :-)

The master looking into the master bath. We didn't take a picture of the master bath but it was pretty much amazing!

Kitchen...the sun room is to the left, living room to the right & the dining area is where Josh was standing when he took the pic. We would have chosen darker cabinets & granite. The only thing I would change is the amount of counter space...I wish there was just a little bit more.

In the coming weeks we'll be meeting with a lender to get pre-approved for a loan & meeting with our real estate agent to view some resales. I'll definitely keep you posted on our progress :-)

Sunday after church we were riding around checking out different areas. We saw a sign for an open house so we followed it. As soon as we saw the house we knew it was well beyond our price range but we went in just for fun. OMG...it was AMAZING. Basically the kitchen & bathroom did it for me. Here it is. The pictures really don't do it justice. There's not even a picture of the pantry, which is about the size of my kitchen & dining room combined. One of the common areas is a finished basement that we never found. Clearly it's like double our budget & we definitely don't need a house this big. You could literally fit over 8 of our apartments in this house! It's insane. The master was actually too big.But it's actually a good price for a house this size & I loved the location. It's kind of in the country part of MD. We saw so many horses...it kind of felt like home :-) I wouldn't even know what to do with all this space. Anyway, back to reality.